32. The Albatross
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
the albatross
IMOGEN
TWO DAYS LATER
“What do you feel like watching?” I ask, scrolling through the horror movie section on Netflix. “Everything either sucks or we’ve seen it before.”
I’ve spent so much time with Roman that I’ve really missed our little ritual of watching a horror movie together a few times a week, but Logan is on his phone, his brow furrowed in concentration, and clearly not listening to me. I grab a piece of popcorn from the bowl, tossing it at him, and he sneers.
“Too busy texting Abi to listen to your dear sister?”
“Actually, I’m submitting a book pitch to a publisher,” he replies, digging the popcorn out of his hair and popping it straight into his mouth.
“What’s the book about?”
“Dad.”
His voice is so soft, sweetness and adoration cut right into it.
I think the reason why Logan is as successful as he is in academia is because he’s emotionally accessible. People find him warm, charming, and relatable. They empathize with him and his research because it comes from such a profoundly personal place. Even in his stiffest writing, he weaves in stories about our dad. He’s never been shy of his biases, something we argue about all the time in academia.
Are we being objective enough?
When you’re studying society and human beings, I don’t think objectivity is possible. Logan always taught me that people are experts in their own lives, and that we all live with our own unique truths and experiences.
That includes researchers.
“Oh, what about Evil Dead?” He asks, shoving his phone into his pocket.
“Original or remake?”
“Dude, remake sucks,” he laughs. “Put the original on.”
I scroll through and pull it up, hitting play and cracking open my beer as the two of us put our feet up on the coffee table. Only a few minutes in and my phone chimes in my pocket. I try to ignore it, but Logan’s clearly noticed.
“Need to get that? We can pause the movie.”
“Nah. It’s just Piper.”
It’s Roman. We’ve been texting a lot since the ranch, and things have gotten more intense. The problem is, I can’t just come out and tell my brother that I’m dating his best friend. He’d flip out.
Logan chews on his lip, fiddling with the buttons on his cardigan when my phone goes off again. This time, I reach into my pocket, angling my body away from him.
ROMAN: There’s a cute little spot called Guardian Point. Teenagers used to go there to make out in the 80s, but I was thinking we could head out there tomorrow and have a picnic under the stars. I’ll cook us up something special.
I’ve never dated a guy who was this much of a romantic.
IMOGEN: Pick me up at 6:00?
ROMAN: You got it, darlin’.
I slide my phone back into the pocket of my hoodie and sigh.
“How’s Piper?” Logan asks, his eyes still glued to the screen.
He’s been weird since I got back. It’s like he’s doing a great impression of my goofy-ass brother, but with a little bit of distance he doesn’t usually bring to the table.
“She’s fine,” I reply, digging into the bowl of popcorn.
I assumed something happened with his work, or maybe with Abi, but I have no way of really knowing.
“Had some time to catch up over the weekend?” Logan asks, a bit more of an edge creeping into his voice.
I turn to him, eyes already narrowed.
“Yeah. It was nice. Dude, what is your deal?”
“Nothing,” Logan replies. “Except that I saw Piper and Jay at the Hi-Dive on Saturday night.”
I can feel my stomach drop as I stare straight ahead at the screen, barely taking in what I’m seeing. My mind is racing, struggling to find the right thread in the braid I’ve weaved.
“Why lie to me?” Logan asks.
Shame turns to anger, my go-to defense mechanism.
“Why do you care? I’m an adult. Where I go, and what I do?—”
“Look, I get that, but you don’t have to keep things from me. What could be so bad that you feel like you have to lie about going somewhere with your friends?”
I want to tell him the truth. He’ll freak out, but if I explain it, he might understand. But I can’t. I’d risk more than just my relationship with my brother. If this whole thing is blown wide open, Roman could lose everything.
“It’s nothing,” I insist, fighting the urge to get up and run out of the house. “I just— look, I know you’re my brother but that doesn’t give you the right to know every single thing about my life.”
Logan snorts, shaking his head.
“You’re being such a fucking child.”
“And you’re trying to be dad!”
