Chapter 33
Logan
Megan let me into her room. I’d expected to get turned away at the front desk, but she’d said I was allowed to get on the elevators. I took that as a good sign.
Luckily, none of her suitemates were there. This was about Megan and me. She and I could deal with Chloe and the fallout from her post another time.
But when I followed her into her and Emily’s room and shut the door behind us, I could tell by her body language that this was not going to go my way.
“Was the reason you ended things this morning because of seeing Ches on that video and thinking I’d slept with her?” I asked. I needed that out of the way from the start. Because if it was something more, something else—
“Yes,” she said.
I felt relief surge through me. Okay, we could get past—
“But the reasons I gave you were true. Are still true.”
Fuck.
“Logan, it’s just too much right now.”
I could have taken solace in the “right now” part, but I didn’t.
And then I looked at her. Really looked at her.
She was wearing her mom’s shirt. The one she didn’t want to risk getting pizza stains on.
And now it was wrinkled and looked like she’d used it to wipe tears away.
Her eyes, bloodshot, confirmed that was the likely scenario.
She was defeated. I had done that to her.
We had done that to each other.
“But it was the video that made you end it. Today.”
She nodded.
I was pissed that she had thrown us away so easily. Hadn’t fought for us. Hadn’t kicked my ass if she’d thought I’d slept with someone else. I was here. I was fighting for us.
“Then you should have asked me about it. Been furious with me. Called me out. You don’t just accept that I cheated on you and quietly break up with me.”
“But I didn’t think you cheated on me. Not really, not completely, I don’t think.”
“Wait. So what did you think if you thought Ches was coming from my room?”
“I thought that I’d misread the situation between us. That we were just something light and passing to you, and not a committed relationship. That, in theory, I had no right to get upset. Even though…”
“Even though you had to be livid. I would have freaked the fuck out if I thought you’d slept with someone else,” I said, my voice growing louder, but Megan didn’t back down from it. There was a tiny spark there that I hoped might catch fire. Give her some fight. So I pushed.
“As I said, we hadn’t had any talk defining us. You were free to—”
“Oh, that’s bullshit and you know it. We’re committed.
We didn’t need to say the words. The feelings were there.
And you know that, too. And just for the record, I would have said the words much, much sooner, but you were the one who put up roadblocks in the beginning.
I was just trying to carefully drive around them. ”
“I knew the feelings were there on my end. But…”
“What? You thought I was like that with every girl? That the sex you and I have is even remotely close to what I have with other girls?” She flinched at that.
“Had with other girls,” I clarified. “Jesus, Megan, I don’t know what’s worse.
That you knew how we felt about each other and thought I’d sleep with Ches anyway, or that you didn’t even realize that I’m in love with you. ”
Her head moved back, as if she were deflecting a blow. I knew I’d landed a direct hit.
“Yes. I love you. Present tense. For all the good that does me. I can’t believe you’d think I’d sleep with Ches. Ches, of all people.”
She held her phone up, as if it was still playing that fucking video of Chloe’s. “What was I supposed to think?”
“You’re supposed to trust me, Megan. And if you have evidence that you can’t—evidence not from a fucking reversed fucking TikTok video—then you ask me. You don’t just bail on what we have.”
Then it became clear to me.
“What I thought we had.”
Another flinch from her. Harsh words, and they gutted me to say them—to discover them—as much as for her to hear them.
“You’re right,” she said. “To all of it. And maybe that brings it home. I didn’t trust you. Whether it was because of warnings about hockey players, or not being able to trust in much at this point, or…”
“You were looking for a way out,” I said.
She started shaking her head, but I barreled on.
“You didn’t want this right from the beginning.
But, unlike you, I knew what you felt for me was real.
And on some level, that probably scared the shit out of you.
I know it did for me. So why not take an easy way out when it turns up? ”
“Thinking you were cheating is not taking the easy way out,” she said.
“So you did think I was cheating?”
“Does it even matter anymore?” she said, defeat and weariness in her voice.
I was tired too. Trying to keep it together after losing J was one thing. Adding this steaming pile of painful emotions might be more than I was up to. Which was exactly Megan’s point from the beginning.
Marlo’s list of self-care items that she’d recite at the end of every session came back to me. She probably should have had something in there about emotional overload when you fell in love.
But even if she had, I wouldn’t have listened when it came to Megan. Drinking more water didn’t save Connor from self-harm. And nothing could save me from the pain of loving, and seemingly losing, Megan Gaffney.
I sat down on Emily’s bed, feeling unable to support my weight anymore. Unable to support my ping-ponging emotions.
Maybe Marlo was right about decision-making. Maybe my obsession with The Girl from last year was clouding the very real obstacles that being in love would bring to my life right now.
“I’m right about one thing,” Megan said softly.
I picked my head up to look at her. Even that small movement felt a thousand times tougher to do than normal.
“This is too much for us right now. We’re both working through our own stuff, and to add… us to the equation?”
I nodded. She was right. I’d just thought the same thing.
But would my devastation—and pride—at the thought of losing Megan keep me from realizing that at this point in time, we needed to concentrate on ourselves?
Could I put my feelings for her aside if it would help her in her own grieving process?
If it would help me?
“Logan, I love you too. I do. But we need to take care of ourselves. Connor lying in a hospital bed should be warning enough.”
“That situation is totally different,” I said, but there was no fire behind my words. I was technically right, but so what? She had a point, too.
And maybe I could do this, work through my grief and still have enough emotional bandwidth to love Megan. But she was saying she didn’t think she could.
And I loved her enough to want to protect that for her. To not stand in her way of healing.
She got off her bed and walked the few paces to me.
I reached out and put my hands on her waist, and she bent over and kissed the top of my head, sliding her hands down my back.
Just as I started to pull her closer, to ignore all the truthful words we’d just said and beg to start over, she left my grasp and walked out of reach.
“Goodbye, Logan,” she said, and walked out of the room. I heard the click of the bathroom door and knew she would wait there until I left the suite.
I got up and walked out of Megan’s room.
Out of Megan’s life.