Chapter Twenty-Six
‘So, can I have two minutes?’ he drawls in some sort of fake New York accent.
I’m so accustomed to his eyes. It’s like I’ve stepped back in time, only I haven’t.
This man, who I know so intimately, now stands opposite me a year and a half later, and it’s just not what I expected. It’s nothing like I’d imagined.
He feels like a complete stranger.
It’s not the reunion I had been dreaming about at all.
‘Gracie? Two minutes to explain?’ he repeats. His voice is low and pleading. ‘You never let me, you wouldn’t reply to any of my texts. Mia told me to stop messaging you, it’s not like I didn’t try.’
Muttering now with a small shake of my jumbled-up head. ‘G-go on.’
He presses his palms together, prayer like. ‘Gracie, you do know I’m so sorry about the wedding. It wasn’t you, it was me.’
The outdoor lamps come on, throwing light across his face. Has he had Botox? I can’t see any expression on his forehead. Nothing moves.
‘You already told me that you were sorry, remember? In your original text? As I stood there in my wedding dress. It was a lovely dress, you should have seen it, took me months to make. I think you’d have approved.’ I cross one leg behind the other, stand tall now, my senses slowly returning.
‘Don’t be facetious.’ Logan closes in on my personal space. Again, I smell his familiar smoky and sensual designer aftershave. In the months after he left me, I used to sneak in and smell the tester at the counter in Brown Thomas to remind me of him. Right now, I find it overpowering.
‘Facetious?’ I’m a little taken aback.
‘I never stopped loving you, Gracie. Ever.’ Logan brings his voice down to a loud whisper.
The words I’ve been longing to hear. But I feel nothing.
I just look at him. He holds my eye. I think of all the wasted days and hours I’ve spent thinking about him, crying over him; and now I don’t know why.
It’s more than a revelation, it’s life-changing, it’s freedom.
It’s like I’ve just come out of a dark cave into the sunlight.
‘Do you really love me, though, Logan?’ Whatever way I tilt my head at him, he doesn’t quite look the way I remembered him. He’s harsher than my dreams.
‘I do.’ It’s dramatic and breathy.
‘Funny. You’re a year and a half too late with those two words,’ I tell him with a tone of strength I can hardly believe.
‘Christ, I’ve missed your humour. Americans just don’t do it for me.’ He releases an appreciative deep sigh.
‘And I just don’t know how you could have done that to me,’ I tell him.
‘Gracie, that’s all in the past, I’m here now.
We were good before all that wedding shit.
Let’s just go back to before that ever happened.
I’m just not getting the jobs in New York, I’m too fucking talented to be back off-Broadway, so I’m thinking of coming home .
. .’ He pauses to let me say something. I say nothing.
‘I’d a call-back today for a three-month run in the Abbey Theatre, and then a national and international tour.
I’ve a self-tape for a new RTé crime drama.
It’s time to put it all behind us. And I know where I want to see that little red dress.
On the floor of Old Camden Street in about an hour. ’ Logan actually licks his lips.
I step back, feeling pathetic in my revenge dress. The words I thought I’d never hear him say ring like a claxon in my ears, but it’s a warning claxon. How dare he?
I cross my arms, defiantly. ‘Did you hear a single word I said? Do you ever actually listen? I don’t know how you could have done that to me in Portofino.
It was a horrific thing to do. It was cowardly and selfish, and frankly unforgivable.
It might be in the past for you, but it will stay with me forever.
The humiliation and the pain. Even through the Botox, I can see you have no recognition or concern for what you did to me.
’ My words tumble out as people surge past us.
Then he does the worst thing he could do.
He laughs. He laughs really heartily, and I know he’s laughing at my calling out his Botox, and I know he’s laughing because he doesn’t think I mean a word of what I’ve just said. And it cuts like a knife.
Was he laughing on the plane back to New York, after he left me in floods of tears in my wedding dress?
I didn’t laugh for months. In fact, I’ve laughed more with Donal this last week than I’ve laughed in such a long time.
A vision of Donal now appears in my mind.
‘I have to go. I’m with someone tonight.’ I didn’t expect to say that. I notice that my hand reaching out for my phone is no longer shaking.
‘Yeah, I saw you’re with someone. Is he . . . It is a he, right?’ Logan stops laughing abruptly and narrows his eyes.
It’s a horrible half attempt at a vicious, mean joke. I’d forgotten how cruel he could be sometimes.
‘He’s Donal. And yes, I’m with him.’ I finally grab my phone from him.
‘I’m just slagging. It’s a joke. Gracie, look, I know what I did was fucked up.’ He tries to take my hand again but I whip it away.
‘Ain’t that the truth,’ I whisper, more to myself than to him.
‘It was my career, my career was – is – the most important thing to me. And you, well, you didn’t get it, you didn’t support it properly, you didn’t nurture me.’ He shakes his head with a goofy look on his face.
My mouth literally falls open. A huff of breath catches in my throat. I can feel the redness wash over the skin on my neck, rising up into my face. I’m sure I’m the colour of my dress. How dare he?! Suddenly I’m apoplectic.
Did he actually just say that?
‘I didn’t get it? I didn’t nurture you? Are you for real, Logan?
I basically supported you while you got your big break.
’ My arms flail all around me. ‘I put my own career aside to support yours. I sabotaged my own career to make sure you were happy and successful in yours. I worked all the hours God sent. I gave you my savings to put on your show, which I never got back, by the way! And then more of my savings so you could go to London to work – savings for my store. I’m still working out of the flat.
