Chapter 13 #2
“Was there anyone else in the car with her?”
“No. Thank God my little brother and sister were in school. She’d just dropped my brother off at school and was headed to work. It was in the morning and as simple as someone missing a stop sign. No drunk driver or anything like that. Just a stupid accident.”
Connor was kneading a napkin into a ball. “And you were here, right? At school?”
I nodded. “In class. My dad had someone from administration pull me out to be with me while he called to tell me.”
“That was good thinking,” Connor said. Logan opened his mouth to speak, but Connor continued, cutting Logan off, though I didn’t think he was aware he was doing it. “To have that kind of presence of mind with what he was going through, you know?”
I had never really thought about that. Dad had been dealing with the loss of his wife while trying to manage the best way to break the news to his three kids. I’d had a lot of admiration for the way he’d handled the past year, and now even more so.
“It’s funny how your mind can work in times like that,” Connor continued. “Or shit, any time after, even. It’s so weird what sets it off.”
I thought of my mom’s Bribury shirt and how I’d had it for over a year, but only recently had it become so important to me.
“Yeah. I had one of those last week,” Logan said. At our questioning looks, he expounded, “Something that catches you off guard. Throws you back into it all.”
“What happened? I mean, if you want to talk about it,” Connor said. He brought the chair forward, back to the floor, and reached for a new napkin to continue his fidgeting.
“I do want to talk about it,” Logan said. He was looking directly at me, and I sensed there was more to what he was saying than simple grief sharing.
Not that grief sharing was in any way simple.
“Last week, when I came home, my housemates were watching a Tom Clancy movie.”
Connor and I both just waited, knowing there was more to come. Though I knew a bit more about that night than Connor did.
“My brother and I loved those movies. All of ’em. But especially the one that was on when I walked in. The Hunt for Red October.”
“Good flick,” Connor said. I thought so too, but found I couldn’t move enough to even nod in agreement. Logan was not telling this story for Connor’s benefit. This was for me.
This was what he’d wanted to talk about when he waited for me outside the ladies’ room a half hour ago.
“Yeah. It is. We knew all the lines. Did the accents and shit. But there’s one line, when the Russian first mate, or whatever rank he actually is, dies, he says—”
“‘I would like to have seen Montana,’” Connor said along with Logan.
I liked the movie, had seen it more than once when my father would stop on it if it was on, but hadn’t remembered that line.
“J and I used that line when we did something stupid we regretted. Like in a dumb way, you know? We’d crack up over it.”
“Right,” Connor said.
“And then he actually used it when I was with him at the end. Not at the actual moment—he was too medicated then—but in the last conversation he was able to have with me. He said it. And there was no irony in it, no stupid joke. It was all there. The life he’d never get to have.
No hockey together. No wife or kids. No future. No Montana.”
“Fuck,” Connor said.
Logan nodded and swallowed hard again. He reached for his pop, but I knew he’d emptied it, so I passed him mine. He took a drink from it and passed it back. I grabbed not the paper cup, but his hand, and held on.
“And I hadn’t thought of that in a while.
There were too many other things happening after that with my parents and family, and other friends.
But when I saw that movie on the other night?
It all came rushing back and I just froze.
” He was looking at only me when he explained why he’d dropped my hand and become near catatonic while his housemates sized us up.
“It’s okay,” I said. “I get it now.” I squeezed his hand and then slid mine away, but he grabbed for it and held on.
“Do you? Do you understand? It had nothing to do with you, Megan.” His voice was scratchy and I didn’t trust myself to speak, so I only nodded. He released my hand and sighed with what felt like relief.
So did I. Relief and understanding. And pain. There was always the fucking pain lurking around in there.
“Yeah. I knew I sensed something going on with you two,” Connor said. He sat back once again. “I think sometimes grief gives you, like, a spidey sense or something.”
His words lightened the vibe a bit, and Logan cleared his throat. “Yeah? Think so?”
“Totally. I’m going to bring that up to Marlo next week. Maybe I’ll get, like, special credit or something?”
“You’re looking for extra credit for Grief Group?” I asked.
His eyes sparkled and then a grin unfurled on his mouth. He was really cute in a laid-back, “surf’s up, man” kind of way. He wrapped an arm around my shoulder and gave me a half hug. “Oh, Megan, I’m always looking for extra credit.”
He kissed the top of my head and released me. He was up from the table and gathering his trash (and ours—classy move!) before I even started moving. “Stay. Hang out. I need to get to the library and get some reading in.”
Logan and I both stayed sitting. Once he’d deposited the trash in a nearby can, he came back to the table and laid his palms on it, leaning over us. “I think Marlo would have been proud of us tonight. May have even used the word breakthrough for you, Straw.”
“Yeah, it felt good to get that out there,” Logan said, looking at me and then Connor.
“I’ll bet. Okay, I’ll see you guys next week. And may I just say that maybe we had another breakthrough at this table tonight?” He looked pointedly from Logan to me and back again.
He was gone before either Logan or I could answer, but we both knew he was right.
I don’t know if I’d call it a breakthrough, but things between Logan and me had definitely shifted.