Chapter 27
Megan
“Hey, Megan, wait up,” I heard from behind me. I stopped to see Jane and Lily walking my way.
“Going to or from class?” Lily asked when they reached me.
“From. I’m done for the day,” I said. Friday classes behind me, the weekend ahead of me.
Logan was at Princeton for two nights, and would be back in the wee hours Saturday night/Sunday morning after getting on the bus after the game.
So the weekend would be a good chance for me to catch up with the girls, study, and basically do the living things that I’d barely attended to since the first night I’d slept at Logan’s house. And I could start with Jane and Lily.
“Us too. Want to get a coffee or something?” Lily asked.
“We were going to hit the Starbucks at the Union,” Jane added.
I nodded and followed behind them. They chatted about this and that as we made our way to the Union. “Seems weird to be outside here in the day, and not trolling for you after your group,” Jane said when we passed the sidewalk where she and Stick had picked up Logan and me.
We entered the Union and headed for the Starbucks, which was in the front of the building, not in the back with the rest of the food court.
Someone knew that coffee needed to be front and center for students passing by.
We got our drinks and sat in one of the several small groupings of comfy seats.
Jane and Lily shared a loveseat while I sat in a chair facing them.
It was the same style of chair that we had for our group upstairs.
“About what you said outside, seeing the place where you picked us up. How did you know I’d be there?” I asked. It was something that I’d wondered for weeks.
“Random chance the first time. But then when you talked about where you’d been, and that it was a weekly thing, we made a point to look for you on other Wednesdays. I mean, if we were out already. We didn’t make a point to leave the apartment and start searching the streets for you or anything.”
Jane must have told Lily about our side trips, because she listened with no confusion on her face while she sipped her latte.
“We actually missed you one other time,” Jane said.
“A class a few weeks ago was in a different building because we were watching a movie. And we’ve gone to the food court here afterward a few times.”
“Just you and Logan?” Lily asked. Apparently, Jane had shared Logan’s name with Lily too. Which was fine. Even though it wasn’t what I had intended for this year, it looked like I had a boyfriend, so there was no sense playing coy about it with friends.
“And another guy from group, usually.”
Jane and Lily exchanged a glance that made me wonder if them seeing me on campus today was by chance or planned.
“What’s up?” I asked. I kept my eyes on Jane, knowing she was the most likely to tell me the truth with no bullshit. Not that Lily would lie, but she phrased things so as not to hurt anyone or ruffle feathers. Jane didn’t have that filter, or if she did, she’d abandoned it long ago.
But it was Lily who answered first. “We just wanted to check in with you. See how everything’s going since you’ve been back. Are the roommates working out? Classes? And all the time you’re spending with—”
“We want to make sure you’re not falling into something unhealthy with a hockey player because you’re both going through it right now,” Jane said, cutting to the chase.
I sat back in the chair, almost looking to my right to see Logan’s arm resting on his chair next to mine. But chair aside, I was in this conversation alone.
“It’s really sweet of you to check in,” I said. It was true. But… “But I’m doing great. Better than I’d hoped for this first semester back. And Logan is…”
Both of the girls leaned forward, but I wasn’t sure how to put my feelings for him into simple words.
Because there was nothing simple about my feelings for Logan Fields.
There was grief, of course, of which we were both in different stages.
And the fact that there was the specter of my being the mystery girl for him last year. And also that—
Wait. Yes, it was actually very simple.
“I’m in love with him,” I blurted out, shocked that the words came so easily. “I love Logan.” Yep. Easy that time too. Granted, it was spoken to two girls I trusted, but also rarely saw.
Lily broke into a smile. Jane wore more of an “I told you so” smirk. Whether the sentiment was directed at me or Lily, I couldn’t tell for sure.
“You’re sure, right? I mean, this isn’t just—what do they call it—transference, or something?” Jane asked.
“I think that’s when you fall in love with your shrink,” Lily said.
“Not far off,” Jane said.
I laughed as the two girls—so different and yet obviously so close—argued over correct psychology terms and how they might apply to Logan’s and my relationship.
“Stop. Wait. It’s not transference. Not entirely, anyway. It’s more like there was this huge thing in both of our lives. Recently losing someone we loved. And we had this thing in common.”
“It’s a little different than, say, realizing you lived in nearby neighborhoods or had something like that in common. Your ‘huge thing’ is very emotionally charged,” Jane pointed out.
“You’re not wrong. And that’s what I told Logan at first. That the situation was too complicated to be something more than a one-nighter. And yet…”
“It was also too complicated to only be a fast hookup,” Lily said, and I nodded. “So, you…?”
I shrugged. “We were just friends for a long time. But more than friends too. We shared things in group that would take other couples months, or even years, to realize about their partner.”
