Chapter 31 Logan
THIRTY-ONE
LOGAN
The front door didn’t slam behind him.
That’s almost worse.
It clicked shut soft as the secret we used to have, and then there’s just the hum of the fridge and the rain sliding down the window. My mom’s puttering in the kitchen, pretending not to hear what happened. She’s kind like that—knows when silence hurts too much to fill.
I stay in the entryway for a long time, staring at the space Todd just walked out of. His smell still lingers. Traces of his cologne and the smell of my shampoo he used last night. The kind of scent that sticks to the air long after someone’s gone.
He didn’t say goodbye.
Didn’t have to.
Because I saw it in his face—the panic, the guilt, the desperate edge of someone watching everything they built start to fall apart and thinking the only way to survive is to dig a trench alone.
And I get it. God, I get it.
But knowing why doesn’t make it hurt less.
I walk back to my room, every step heavier than the last. The sheets are still tangled from where he slept, where we laughed and kissed and talked about nothing for hours. Just last night, I thought maybe this was it—the kind of love that could outlast the noise.
Now, it feels like I dreamed it.
My mom knocks softly before peeking in. “Sweetheart, you want some breakfast?”
Her voice cracks around the word sweetheart. She’s trying too hard to sound normal, like there’s any version of normal left.
I shake my head. “Thanks, Mom. I’m good.”
She hesitates, eyes flicking to the bed, then to me. “He’ll come around, Logan.”
I want to believe her. I really do. But the truth sits heavy in my chest as I sink onto my bed feeling completely defeated. “I don’t think he will.”
That’s all it takes.
She crosses the room in two strides, drops down to the bed next to me and pulls me into her arms before I can blink. The kind of hug that anchors and undoes me at the same time. I fold into her without thinking, the same way I did when I was a kid and the world felt too big and unfair.
“It’s okay, baby,” she whispers, her fingers threading through my hair. “Just let it out.”
And I do.
The first tear hits her shoulder, and then it’s all of them—quiet, shaking, and impossible to stop. Every bit of fear and heartbreak I’ve been holding since the second that I realized that photo hit the internet spills out all at once.
She doesn’t say anything else. Just holds me, her heartbeat steady under my cheek, her hand rubbing slow circles against my back.
“He loves you,” she murmurs after a while. “He’s just scared.”
I nod, even though I can’t get the words out around the ache in my throat. Because I know she’s right. Todd’s scared. I am, too.
But God, it still hurts.
When she finally pulls back, she cups my face in both hands, thumbs brushing away the tears that keep coming anyway. “You’re not alone, Logan. No matter what happens, you hear me?”
I nod again, because it’s all I can manage.
And when she presses a kiss to my forehead, I close my eyes and let her hold me like the world isn’t falling apart outside of these four walls, like love is still something that can be enough to keep a person standing.
Later that night, the house has gone still. Even the walls seem to know not to make a sound.
I’m sitting with my back against the headboard, knees drawn up, phone balanced on one thigh.
The only light comes from the screen and the faint reflection of it on the rain-streaked window.
It’s colder now—the drizzle from earlier turning to freezing rain that pings against the glass in uneven bursts, a soft, brittle sound that fits too well with the way I feel inside.
Outside, the world’s turned to gray slush. Inside, it’s just me and the glow of the storm.
I scroll.
Every swipe feels like dragging my thumb through mud.
The photos everywhere now—every major sports account, gossip page, and fan forum.
It’s me and Todd under the lights at Riot, my hand curled around the back of his neck, both of us smiling like idiots into our very first public kiss.
And if I thought the photo was bad, the video it was grabbed from is worse.
After the kiss, he watches me like I’m his whole world as I throw my head back and laugh at something he said.
My gaze blurs as I continue to go through all the sites.
Underneath the photo, the comments stack like a slow avalanche.
“Knew it. Always figured he was one of those.”
“Disgusting. Ruining the sport.”
“They should both be benched before they infect the locker room.”
“Going to hell, both of them.”
