Chapter 4 Silence
FOUR
Silence
AOIFE
“Aoife, right?”
Thankfully, I turned to see a familiar face in the hallway.
Logan wasn’t answering his door. It was just my luck that I would come all this way to surprise him and he would be out of town or something.
Though, it hurt to think that he might be back in New York visiting his brothers and didn’t bother to tell me or make plans.
Considering he hadn’t done so in a little over six months, I shouldn’t be surprised.
“Yes. Hi, Miles. How are you?”
The left corner of his mouth lifted in amusement as his eyes raked up and down my body.
“Wow! You look amazing. Did Logan know you were coming today?” I shook my head in answer and watched as Miles almost mimicked the movement, only his appeared to be disappointment.
Whether that was in his friend or for me, I wasn’t sure. “He’s not here.”
“I gathered that when he didn’t answer his door.” I kept my voice light and airy despite how heavy my heart felt.
“He went to a party with Grace.” There was no hiding my response to hearing that woman’s name as my shoulders stiffened and my back snapped straighter. A slight nod from Miles let me know he must have felt the same way. “She has been invading most of his time lately.”
“What exactly does that mean?”
“I think you know. Look, I’m only guessing because neither of them have said anything to me. Grace has made it pretty clear that she wants Logan, though, and she doesn’t strike me as the type who will stop until she gets what she wants.”
My shoulders slumped with that news because it was exactly what my roommate had warned me about for weeks now, especially after that disastrous phone call when my best friend believed her lies and laid into me like I was the horrible person in the scenario.
Pity was evident in Miles’s eyes and it made me feel even worse for coming here without giving Logan a head’s up.
“Do you know where they went?” I asked. I’d come all this way, so there was really no turning back. I’d either go to that party and Logan would be happy to see me or I would see enough to know that my only option was to walk away without him and never look back.
“I do, but…” he hesitated momentarily and then sighed before he finished. “Do you really want to find him and maybe see something that will hurt you?”
“I need to know one way or another,” I admitted.
Miles nodded and tipped his head to the side. “Come on, I’ll take you over there and wait with you. If you need to haul ass out of there, we can leave. I’ll even drive you back to New York tonight, if that’s what you need.”
“Why are you being so nice to me?”
Miles put his hand on my lower back to guide me through the hall and down to the elevators.
“Believe it or not, I’ve been rooting for the two of you since I first met Logan.
He seemed so enamored with you and whenever he got back from visits, he’d be equally sad for missing you and floating on air for having spent time with you. ”
“That hasn’t happened in a long while,” I reminded him.
“I know. And for the record, the person behind those canceled visits is the same one with him tonight.”
“Do you not like her?”
I couldn’t bear to look at Miles as we walked but I could see from my peripheral vision when he shook his head. “I don’t trust her one damn bit. She has an agenda, and I don’t think it is just to make Logan her boyfriend. I think that’s only part of her plan.”
“What else could she be after?”
“So many things, Aoife. So many.”
“Is it because of who his family is?”
“Look, I have my suspicions, but I want to keep them to myself, if you don’t mind. I could be wrong.”
“But you don’t think you are,” I added. His shoulders bounced in the air once before settling back down as we got on the elevator and made our way to street level. “You don’t think I’m going to like what I see at this party, do you?”
“No, honey, I don’t, and I’m sorry as fuck to have to be the one to take you there to see shit you’ll most likely wish you could un-see.”
We moved in silence after that. Miles took me to his car, which was an older model Camaro.
It might have been black or charcoal or even a deep blue.
I couldn’t really tell because the lights over his parking space were broken and it was too dark to distinguish the difference.
As we pulled out onto Memorial Drive, I stared out toward the Charles River.
Logan’s room had a view of the river and I always told him how lucky he was to have that.
I had a view of another building where I lived, and on a good day, I could people watch into other people’s rooms if they had their windows open.
I’d much prefer the river view to unintentional voyeurism.
We drove to the opposite side of campus and down into a neighborhood near Market Street Park.
“This party was kind of far away, huh?”
“That’s why I said I’d drive you and wait to see if you needed a ride home or at least to a hotel for the night.” I nodded and we both returned to our own silent contemplation as Miles looked for a place to park.
To say I had butterflies in my stomach as we approached the house where the party was taking place was a giant understatement. It felt more like winged hippos were bouncing around inside me and they might have been wearing armor as they did it.
“Why do I feel like I’m going to throw up?” I asked the universe. I wasn’t expecting an answer, but Miles reached over and offered me what was supposed to be a reassuring side hug but felt more like the death knell of my friendship with Logan.
“I’ll be nearby the whole time,” he assured me. My heart skipped two beats because if Logan’s closest friend at MIT wasn’t willing to stray from my side while I went to look for him, then that didn’t bode well for what he thought I might see.
We walked into the party and my eyes immediately darted around the room in search of Logan.
When I finally caught sight of him across the room, my heart burst with excitement and quickly stuttered to a stop momentarily as I noticed that Grace had her arms wrapped around his neck and he was smiling down at her.
They were swaying back and forth together in a slow dance that didn’t match the fast-paced rhythm of the music pumping too-loudly through the speakers.
“Do you want to leave now?” Miles asked.
“No, I need to talk to him, no matter what.”
“Want me to go get her away from him for a minute?”
“Might be better if you get him away from her,” I started to say when that very thing happened. Logan’s name was called. Not that I could hear it, but his head snapped up and he pulled Grace’s hands down from where they rested on his shoulders, and walked toward whoever had gotten his attention.
