Chapter 35
Logan
Megan had come. My steps faltered as I saw the back of her head, her sitting in her normal chair, her dirty-blond curls falling over the back of it.
Be cool. This probably means nothing.
But maybe it did.
And then I saw Connor too, and thought that something had shifted, something had happened that meant both of them were back after missing last week.
Did that mean anything about Megan and me, though? And if it did, was I ready for that?
I’d gone to see Connor a couple of times since he got out of the hospital.
His parents had gotten a Vrbo near campus, and he was staying there with them until they figured out next steps.
The second time I’d visited, he pumped me about Megan, sensing something was off.
I hadn’t wanted to dump the whole thing on him when he was fresh out of the hospital, but he seemed stronger, and wanted to know what was going on, so I told him.
He'd just shaken his head and mumbled something about timing and self-care and boundaries, and then rolled his eyes at himself, exclaiming that he’d become a mental health savant.
Now, he gave me a chin nod as I entered the room and took my regular seat. I was always the last one to arrive, always coming straight from practice and team meetings, oftentimes having to leave a meeting even before it was over, with Coach’s permission.
“Okay, let’s get started,” Marlo said. “Small group last week, but I’m happy to see you both back, Connor and Megan.” They both nodded. Megan still hadn’t looked my way. “Connor specifically wanted to come tonight and let you all know how he was doing. Go ahead, Connor.”
“I just wanted to let you all know that I’m still here.
In Schoolport. And here, with you in spirit.
I’m going through the Bribury process to come back.
They technically can’t stop me from staying in Schoolport, off campus.
And I sure as hell am not going back home anytime soon.
But, other than for tonight, I will be keeping up with classes remotely at the place that my parents rented.
I can’t do any organized lacrosse events either.
But we think that I should be back on campus full-time and back on the team, second semester at the latest.”
He looked to Marlo, who nodded her agreement.
“And,” he continued, “I just want to assure you that what happened that night was a one-off. Won’t happen again. Shouldn’t have happened that night. Things just got away from me. But you don’t need to worry about me.”
Dustin, sitting next to Connor, reached over and put his hand on his shoulder, giving it a squeeze. “Yeah, no. We’re going to worry about you, bro. That’s what we do at Grief Inc. We know you’re strong. But when you’re not, any of us are just a text away.”
Connor nodded.
“Thank you, Connor. And Dustin speaks for all of us.” Marlo then looked at Megan, as if she might have something to say.
“Right. Well, I missed last week and decided to start working with Marlo on a private basis. I’ll be doing that from now on. But I was strongly encouraged to be here tonight.” She looked at Connor when she said that, and he gave her a shrug.
Oh, that was why she was here. For Connor.
Not for me.
“And I’m glad, so that I can say how much getting to know you all has meant to me. I’ll still be on the group text. Or, I guess, if you want me off it, that’s cool too,” Megan said.
“Wait. Why would we want you off the group text?” Bailey asked.
“Yeah. I mean, I get why Connor’s going it alone, but why are you leaving the group?” Dustin added.
Megan took a deep breath. I caught her movements out of the corner of my eye as she crossed her legs and put her hands in her lap. “Well, I—”
“It’s obvious you and Logan broke up,” Paige said. “That was clear last week when Logan came in looking hopeful and then like a kicked puppy when you didn’t show.”
“We were never— You know what, it doesn’t matter.”
“We so were,” I said. I could have done it quietly, but I wasn’t going to play into Megan’s revisionist memory of what we were together.
“This is about a guy?” Bailey said, her voice dripping with disdain.
“Hey,” I said, being said guy. “I didn’t—”
“No offense. You’re great, Logan, but—”
“It’s not about a guy,” Megan interjected. “Not about Logan. I mean, yeah, sure, it’s not great seeing him—”
“Hey,” I said again. I was sure getting ripped on for just sitting here.
It was the most natural thing in the world for Megan to smile, reach out, and place her hand on my arm.
Which she did. And then she remembered, pulling it back.
“What I mean is… it is good to see you. For sure. But my not coming here is about Chloe, not Logan.” She looked at me, meeting my eyes for the first time all night.
Her features softened, her face relaxing, like it had so many times over the past two months.
How it only did with me. “At least, more Chloe than Logan.”
“Ugh, don’t mention that bitch’s name to me,” Paige said.
Megan nodded. “See, that’s why.”
“That’s idiotic,” Bailey said, then she turned to Paige. “You don’t blame Megan for what Chloe did, do you?”
