Chapter 9 Logan
LOGAN
They come home looking like they’ve been out in the cold too long.
Not the January kind that reddens cheeks and makes your hands ache.
The other kind.
The kind that settles into your bones and changes your face.
Cameron walks in first, shoulders tight, jaw clenched so hard I can see the muscle jumping in his cheek. His eyes are glassy—not from tears, not yet, but from holding them back with pure stubbornness. Like crying would mean admitting it’s real.
Pops follows, moving slower than he did this morning. Careful with his steps. Careful with his balance, his skin looking a shade paler under the hallway light.
Sloane comes in last.
If I didn’t know her, I might think she’s fine.
Ponytail perfect. Posture straight. Chin lifted. The same composed face she’s worn through a year of scans and waiting rooms.
But her eyes…
Her eyes are wrong.
Too distant. It’s as if she is staring through the walls rather than at them.
She doesn’t look at me when she passes the living room.
She doesn’t look at anyone.
“Hey,” I say quietly anyway.
No one answers.
Cameron drops his keys into the bowl by the door, seemingly angry at the sound they make. He doesn’t take his coat off. He doesn’t sit. He just paces two steps into the kitchen and back like the house suddenly has too many corners.
Pops lowers himself into the recliner with a controlled exhale, the kind of exhale that says this is hard without letting the words form.
Sloane disappears down the hall.
Her bedroom door clicks shut.
The sound is soft.
Final.
My chest tightens with the instinct to follow—to knock, to ask, to do something.
But Cameron’s pacing gets faster, and the air in the room shifts in a way that pulls me away from her door and toward him instead.
Because Cameron looks like a fuse.
And I’ve known him long enough to recognize the moment right before he blows.
He rakes a hand through his hair, then drags it down his face like he’s trying to wipe off whatever the hospital put on him.
“Cam,” I say carefully.
He stops and turns, eyes landing on Pops in the recliner first—quick, protective—then flick to me.
“What?” he snaps, then immediately softens like he hates himself for snapping. “Sorry. I just—”
His throat works, and he can’t get the rest out.
Pops’s voice is calm. Too calm. “Cameron.”
Cameron’s shoulders rise on a sharp breath. “They want comfort care,” he blurts, like if he says it fast enough it won’t hurt as much. “They’re talking about hospice.”
The words hit the room and hang there.
Comfort care. Hospice.
Translation: there’s no more plan where you win.
Pops doesn’t flinch. He rubs his temple once, slowly, like he’s pressing down on the noise in his head and the noise in the world at the same time.
“We’ll talk,” Pops says quietly.
Cameron shakes his head hard. “Not in here.”
Pops’s gaze lifts to him. Steady. “Cam—”
“I can’t,” Cameron says, voice breaking at the edges. “I can’t do this in the living room like it’s a fucking…TV show.”
He turns toward the door like running is the only thing he knows how to do with pain.
My body moves before my brain catches up.
“Cam,” I say, pushing up with my crutches, leg protesting. “Wait.”
He doesn’t stop, so I follow him out the door and down the walkway.
The sky is a washed-out winter gray, like the world can’t be bothered to commit to a mood. Then again, it fits the feeling of despair that seems to be trying to settle over all of us.
Cameron stops at the edge of the driveway and stares out at nothing.
He looks bigger out here, framed by the open air, but also…younger. Like a kid who just got told his dad isn’t invincible.
He shoves his hands into his pockets and rocks back on his heels.
“Talk to me,” I say, keeping my voice low.
Cameron’s laugh is sharp and ugly. “About what? About how they said it like it was nothing?”
I don’t answer, because he’s not really asking.
He turns his head, eyes shining now. “They said the tumor is back, way more aggressive this time. Multiple spots. They said surgery would do more harm than good. That chemo—radiation—whatever…it might buy him a little time, but it’s not gonna change the outcome.”
His voice catches on the last word.
Outcome.
As if this is a game with a scoreboard.
He swallows hard and looks away, jaw trembling.
“They said months,” he says quietly. “They said to prepare for months.”
I feel it like a blow to the ribs.
Months.
I grip my crutch tighter to keep myself steady.
Cameron drags a hand over his mouth. “And Sloane…” His voice goes rough. “Sloane just sat there like she was made of stone. Like she didn’t hear anything. Like she could outstare death.”
I can picture it too easily.
Sloane in a plastic chair, spine straight, face blank, swallowing grief like it’s poison she can metabolize if she tries hard enough.
“She asked questions,” Cameron continues. “Like—like if she could find the right combination of words, they’d give us a different answer.”
He looks at me then, eyes wet and furious.
“I hate this,” he admits, and the vulnerability in his voice is the real gut punch. “I hate that I can’t fix it.”
I swallow. “Yeah.”
Cameron exhales hard, breath fogging in front of him. “And he just…” He shakes his head. “He thanked them. Like he was comforting us.”
My throat tightens.
Because Pops would do that.
He’d keep being Pops until the last second, even if it kills him faster.
Cameron’s shoulders sag. The fight drains out of him all at once, leaving him hollow.
“I don’t know what to do,” he says quietly.
I stare at him. My best friend. The guy who’s been my brother since we first met in grade school. The guy who talks too much when he’s nervous and gets loud when he’s scared and thinks he can outrun anything if he moves fast enough.