I started to head that way and thought Miles was by my side, but when I was about to move from what appeared to be the living room into the kitchen and dining area, I was stopped when a hand punched forward into my shoulder.
I glanced down to see red fingernails and a diamond bracelet winking at me.
When I trailed the arm to the body that stepped in front of me, I wasn’t surprised to see it belonged to Grace.
I glanced behind me but Miles wasn’t there.
“What in the hell are you doing here?” Grace demanded.
My eyebrows shot damn near to my hairline. “I came to surprise my best friend with a visit and found out he was at this party tonight.”
“You’re not wanted here. In case Logan’s lack of visits hadn’t clued you in, he doesn’t care about you anymore.”
“I’ll let Logan tell me that himself.”
“Listen, bitch!” She took a step closer so that the toes of our shoes touched and I could feel her hot breath in my face as she spoke. “Logan is mine now and I don’t want you anywhere near him.”
“If he’s truly yours, then what do you have to be worried about if little ol’ me visits?”
“I know all about your little marriage pact and how you plan to seduce him into marrying you by using that ‘poor me, save me’ bullshit. It’s not going to work.
Logan knows better now and besides, he’s in love with me.
Didn’t that last phone call tell you anything?
He will take my side, no matter what I tell him.
I wonder what I should say this time.” Her eyes sparkled with evil intent as she cackled.
“How about I tell Logan how you assaulted me because you saw us dancing together?”
“I did no such thing,” I argued just as the bitch threw herself to the floor in front of me. In the process, she knocked into some woman who lost the grip she had on her drink. It spilled all over Grace who simply grinned up at me.
“That’s just perfect,” she said as she struggled to get up.
To my sheer horror, Logan came back into the room to see me standing there and then his eyes tracked to Grace on the floor in front of me.
“What the fuck have you done?” he yelled. Much to my chagrin, though not a surprise at all, his anger was clearly directed at me.
Grace was right, he didn’t even give me the benefit of the doubt or ask what had happened. He assumed the worst of me before she could even begin to poison him with her lies. I glanced right and left, but still didn’t see Miles and my heart sunk.
Had he abandoned me? Had he been in on Grace’s plan and put me right where she needed me to be to set this all into motion?
I stood there, too shocked to speak as Logan helped Grace to her feet.
She spoke to him so quietly that I couldn’t hear what she was saying, but I already knew.
She’d told me her plan after all. Logan’s eyes narrowed and his fists clenched at his sides as he turned to me.
Grace managed to produce some Oscar-worthy crocodile tears.
I watched as my best friend pulled her tight into his side, not caring that she was soaked by that drink.
“It was bad enough that you had to be a complete bitch to Grace, and she finally told me about all the other times you were mean to her during your visits here, but this is going above and beyond, Aoife. I thought you were better than this! I didn’t think you’d ever be so fucking cruel to another person, but here you are, behaving just like your dad and his fucked-up goon squad.
You know what? It’s good that he plans to marry you off to some mobster because that’s exactly the life you deserve.
Go back to New York because you’re not wanted here, certainly not by me anymore. ”
I knew in that moment that I’d never be able to piece the shards of my heart back together again.
My best friend hadn’t even bothered to ask me what happened.
He just took her word that I’d assaulted her and had apparently treated her badly on previous occasions, too.
He never even asked me about her accusations before.
Suddenly, I was the bad guy plotting to ruin his friendship and it was so easy for him to believe the worst of me while accepting the lies she whispered in his ear.
I had well and truly lost my best friend.
Never mind that I’d also lost the only way out of the situation my father planned to force me into.
Logan easily abandoned me to my fate without even asking me a single question.
I took a step back from him and then another as I lost the will to keep my tears at bay.
A moment of regret slid across Logan’s features but then hardened again as Grace started to sob loudly.
“I can’t believe you threw a drink in her face and pushed her down.
I don’t know who the hell you are anymore and I don’t fucking care to figure you out now.
” Logan turned his back on me and helped Grace into the other room without looking back.
The girl who had accidentally spilled her drink on Grace was by my side in an instant. “Oh my God! Are you okay? I can go tell him the truth.”
I shook my head so slowly, it might as well have been trying to move through molasses. “No. If he wants to believe her over a life-long friend, then I will let him.”
“But…” she tried and I shook my head harder.
“Thank you for caring enough to say something, but there’s no need. I need to find…” Before I could say his name, Miles was there with a hand on my elbow guiding me away from the girl who looked heartbroken for me.
“Sorry, I couldn’t get closer once the action started.” There was something false in what he said, but I didn’t care then.
“If you can’t take me home, I understand. I’ll get an Uber.”
“No. I’ll take you all the way back to New York. You won’t be able to get a train until tomorrow, and I don’t think you should be alone tonight.”
“Okay.” I didn’t say anything else until we were in his car and driving away from the party. “Did you leave me on purpose?”
“Not for the reasons you’re thinking, but yes, I did.”
“Okay.”
“Okay? That’s it? You don’t even want to ask why?”
“No. I don’t want to know anything else. Can we not talk? I really… I just… I can’t do this right now.”
“Whatever you need,” he agreed.
I needed tonight to have never happened.
I wished that Grace never existed. I needed my best friend to wrap his arms around me and say he didn’t mean those horrible things he said to me and that he was sorry.
None of that was ever going to happen, though.
So, the only thing I needed was to go home and figure out how to disappear on my own.