Chapter 26
Logan
“Hungry, guys? Food court?” Connor asked as he came up behind us from our meeting room. “I’m going to hit, like, three of the places there.” He started walking ahead of us, and Megan and I fell in line behind him. I was happy for the reprieve, trying to quickly calculate how much to tell her.
I could see the questioning and maybe even hurt (oh, shit!) on Megan’s face and knew I had to come totally clean. Just not in a food court with Connor sitting beside us, eating his way through every vendor.
“I can explain,” I said quietly to Megan as we followed our friend down the stairs toward the first floor and the food court. “Let’s just eat and then go somewhere more private.”
She looked up at me. “So there is something to explain? I’m not crazy, right? There’s something I don’t know?”
“Yes,” I said. Her look turned to something in the realm of “I knew it. Too good to be true. I’m such an idiot.
” A look I was feeling myself, but for different reasons.
I tried to ease her trepidation. “But not anything bad, or whatever you’re thinking right now.
It’s kind of, I don’t know, sweet or whatever. ”
She came to a complete halt, and I had to stop myself and turn back to her. “Sweet? Oh, I can’t wait to hear this,” she said. There was enough humor in her voice that I was hopeful she wouldn’t be too pissed when we were able to talk.
I put my hand on her shoulder and ran it down her arm to her hand, which she let me take in mine. “Bottom line, I’m crazy about you and think we’ve got something really special here.”
Her mouth (that mouth!) opened a tiny bit in a silent O, and I had to taste her. I had to. I leaned in and gave her a soft kiss, encouraged that she not only let me, but kissed back.
“I knew you two were fucking,” Connor said from behind me.
He must have turned back when we hadn’t kept up.
Megan and I broke apart, and the softness in her eyes told me that she felt the same way and that we were going to be okay.
“Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy for you guys.
Just wanna say I was on record weeks ago. ”
“We weren’t sleeping together weeks ago,” Megan said as she walked past me, and then Connor, and into the vast food court area.
“Yeah, but you were thinking about it,” Connor teased, catching up to her and throwing an arm around her shoulders. I walked a little faster to catch them. “Good for you,” he said to Megan before dropping a kiss on the top of her head and releasing her.
He turned to fist-bump me, and I just shook my head and said, “Dude,” which made him laugh and drop his hand.
“Right. First stop Pizza Hut, I think. See ya at the table.”
We all got our food and ate while Connor made good on his threat to hit several different places. His wrappers piled up, but he was never gone long enough to launch into anything deep.
“Hey, guys, mind if I join you?”
I looked up to see Megan’s roommate Chloe standing at the side of our table with a Taco Bell bag in her hand.
“Um, well, it’s not just—” Megan started, but was cut off by Connor returning from Burger King.
“Hey there, I’m Connor,” he said to Chloe as he tossed his bag of food in front of where he’d been sitting.
“Connor, Chloe. Chloe’s my suitemate,” Megan said.
“Hi, Connor. If I’m interrupting something, I can—”
“Nope. Let me get my stuff from that chair and you can sit there.” He pulled his backpack from the open seat and Chloe took it, putting her bag of food next to me and across from Connor. I watched Megan as she watched Chloe.
“So, freshman, then,” Connor said, to which Chloe nodded. “What do you think of our Bribury so far?”
Chloe launched into some answer, but my eyes were on Megan. She continued to watch Chloe like she was her mother and was waiting to see if her kid displayed good manners. Once her eyes narrowed, but then she seemed to relax and took her eyes off her roommate.
And put them on me.
“They seem engaged enough. So, about Intro to Philosophy?”
I took a glance at Connor and Chloe, and they indeed were immersed in a back-and-forth that seemed like it would go for a while. Maybe even a little flirting was going on, given the occasional giggle from Chloe and Connor’s wide grin.
I leaned closer to Megan, and she did to me. It was embarrassing enough to spill the truth to Megan; I didn’t need Chloe and Connor in on it too. Connor would probably try to fist-bump me again.
“So, yeah, nothing changes the way I feel about you. But kind of…”
“Just say it,” she said.
“Our origin story is a little different than you think it is.”
“As in that first Friday night at your house? When we got interrupted?”
“As in, that was the night I couldn’t believe I’d finally found you.”
“In, like, a metaphorical way?” she asked, confused. I didn’t blame her. It had been confusing as hell for me at the time.