And right now he looks stuck.
“You do what you always do,” I say, voice steady. “You show up.”
Cameron laughs once, humorlessly. “I don’t feel like showing up. I feel like driving until my gas tank’s empty.”
“I know.”
He looks at me again, eyes narrowing slightly. “How do you always—” He trails off, frustration sharpening his words. “How are you always so damn calm?”
I almost laugh. I’m not calm. I’m frozen and trying to process.
There’s a difference.
“I’m not calm,” I say softly. “I’m just…trying not to fall apart in front of him or any of you.”
Cameron’s gaze flicks toward the house.
“Yeah,” he whispers. “Me too.”
We stand there in the cold for a long moment, neither of us speaking, both of us breathing in the same grief like it’s oxygen we didn’t ask for.
Finally, Cameron scrubs his face and straightens, like he’s putting his armor back on.
“I should go,” he says, voice clipped. “I’ve got class. Lift. Whatever. I’ll come back later.”
He doesn’t look at me when he says it. Because if he does, he might not be able to leave.
I nod once. “Text me.”
Cameron jerks his chin. “Yeah.”
Then he turns and heads to his car, movements rigid, like if he stops walking he’ll shatter.
I watch him drive away.
The house behind me feels heavier than it did before.
I take a slow breath and force myself back inside.
Pops is still in the recliner when I walk in, blanket pulled higher, eyes closed like he’s resting but not really sleeping. The TV is still on low.
He opens his eyes when he hears the door.
“Cameron okay?” he asks.
The question is so Pops it almost breaks me.
I swallow. “He’s…Cameron.”
Pops hums like he understands everything that sentence contains. He rubs his temple again, slower this time.
“You want me to help you to bed?” I ask.
Pops’s mouth twitches. “You?” he teases weakly, eyes flicking to my brace. “Even after your rehab today?”
“Yeah, well.” I adjust my grip on the crutch. “I’ve got heart and a hard head on my side.”
“That you do,” he murmurs.
He pushes himself up carefully. I move in anyway, offering my arm. He takes it without comment, like we both know pride is pointless tonight.
His weight is heavier than it used to be.
His steps are careful.
When we reach his room, he pauses and looks down the hall toward Sloane’s door.
“She eat?” he asks softly.
My chest tightens. “I don’t know.”
Pops’s gaze lingers on the closed door. “She will.”
It sounds like a command.
Like he can will it into existence.
I nod because it’s all I can offer.
Pops squeezes my forearm once before patting me on the shoulder.
“Get some rest, kid,” he says.
Then he disappears into his room, the door clicking shut.
The house goes quiet again.
Not peaceful.
I’m halfway to the living room when I hear it.
Running water. The shower. Nothing out of the ordinary about that, but there’s a weird sound echoing around it.
It takes my brain a second to place it, then my stomach drops.
Sloane.
A quiet sound slips through the hallway—so small it’s almost nothing.
But it’s there.
A muffled sob swallowed by steam and tile.
My chest tightens painfully. She thinks she’s hiding. She thinks the shower covers it.
Maybe it does for everyone else.
Not for me.
Because I’m listening now.
Because Pops asked me not to disappear.
Because I can’t un-know what Cameron just told me.
I don’t move toward the bathroom door. I don’t knock. I don’t corner her.
Instead, I go to the kitchen.
My hands feel clumsy as I pull a clean glass from the cabinet. I fill it with water, watching the stream like it’s the only normal thing in the world.
The ice dispenser clatters too loud, so I don’t use it.
I just fill the glass and stare at it for a second, thinking about how this is all I can do without making it worse.
Then I walk down the hall.
The bathroom door is shut, light spilling from the crack beneath it. The sound of the shower continues, and so do her sobs, steady and relentless.
My throat burns.
I keep walking past the bathroom to Sloane’s room.
Her door is closed, but not locked. I know because I’ve known this house forever.
I hesitate, hand hovering near the knob, heart pounding.
This is stupid. Probably a little invasive.
This is the kind of thing she’ll hate.
But the sob in the shower echoes in my head, and I think of Cameron’s face outside and Pops rubbing his temple like he’s trying to press pain back into silence.
And I think of Sloane sitting in that oncology room, made of stone.
I open her door quietly, just a crack.
Her room is dim, blinds half closed, bed perfectly made as though she hasn’t allowed herself to exist in it today. The air smells faintly like her lotion—something clean and floral and controlled.
I step inside just enough to see her nightstand.
A book stacked neatly. A phone charger coiled. A water ring from a glass that used to be there.
I set the new glass down carefully, as if sound might break her.
Then I stand there for one second longer than I should, staring at the closed bathroom door down the hall, listening to the shower and the quiet grief underneath it.
I don’t say her name.
I don’t leave a note.
I just do the only thing I know how to do without making it about me.
I give her water.
Because she’ll need it when she’s done pretending she’s fine.
I slip back out, shutting her door softly behind me.
The shower keeps running.
Her crying keeps hiding in it.
And I return to the living room with my leg throbbing and my chest tight and the sick certainty that this house is changing shape around us.
We’re all trying to keep our heads above the water, but some things are just too heavy.