“It’s not that I haven’t wanted to, it’s that I haven’t been allowed to but…” his sentence trails and his blue eyes move to look at the door to the lounge. He looks back at me. “Wanna head across the street and grab some breakfast? I need to talk to you… away from here.”
“Okay.”
We make our way to the front of the fire station and out the door to Dunkin’. It’s open twenty-four hours, thankfully. We order egg sandwiches and extra-large coffees, mine iced, his hot. When we get our order, we walk toward the firehouse. The sun is starting to rise though and the sky is putting on a color show as Logan stops and sits on the lip of the raised, hip high flower beds that border the driveway. “Don’t want anyone in the fire house or in Dunkin’ to hear me so let’s sit out here while we eat.”
I nod and join him. As the puffy clouds start to glow pink and orange and I bite into my sandwich, Logan speaks again. “If you’d been here that weekend my life changed, you would have been right there with the family every step of the way. Hell, you would have probably driven me to the airport.”
I nod, and chew. “I know this. What I don’t know is why I wasn’t given the chance to do that. I would have skipped training and come home.”
“Because Declan said it wouldn’t be fair to saddle you with this lie,” Logan says, his tone tight and heavy, like the words themselves are thick with guilt. “And the family, except for Terra, said he was right. The less people who had to carry this, the better.”
I don’t know what he’s talking about but I want to know even though he’s beginning to scare the hell out of me. “Logan, I would do anything, carry any secret, for any of you.”
He doesn’t react to that or say anything for a long minute. The egg sandwich is in his left hand on his lap. The coffee beside him on the bench and he’s staring off into the horizon. I let him, because I know he’s just finding the words, not ignoring me.
“I didn’t just have some giant epiphany that weekend my friend Bryan died in a drunk driving accident,” Logan says. His voice is low, his eyes keep darting around like he’s worried someone will walk up on us in the middle of this conversation. He pauses. “You know he killed a man, right?”
“Yeah. He was over in Well Beach, drunk, and he hit a guy and they both died. And when you found out, you confessed to the family you had a drinking problem too, and you were scared you’d end up like him, and they sent you to a rehab in Florida,” This was what I was told by Finn when I finally got back from Orono.
He’s shaking his head, no, slowly. His face is so twisted with pain it makes my heart constrict and then he says. “Deck is going to kill me if I tell you what I’m about to tell you so you have to promise me that you will never utter a word about this. To anyone. For any reason. Terra says I can trust you, and I know I can, but I have to say that out loud.”
“Brother, I would never breach your trust. For any reason.”
He takes a deep breath, leaves his half eaten egg sandwich on his lap and scrubs both hands over his face. And then, he looks me right in the eye and starts talking. “I was in the car with Bryan that day. I told him we should drive down to Wells Beach, because there was a great bar there that never cut people off. I knew all the tricks back then. Which bartenders or bars didn’t check IDs, didn’t monitor your consumption, put up with drunken idiots, all of it. He agreed and we drove down there, drinking beers on the way. We played pool and I moved from beer to rum and Coke. He moved to vodka and Red Bulls, which is why I passed out and he didn’t. Apparently, this bar was cool with you getting shitfaced but not sleeping it off at one of their tables, so Bryan dragged my ass to his car, buckled me into the backseat, and decided to drive us home. I woke up in the hospital still drunk with a broken arm and some bruises and cuts. I argued with the doctor for half an hour because I didn’t believe what had happened. Then the police showed up, and I realized it wasn’t some sick joke. Bryan was dead and we’d killed someone.”
The shock of this is so deep my limbs go numb. I put down my sandwich and my coffee and fist my hands, trying to get the feeling back.Holy shitis all I can think and my expression must reflect it because Logan looks absolutely tortured as he turns away. I reach out and grab his shoulder. “You didn’t kill anyone. You weren’t even conscious.”
“My heart doesn’t care. My heart thinks I should have gone to jail since Bryan couldn’t,” Logan replies. “And I even told the Wells Beach cops that, much to my family’s horror. I begged them to arrest me as I sobbed in that hospital bed. The nurse sedated me, and the cops and my parents left my room to talk. When I woke up again, Declan was there with my parents and they explained they’d gotten me into a great facility in Florida. That they’d talked to the family of the guy who died and they’d offered a settlement to keep me out of the situation. Cops were not going to press any kind of charges because I wasn’t conscious, like you said, so I held no responsibility because I hadn’t even put myself in the car.”
“Settlement?”
“They remortgaged the restaurant, ransacked their retirement fund and gave the family two-hundred grand in medical and funeral expenses,” Logan explains. “Declan said we had no choice because if the town found out I was with Bryan they’d cancel me and the restaurant and everyone in the family. And you, if you knew.”
I can’t say he’s wrong. I know how cruel Ocean Pines can be. “I would have taken that chance.”
“That’s what Terra kept telling us, but I was in no position, mentally or physically, to fight Declan and my parents so I just let it happen,” Logan says and the guilt on his face as he meets my eye is visceral. I have never felt more empathy for someone in my life.
“I don’t know what to say.” I reply.
“It’s a lot to take in. You don’t have to say anything,” Logan replies and picks up his sandwich. He takes a bite and chews but it’s mechanical and I doubt he even tastes it. I grab my coffee and take a sip. I don’t really taste it either.
I realize his grim expressions, gruff attitude, the way he has become a bit of a hermit who does nothing but work and see River makes sense now. The way, when he used to come to visit me, he never really seemed to fully enjoy our fishing or skiing trips wasn’t because he was struggling to stay sober, it was because he was struggling with guilt. He doesn’t think he deserves to be happy.
“Actually I do have something to say,” I turn to look at him again. “I understand why this still eats at you, and why everyone thought I had to be kept in the dark, but I also think that you’ve done an incredible job at changing your life around, Logan. You save lives for a living. You’re a good dad. You work your ass off to be a better person than most, and you don’t have to keep holding onto the guilt as much as you seem to be.”
He blinks and a sad smile tugs at his mouth. “You sound like Terra.”
“I’m cool with that,” I reply and smile.
Logan exhales, hard, and picks up the rest of his sandwich again, but he just stares at it. “So can we change the subject so I can maybe eat this without wanting to throw up?”
“Aspen moved into the Five Seasons,” I say because I can’t think of anything else.
“Swanky. Abbott’s paying for that I guess?” Logan asks and looks over at me as I nod. He squints his eyes. “Anything happen while you two were roommates? Any old feelings come back?”
“Not one. We’ll never get back together,” I state firmly. “We both moved on a long time ago. In fact she was seeing someone a while ago, but I don’t know who. Do you?”
Logan shakes his head. “I haven’t seen her with anyone. If you’re not interested again, though, why do you care?”