Don’t you dare—’ I curl my toes up so tight in my wedges to ground myself.
‘I get that bit, I do. I know you did all that. You’re so generous, Gracie. I just mean you didn’t support my world.’ He steps closer, only inches from me now, smiles at me, far too composed.
‘I don’t need you to tell me that I’m a good person, thank you, though.
And your world? What? Like making me suffer through torturous up-their-own-holes actors in Greek-tragedy plays?
Like holding hands with Julianne under the table when you thought I wouldn’t see?
’ My words are clipped, cold, my thoughts spiralling.
His eyes tell me he’s shocked at what I’ve just said, but he can’t move the rest of his face.
He’s definitely had Botox; his face is unable to express anything. That can’t be good for an actor.
He doesn’t even try to deny it. ‘I – it’s not what I mean.
You know I tried so hard to make contact with you after Portofino.
I tried to explain, my text was not how you read it.
I mean, it was a hard decision for me.’ He runs his hands through his hair like I’ve seen him do a million times when he’s scrambling.
I know he thinks it makes his cheekbones pop.
‘Oh, I’m sorry, poor Logan.’ I make two fists and turn them in front of my eyes in a boo-hoo motion.
A look of surprise on his face. ‘Don’t.’ His eyes narrow to near-closed, as though he can’t quite make me out.
‘I’m pretty sure now that you most likely had a fling with Julianne. I should have confronted you then. But I’m doing it now.’ I’m surprised at how casually I say and feel about this, as yet again, he ignores it.
‘The reason I didn’t want to marry you that day was because I panicked.
I didn’t want to be tied down to Ireland, I was afraid you wanted kids, and I couldn’t afford that .
. . And we’d never really had that conversation.
I knew you just assumed. I wanted to focus on my career, be free to go wherever my craft would take me – Broadway, I hoped.
And I got there, but I . . . I made a mistake.
With you. The biggest mistake. But you wouldn’t talk to me, allow me to explain . . .’ His voice is a loud whisper now.
It’s a stunning performance, I have to give him that as his eyes pour into mine. ‘I’m such a bitch.’ My voice drips with sarcasm. ‘But let’s be honest, you didn’t really try all that hard now, did you? I mean, you didn’t exactly kill yourself trying to see me.’
Logan lifts his left leg and leans it back against the wooden rafters.
‘Wow. Time really does change people. You are so not the Gracie I knew. I just told you, Mia warned me to stay away, so I just had to hope you would come around. Get in touch with me . . . call me, text me, but you never did. Don’t be like this.
I know I was a fool to have let you go.’ He tilts his head to one side, tries that flirty move that used to make me weak at the knees.
‘Logan?’ I go up an octave, because something’s shifting as I look at this man who dumped me on our wedding day. ‘I need to go.’
Quickly, I pull myself together. I need to get back to Donal. How rude! I’ve left him in there on his own! He doesn’t know anybody.
Donal.
Lovely Donal.
Donal’s words ring in my ears. ‘What do you love about Logan?’ In this moment, apart from the magnetic chemistry we had – used to have!
– I really do not know. Yes, I admired his ambition, his creative energy, but I am also a creative!
I’m also ambitious! I don’t need Logan to fuel me anymore. I can fuel myself!
And then it fully hits me. Like a wrecking ball to the head. It’s like the sun has broken through the dark clouds. I don’t love Logan Hunter anymore. It’s like I’ve been freed from a torture chamber. And it’s all down to Donal.
What am I thinking? Donal’s a smart, lovely, unselfish, caring, kind, empathetic, funny, intelligent, interesting man – who likes me back!
‘Don’t go yet,’ Logan pleads.
‘Time’s up,’ I say, trying to make light, but my voice carries only sincerity and pain. It goes deeper than me telling my brain what to do.
But I see Logan now for who he is, was and always will be. I’m the luckiest woman in the world.
‘Come on, Gracie. You still love me, right? Remember what we had?’ Logan cajoles, as though I’m a naughty child. That tone he used to use on me to get his own way. The ‘now-now’.
I can’t believe how clearly I can see him now. It’s over.
He throws me his lopsided grin. ‘We are meant to be together – come on, you know this.’
‘Clearly not,’ I say standing tall.
He jerks his head back, a little shocked. ‘We so are.’ He nods up and down, ever so slowly, in the same tone. ‘You know it. I know it.’
‘Our wedding album tells a very different story.’ It’s a half-joke.
‘What album?’ he asks without thinking.
‘Exactly.’ I smile, just as a drunken guy stumbles past and bumps right into me, pushing me into Logan.
Logan almost falls himself, grabs me, steadies himself on me, his arms on my shoulders.
He uses the opportunity to squeeze them as the moon slides out from behind a cloud.
‘Give me another chance, please? I love you, Gracie, I need you.’ And as those words fall from his mouth I picture Donal across the table from me at Wagamama and I react like I’d never expected.
‘No.’ I shake my head, fully sure.
If I hadn’t met Donal, only a few short weeks ago, I would have fallen back into Logan’s arms here tonight.
Only for him to tear me apart again down the line.
Logan will only ever love himself. It’s not even his fault.
He is a narcissist and only capable of loving himself.
Mia had been right all along. Young and immature, I’d been blindsided by him.
He’d been my first love. I thought he gave me confidence, but now I see that wasn’t true. I saw what I wanted to see.
‘I know you love me, too.’ Logan suddenly leans in and kisses me hard on the lips.
I pull away swiftly, but just in time to see Donal standing there with my glass of red wine in his hand.