“No, of course not,” Paige said.
I snuck a look at Marlo to see if she was going to step in.
It was all pretty rapid-fire, and the air seemed to crackle with tension.
But she seemed content to sit and watch it all play out.
She met my gaze, and although she gave nothing away, I nodded at her, giving my consent, at least, for whatever got dug up.
It hadn’t felt this heated since the night we’d argued over whether it was harder to lose your person via illness or suddenly. Which was fucked up in its own right.
And so was this.
“So then, what’s the problem?” Bailey asked Paige.
“I didn’t say I had a problem. Megan brought Chloe up. I said I don’t want to talk about her.” Paige turned her attention to Megan. “Do you plan on talking about Chloe here? Weekly?”
“No,” Megan said. “I only mentioned her—”
“Then there’s no problem.” Paige looked from Megan to Marlo, and then to Bailey. “I’ve got no problem with Megan. None. I just do not want to give any more space to—”
“It’s not that I’d talk about her here,” Megan said. “It’s just I didn’t know if you’d feel comfortable sharing around me, given that I still live with Chloe. Although I’m trying to change that.”
“Like we’d be afraid you’d, what? Leak what gets said here to her?” Dustin asked. “We don’t think that.”
Nobody else said anything. I hadn’t wanted to jump in on any of this, but had to second what Dustin said if nobody else was going to. I knew we all felt that way. We’d said as much last week when Megan was a no-show.
“That’s true, Megan,” I said. “Nobody blames you. And nobody thinks you’d give Chloe any info. And if we’re going to try to throw shit like that around, it was my house. Connor and Paige were drunk. Chloe is a vampire for clicks. A lot of factors went into that clusterfuck of a night.”
Nods and general agreement. Megan met everyone’s eyes and softly said, “Thanks.” She looked at me last, and our eyes held.
A flare of hope lit inside me.
“So, okay. That’s settled,” Connor said. “Megan, nobody wants you to leave the group over Chloe. Now, if it’s about the demise of Gans, that’s something else. That’s why I strongly encouraged you to come tonight.”
“Wait, what’s Gans?” I asked, confused. I looked at Megan and she shook her head, also in the dark.
Paige and Bailey looked down, a little embarrassed, but also smiling a little. Connor was smirking. “Oops, that slipped out,” he said.
I looked to Dustin, who was giving Connor an exasperated look. “Megan. Logan. We called you the Gans. Like your celebrity couple name,” he explained.
“Jesus Christ,” I murmured. Paige and Bailey looked at each other, trying not to laugh.
“Where did you call us this?” Megan asked.
“On the group text,” Paige said. When Megan reached for her phone, Paige added, “The group text without you and Logan on it.”
“Why was there a group text without us on it?” I asked.
They all looked at each other, smiles on their faces. “So we could talk about the Gans,” Connor said.
“Jesus Christ,” Megan said. The four of them laughed. Even Marlo seemed to be stifling a smile.
I looked at Megan. “Can you believe this shit?”
“I mean…” She held up her hands in defeat.
“So, we know some of the details from Connor on the No Gans thread, but let’s just go over this again,” Paige said. “Because it’s been made all too clear to every one of us that life is way too short to throw away a good thing because of a frickin’ reversed video.”
“It wasn’t that,” Megan said. I gave her a look. “Not just that,” she amended.
And we were off. And it wasn’t mainly Megan and me doing the post-mortem.
In fact, she and I said very little as Connor and Paige, mostly, with a little from Dustin and Bailey, rehashed Megan’s and my reasons for breaking up, confirming at one point that we were definitely a couple (I gave Megan a “told you” look at that), and dissecting which one of us was in the wrong, if at all.
She and I would chime in with confirmations of things, and some objections, but it went round and round. Marlo fidgeted a bit, kept an eye on Megan and me, but let Paige and Connor cook.
And they did, getting into stuff that felt like it was more about their personal baggage than what Megan and I were going through.
Megan was getting antsy, I could tell. I wasn’t feeling great about basically replaying our conversation from her dorm two Sundays ago.
And Bailey had checked out a few minutes prior, her eyes going back and forth between Dustin and Paige, Megan and me, like she was watching a tennis match.
Dustin tried to settle Paige and Connor down, but they kept at it.
Until Bailey said loudly, “So, I never mentioned how my boyfriend died, did I?”
Record scratch. Total record scratch.