The second the words leave my lips, I feel a pang of regret.
Fucking stupid.
“That’s an asshole move and you know it,” he growls.
But he doesn’t get up and walk away. I’ve got that Flynn temper— my dad’s temper— and the tendency to blurt things out that I shouldn’t. It’s either part of my ADHD, or I’m just an asshole. Logan used to be like this too, but I guess he’s learned to control it over the years.
“I’m sorry,” I murmur, watching nervously as he grabs the remote and turns the volume down on the TV.
He shifts his body, staring at me with piercing eyes, and it takes me a few seconds before I can actually return his gaze.
“I really am sorry, Logan. I shouldn’t have?—”
“Look, Iggy. I get it, okay? And you’re right, you are an adult. It’s not my job to be your parent, but you’re also my sister. Of course I’m curious about your life.”
The two of us have always been close, save for the chunk of time after dad died where neither of us really knew how to cope. Even back during my failed teenage rebellion phase I could count on Logan to pick me up from a sketchy party or a crappy date. He’s always been there for me.
I think that’s why holding this secret back is killing me.
Logan puts his hand on my shoulder.
“We don’t get a hell of a lot of time on this earth, and capitalism?—”
“Oh, god, Logan please don’t go all Karl Marx on me while we’re having a moment,” I laugh.
“No, I’m being real! The system’s designed to keep us apart with 9-5 jobs and all the stupid busywork shit we have to do in our lives. We don’t get a lot of time to tell people that we love them, and I love you, Ig.”
“I love you too,” I whisper.
He smiles, a little sadly.
“So why did you lie to me?”
I have to come up with something, anything, but it can’t be the truth. I’m not having that conversation right now. Maybe I can sculpt a version of it though, something that’ll ease my conscience a little.
“Okay,” I sigh. “The truth is, I’m seeing someone. He’s in the kink scene– we both are.”
It’s only a lie of omission.
My brother’s eyebrows disappear into his mess of hair and he fiddles nervously with the watch on his wrist. Dad’s Rolex that he got after teaching for 20 years.
“ That’s what you felt the need to hide from me?” He asks, voice sharp like he still wants to fight.
I clear my throat, pausing for a second to craft the rest of the scenario. Whatever story I invent, I have to be able to stick with.
“I hid him because he’s really special, and this is really important to me. We spent the weekend together, went ho— we went hiking together. It all happened so fast, Logan. I just didn’t want to start telling you about him and have it all blow up in my face.”
He’s quiet for a long time and I wonder if he even believes me. Maybe the story’s not that convincing? At least not the way I’m telling it with so little detail. Should I give him more information?
Simple explanations are rarely simple for me. Piper says I overshare, and right now, I can feel the urge to add in some flavor. How tall this imaginary guy is, what he does for a living, what we ate, what we did all weekend… Besides sex, that is. My brother does not need to hear about that.
“Is that safe?” He finally asks. “You know, being away from home with a guy you don’t know?”
“I do know him,” I laugh. “I’m dating him.”
Might as well tell part of the truth, right?
“So he’s good to you?”
“Yes. Do you wanna run a background check on him?”
“No, I assume you’ve already done that,” he retorts, biting back a smile. “I’m just confused. You’re seeing someone and you seem to like them enough to be pursuing a relationship, but you didn’t want to tell me?”
“You’re doing it again,” I warn. “You’re doing dad’s thing.”
He rolls his eyes.
“Iggy, I’m not trying to be him.”
“You are, though! A little, at least. You started stepping in for him when he got sicker, and you never completely stopped.”
I really felt that shift in him. He became more protective of me, always wanting to spend more time together, even if it was just phone calls or FaceTime. Logan’s grief is an open wound that he shares with everyone around him; I could never do the same because I felt like I was burdening people. I never wanted to be treated like glass, but I didn’t realize the kind of anguish I was swallowing by not talking about it.
“Okay, fine. I didn’t tell you the truth because I was worried you’d judge me about being involved with kink and–”
“Hey, I’m not gonna judge. The other day I had to listen to Frankie talk about fisting while I was trying to eat an eclair.”