Still was.
“In, like, I was sitting behind you in class when you got the call from your dad.”
Her head tipped back like she was trying to avoid a punch.
“Yeah. When I walked into my house and saw you, I couldn’t believe my luck.”
“Start at the beginning.”
I told her about it all. Seeing her. Wanting to ask her out. Not seeing her again. Trying to find her all over campus. Finding out about J’s cancer coming back shortly after. His leaving school. Having the longest freshman year ever as I waited for J’s condition to improve.
And then it didn’t.
“So, your feelings for me are all tangled up with J getting sick and leaving school? And then we meet again in a grief group? No wonder we—”
“No. I mean, not entirely. You were… The search for you was something J and I had that fall. It became kind of a game. He’d text me pics of girls he saw on campus that had hair like I’d described yours and ask me if it was you. He’d ask for updates on if I saw you in the dining halls or the dorm.”
“A game,” she said, rolling the word like she wasn’t sure how she felt about it.
“Not a game, like frivolous or anything. More like a bonding thing. And then when he started getting tired and weak, he used it, I think, as a distraction. For himself, but also for me so I couldn’t see how sick he was getting.
If I started asking him about his lack of energy on the ice, he’d bring you up, asking me what I thought your name might be, or what class you were in instead of Philosophy. Stuff like that.”
“That night at your house—it was important to you that you knew my name,” she said, her mind replaying the night when we’d gone to my room but Ches had barreled in.
“I didn’t hear, or didn’t register, your name when they called you out of class. And it drove me fucking crazy that I didn’t have it once I realized you weren’t coming back. So that was part of our thing. Where is she? What’s her name? Why didn’t she come back?”
“So, I was some idea for you. Like a talisman or something?”
I knew I was on thin ice here. And I’d need to get this right. The stakes were too high now. Now that I knew what a relationship—a real relationship—with Megan would be like—and that it was exactly what I wanted.
“The idea of you gave my dying brother something to talk about. Something to bond over. Our first words when FaceTiming weren’t about treatment or side effects or losing hair due to chemo. They were about if I’d seen you again.”
Her face softened, and the racing in my heart slowed just a little.
“I flew home when I could, but everyone was adamant that I stay here and be on the team. I felt both helpless that I couldn’t be there, and also happy I didn’t have to be there, you know?”
She nodded and reached out for my hand, which she took in hers. Chloe and Connor were leaning toward each other, her showing him something on her phone, totally oblivious to us, so I continued.
“It felt like the longest freshman year ever,” I said, trying to keep my voice under control. The emotion of J’s losing battle threatening to stop me in my tracks, but I knew I had to get this out. Make her understand.
“I get that. It was a long year for me too, not being here.”
I nodded and ran my thumb along her soft palm, loving that she instinctively curled her fingers into mine.
“So yes, that image of you, from the first few classes, was some sort of talisman to us both. And I could not fucking believe my eyes—and my luck—when I walked into my house and saw you sitting at our bar.”
“Yeah, that’s crazy when you think of it. Or maybe not. Bribury’s not that big.”
“Which is why it became such a game last year. Where is she?”
Her mind was working, and I could tell she was coming up with something, but I wasn’t sure what else there was.
“That night at dinner with your parents… Your mom’s attitude toward me seemed to change midway through. Not that she was mean or anything, it’s just that…”
Right. My mom. That part. “Yeah, she knew. She’d be in J’s room sometimes when we were talking. Especially if it was while he was at chemo or something. She got in on it too. At dinner she picked up on my clues, and tone, I guess, that you were the one. You were The Girl.”
“I’m not sure whether to be flattered or pissed,” she said softly.
“Not flattered, because it wasn’t really about you. Yeah, I was attracted to you from the start and had planned to ask you out. So be flattered about that, if you want. But what you became to us was not about you at all. Not the real Megan.”
She nodded. “So, pissed?” It was definitely a question, not a statement, for which I was grateful.
I shook my head. “No. Not that either. Because from the moment you put your hand on my chest and asked to go to my room, the phantom from freshman year disappeared and it was all you. Megan. The real Megan.”
She studied me, tilting her head to the side, as if checking for cracks in my story. But there were none. I’d laid it—myself—bare.
“Good answer,” she said, giving me a smile that was both brilliant and shy.
“Thank Christ for that,” I said, revealing just how deep I was in.
Into Megan Gaffney.