Megan grabbed my arm. We had often wondered about the “freak accident”—Bailey’s words at our first session—that caused her boyfriend’s death. Now, it seemed, we were going to get an explanation. All because Bailey wanted the back-and-forth between us all to stop.
I was grateful to her, and judging by Megan’s hand relaxing on my arm, so was she.
“You didn’t, Bailey,” Marlo said. Her voice was as smooth and calm as it always was. As if the past few minutes of bickering hadn’t happened. “Would you like to share that with us now?”
Bailey nodded. “Yes.”
I leaned forward in my chair, as did Connor and Dustin in the chairs facing Bailey.
“He blew a blood vessel in his brain. A kind of aneurysm,” she said.
We all murmured, “Sorry,” but also looked at each other with questions in our eyes. That was more of a medical emergency than a freak accident. Not that we’d quibble over Bailey’s word usage when telling us about her loss. But yeah, not a freak accident.
“It came from a clot.”
We again all nodded.
“That started in his neck.”
Okay. But…
“That came from a hickey.”
Silence. Complete silence as we digested that. Connor almost broke first. A half chortle tried to escape, but he quickly swallowed it.
“It’s okay to laugh. It’s fucking ridiculous,” Bailey said, sitting back in her chair, folding her arms over her chest.
That was all we needed. “Oh my God,” Paige said. “I mean, it’s not funny. I’m so sorry, of course, but—”
“A hickey? Like a regular hickey on his neck?” Dustin asked. Bailey nodded.
Megan looked at me, her eyes huge. I tried to convey to her that she had better not make me laugh, but then the corner of her mouth quirked up and we both lost it, breaking into laughter.
And all the bullshit melted away. Dead brothers. Dead mothers. Hockey. Parents. Toxic suitemates. School. Even Grief Inc.
And it was just the two of us.
“And here’s the kicker,” Bailey said, pulling Megan’s eyes from me, and back to her. “I wasn’t even the one that gave him the hickey. Cheating asshole.”
It was too much to even feign solemnity about our friend’s grief.
“Holy shit.”
Connor had said what we were all thinking. And the laughs were louder this time. Bailey threw up her hands and shook her head, causing us all to laugh even more.
Slowly, so slowly, our laughs died down. The bubble of tension had been burst by Bailey’s information. Even Marlo had to pull herself back together, though she’d kept the straightest face of us all through it.
Once the room was quiet, she said, “Thank you for sharing, Bailey. And I’m sorry it seemed like maybe we were laughing at your pain. It wasn’t—”
“Oh, it’s fine,” Bailey said. “How can you not?”
“Well, we certainly don’t want to make light of it. And I’m guessing the fact that he had… received the hickey from someone else adds an extra layer of complication.”
Bailey nodded, then turned toward Megan and me.
“That’s what I’m saying. Yeah, I knew dropping that bomb would change the vibe.
But I also think it applies. It’s never not complicated.
You two getting together while going through all this?
Very complicated, sure. But the whole ‘are we boyfriend/girlfriend?’ thing feels like middle school.
We’re dealing with life and death here. Get over yourselves. ”
Megan leaned away from Bailey, as if trying to duck her words. The movement put her closer to my chair, and I reached out and placed my fingers along her back.
She didn’t pull away.
“Harsh, but true,” Connor said. “You don’t throw something like what you two had away so easily. It’s gone too quickly. It’s all so…”
“Fragile,” Paige supplied, and Connor pointed to her.
“Exactly. Just suck it up and work it out. If you’re waiting for some grand gesture or whatever—”
“Grand gesture?” Dustin said.
“It’s a thing. I think,” Connor said. He looked to the three girls, who all nodded.
Indeed, I had been racking my brain for the past few days over what grand gesture would get Megan back into my life.
“Consider this meeting, Megan coming, tonight—this is the grand gesture. From the group. To you,” Connor said.
I looked at Megan. There was hesitation.
“Guys,” Connor said, leaning toward our chairs, “remember ‘I would like to have seen Montana’?”
We both nodded.
“This is your Montana. The two of you. See it.”
I leaned closer to Megan and she put her hand in the middle of my chest, just like she had the first time I approached her at my house on the Friday before classes started.
“I love you,” I said.
“I love you too,” she said. She slid her hand from my chest up around my neck and pulled me closer. I didn’t think about all the people in the room as I rose from my chair and kissed Megan. My heart was pounding, but a weird calmness flooded through me.
I heard J’s voice in my head. You found her. The Girl.
Yeah, I had.
And I wasn’t going to let her go.