“That’s not the best dessert choice for that conversation.”
“That’s what I told him!”
His smile is warm, eyes twinkling.
“You don’t have to be ashamed of that part of your life,” he assures me.
I clear my throat, preparing myself to reveal a little bit more of the truth than I initially expected.
“It’s not just that. Things are getting serious with Henry…” The name just slips out, but I keep talking. Maybe he’ll forget. “It’s been a long time since I’ve felt this comfortable letting someone into my life and I think there’s a part of me that feels like I’m going to mess that up.”
“Mess it up how?”
Suddenly, all of these insecurities that I’ve been holding on to for years start to bubble to the surface, perfectly timed as a character in the movie lets out a blood-curdling scream. Logan reaches for the remote, shutting the TV off and forcing me to look at him. He’s got the kind of look on his face that makes you want to crack your entire heart open. It’s annoyingly effective.
“People leave relationships all the time, Logan, and I’m afraid I’ll push him away.” I sniffle and take a breath to steady myself. “I think sometimes it’s easier to be alone, but this guy broke through every single wall I put up like they were nothing.”
He doesn’t say anything, instead reaching over and grasping my wrist, giving it a light squeeze as a tear trickles down my cheek.
“I know you’re still dealing with all that grief, Iggy; it’s scary, and it’s hard, and it makes you want to isolate, but the thing that gets you through it is connecting with people. That’s what did it for me, even when it hurt. You just have to remember that all we do is grow, change, and move forward. Sometimes moving forward means moving on.”
When I sat down today, I wasn’t expecting a therapy session from Dr. Logan Flynn. He might be in the wrong line of work.
“Grief will eat you alive if you go at it alone. I know you never really opened up after what happened.”
I didn’t because life goes on. Even when your world is falling apart, and it feels like nothing will ever be the same, you still have to get up in the morning. You still have to pay your bills. You can’t tell everyone you’re not fine, even if all you want to do is scream, grabbing your own pain by the throat and begging for it to stop.
Because you can only say you’re not fine for so long before people start to leave.
“I didn’t want to…” I stare at the ceiling, trying to give myself something solid to latch onto. “I was worried that—I didn’t want to be selfish, you know? Dad made his choice, and it was the right choice with his prognosis, but even while we were holding his hand and he was slipping away, there was a part of me that wanted to scream at him to keep fighting. Then, when it was all said and done, I just felt– I don’t know… abandoned? Fuck , that’s so selfish.”
“No, it’s not,” Logan whispers. “I remember when he called and told me about the cancer, I hit the floor. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. I felt this urge to run to him and ask him for help. You know, get advice from my dad, right? That’s what you do. It didn’t matter that it was happening to him , it’s all I could think to do.”
I nod, my chin quivering as I relive my own phone call with him.
He asked me if I was sitting down.
I wasn’t. I was hunting for something on my desk, rambling aimlessly, and when he said the words, they didn’t quite register.
Glioblastoma.
Terminal.
The diagnosis sounded like it was from language I’d never heard before, and by the time the words sunk in, I was already drowning.
Terminal? No. Not my dad. Not my dad who stood 6’3” and almost 200lbs of muscle. Not my dad who battled monsters in my closet when I was a kid, and checked under my bed to make sure it was safe to sleep. He was strong, and he was smart. He could command a packed room while somehow making you feel like you were the only person in it.
Cancer wouldn’t take someone like that.
I was in denial right up until the nurse who helped him pass handed him the medication to swallow. All of my grief got tangled up in my throat and all I could choke out was, ‘I love you’ while my heart was begging him to stay. I didn’t get to say all the things I wanted to.
I sniffle as Logan pulls me in for a big hug.
“I wish I’d handled all of this better,” I confess through the tears.
“There’s no handbook for this shit. You’re doing the best you can.”
“Doesn’t feel like it,” I laugh. “I can’t even have a normal relationship. It’s just easier to keep people at arm’s length.”
It was easier.
Before I met Roman.
“Well, you can’t keep me away,” Logan replies. “I’ll annoy you forever.”