“I’d make sure they never step on the ice again.”
“Gay men shouldn’t play manly sports.”
“Bet the whole team knew and just kept quiet.”
“Imagine being hit by that on the ice. No thanks.”
And mixed between them—like whispers trying to break through the noise—
“Proud of you.”
“Ignore the hate. Love is love.”
“You deserve better than their ignorance.”
The kindness is there, but it’s buried. Drowned out by the uglier noise that echoes louder because people like shouting when they can hide behind screens.
I stare at it all until the words blur together, until they stop feeling like sentences and start feeling like random letters strung together. Once, this would’ve gutted me. It used to, back when I thought every cruel thing written about me had to be true.
Now… I just feel tired.
Tired of being a headline. Tired of strangers with usernames instead of faces thinking they get to decide what kind of man I am.
If I’m feeling like this, then Todd has to be feeling worse. This is all new for him—the judgment that comes just for being yourself. As if who you love should matter to strangers who only exist behind usernames.
If it were only them, maybe it’d be easier to shrug off. But I’m pretty sure his dad didn’t react the way he’d hoped. He wouldn’t have left otherwise.
I lock the phone and let it fall beside me, screen down on the comforter. The ping of freezing rain fills the quiet, a hollow rhythm that matches the pulse behind my ribs.
The sound of my mom’s steps carry faintly down the hall, until she stops outside my closed door, the soft sound of her checking in without coming in. I imagine her pressing her palm to the wood that separates us, and I almost want to call out to her. But I don’t. She knows I need the space.
I close my eyes, press my palms against my eyes until I see stars, and whisper to the dark, “You don’t get to break me too, Todd.”
The words come out small and cracked, but they’re real.
Because maybe the world’s already decided what it thinks about us, but I’m not giving it the power to decide who I am. I just wish it didn’t cost me him to remember that.
Days pass like slow breaths I can’t quite catch over the next week and a half of our break.
Christmas comes and goes. My mom still bakes cookies, still insists we open one present at a time, still laughs too loud at the movie marathon. Tom wears the same ridiculous Santa hat he’s had for years. It’s all exactly the same—except it’s not.
Because every quiet moment in between feels shaped around the space Todd left behind.
He doesn’t call. Doesn’t text. Not even a single “I’m okay.”
Every morning, I wake up half expecting to see his name on my screen. Every night, I check again before bed, telling myself not to but doing it anyway.
The photo’s still circulating, but the noise online has started to fade. People have moved on to the next scandal. That’s how it always goes.
But I haven’t moved on. I don’t think I know how.
I keep thinking about his face in the hallway that morning—the panic in his eyes, the way he said it’s not we, it’s me, like the words hurt to get out. And maybe they did. Maybe they broke something in him, too.
I tell myself to give him time. Space. Whatever he needs. But the silence is starting to sound a lot like goodbye.
On New Year’s Eve, the house is full of warmth and light and noise, but it all feels far away. My mom and Tom are dancing in the living room, music turned up too loud, counting down the minutes before midnight. I slip upstairs, phone in hand, and sit on the edge of my bed.
The window’s fogged over from the cold. Outside, the neighborhood’s dotted with Christmas lights that never got taken down. The whole world feels like it’s holding its breath.
I open our text thread, still on Prism, just because I thought it was funny. The last message is from him, days before everything fell apart. A photo of us at practice. Me laughing. Him captioning it, stop being cute, you’re distracting.
My thumb hovers over the keyboard for a long time.
There’s nothing I can say that fixes this. Nothing big enough to cross the distance between us. So I don’t try to fix it.
I just type what’s true.
Me: I miss you.
I stare at the words for another minute before hitting send. The message bubbles out into the void, green against gray. No response.
Just silence.
Downstairs, Tom counts down from ten. I can hear laughter, the pop of champagne, fireworks somewhere down the block.
I press the phone to my chest and close my eyes, letting the sound of the world moving on fill the space where he should be.
Happy New Year.
It doesn’t feel like one.