“But you were also sharing those things with several other people. In a group setting. And you didn’t fall in love with anybody else in the group,” Lily pointed out.
“Well, see, there was history with Logan and me, even before our first class.” At their surprised looks (it was great to see Jane actually surprised—it wasn’t an everyday occurrence, she was so shrewd), I took a deep breath and said, “How much time do you have?”
I told them about the first Friday before classes and propositioning Logan at his house.
At Jane’s look, like she was quickly going through the timeline in her head, I quickly added that our attempt had been aborted by a loud partygoer.
Some small shred of compassion for Ches had me omitting her from the story entirely.
And, even though it felt more like Logan’s story to share than mine, I relayed the fact that he’d actually been interested in me last year before I had to leave. Unbeknownst to me.
Both of those things seemed to give our relationship a bit more depth than just “we’re both really sad on Wednesdays so we started sleeping together.”
Because I knew how we felt about each other. That I loved him, and was almost certain that he was in love with me. The real me. Not the phantom girl from freshman year.
He hadn’t said the words yet, and neither had I.
But I knew Logan was mine and I was his.
“Wow. That’s… that’s…” Lily said after I’d info-dumped our backstory.
“A lot,” Jane said. “Which makes me feel even better that we’re checking in with you. This feels all pretty heavy for someone who was just going to have fun this year. Are you sure that you want to get this deep, this fast?”
I thought back to nearly two months ago when I saw Jane, Lily, and Syd after my orientation session and we’d talked about this being my mulligan year.
And that all of them had great relationships, which they wouldn’t have traded for the world, but they wished that those relationships hadn’t happened so early in their college days.
“Just like you both said, it would have been fun to have a whole freshman year of being single and out there, but I’m not going to pass up on what Logan and I have.”
“No, of course not. When it happens, it happens,” Lily said.
“I think we just wanted to make sure that it was what you wanted, more than what you needed, if that makes sense?” Jane said.
I nodded. It made perfect sense to me. “I get it. And believe me, I fought this for a long time. For a lot of reasons.” At their questioning looks, I laid out the same evidence I’d given to Logan.
“That I just wanted to have fun this year. That he and I were both raw from grief and all the emotions that came with that. That hockey players, at least here, apparently, are not looking for girlfriends in any way. That I was not looking for a boyfriend. That we’d be in vulnerable states with each other every Wednesday, and how to navigate that. A lot of reasons, actually.”
“All valid reasons not to start up something,” Jane said.
“But you did anyway,” Lily added, her smile returning.
“Have you seen Logan Fields?” I asked her, and we all burst out laughing.
“I actually have. He’s in one of my classes this semester. And I’m pretty sure one last spring.”
“He didn’t fall in love with Lily from afar and plan to ask her out,” Jane pointed out. “And we all know how gorgeous she is.”
“Stop,” Lily said, embarrassed. But it was true. Lily was a beautiful girl. Anybody in any of her classes would have noticed that.
And Ches was drop-dead gorgeous.
And yet it was me that Logan had wanted to ask out last year. Who Logan had searched the campus for when I didn’t come back to class. He had held my hand in front of his housemates, who had never even seen him have a girl stay over before.
Stay over in a house where I’d spent several nights this week, and intended to spend more. Many, many more.
Yes, Logan was in love with me too. I was sure of it.
Sure enough to be the one to say it first? Maybe.
“I don’t know whether to be deliriously happy for you, or bummed you’re in heavy relationship mode so soon into your do-over year,” Lily said.
“Go with deliriously happy,” Jane said, and I nodded my agreement.
“Here’s the thing,” I began, the words coming out of me at approximately the same time the thought was crystallizing in my head.
“You yourselves said you wouldn’t give up the guys you’re with just to have more sex, more partying, more freedom, freshman year.
So you know that when it hits, it hits.” They both nodded, and I laid out the part that suddenly hit home for me.
“And yes, Logan and I are both emotionally vulnerable right now. But the flip side of that is, we’re in that state because of losing someone.
And what that ultimately does—and group has definitely helped us all see this—is bring home the fact of how short life can be.
How quickly things can change. So when you find something good, something so great, you hang on tighter than maybe you normally would.
“I know how fragile it can all be. And I’m going to hang on to Logan Fields as long as he wants to hold on to me.”
I sat back in my seat, exhausted. It felt like Wednesday night in this same building, in these same chairs, the way my emotions were swirling around me. But it was all true, like everything we said in group was.
I looked to Jane and Lily for their reactions. Would they feel pity? Feel the need to warn me like Philly had? Something else?
Lily had tears in her eyes, but nodded encouragement. Jane—honest-to-a-fault, never-show-emotion Jane—only said, “Then hang the fuck on.”
I intended to.