Chapter 12 Hazel
HAZEL
Logan’s still at the theater by the time I get off work and make my way uptown. I had to scroll back through old texts to find which theater he works at. There are so many of them on Broadway.
He’s sewing a rip in a curtain when I get there. I watch him for a few minutes from the back of the theater as he finishes up. He’s focused as he tries to thread a needle with his casted arm. Finally, he gets it, pulling the thread in and out of the fabric. Repairing what was broken.
He looks up at me as I step into the light. From all the way over here, I can see his smile. The one for me.
I walk down the aisle toward him, dazed. Drawn in.
“Standby line closed at three,” he says, his voice managing to reach me. “But you can enter the Broadway lottery for a later show.”
“No more lotteries,” I hear myself say. I step up onto the stage.
Logan puts his needle and thread away in a little box. “Right. I win once and think I’m invincible. You found me at a good time. Everyone’s on dinner break—”
I finish his sentence with my mouth on his.
The force of my body pins him up against the wall behind the curtain.
It’s all tongue, quick breaths, hands everywhere.
I run my hands down his chest, feeling the topography of his muscles under my fingertips.
Every touch is charged; static electricity from the buildup between us.
I slip two fingers into the waistband of his jeans and tug him toward me.
The low grunt he makes sets off what feels like the world’s longest sparkler running from my chest all the way down to my toes.
Our lips glide against each other in hurried want, our tongues going back and forth in a chaotic but satisfying rhythm.
They’re greedy, our movements, as though we haven’t already won enough.
I don’t have to think. Don’t have to feel anything but what’s happening right now.
It’s exactly what I need.
“Bathroom,” I whisper against his neck. “Take me there.”
Logan freezes, his hands sliding down my arms. “You want to have… bathroom sex?”
I pull him back to me, kissing his lips, his cheeks. “Don’t stop.”
“Hazel, hold on,” he says with a forced laugh. “Are you okay?”
“I will be once you kiss me,” I say, annoyed.
He adjusts his hat as he dips his head. “What’s going on?”
I glance away. He’ll know something’s wrong if he takes one look at my eyes. “I just want to feel better,” I say weakly.
“We can’t do this here. Not like this,” he says gently. He looks over at the door, where probably an entire crew is eating their dinners.
“You’re rejecting me?” I ask, blinking. “Oh my god.” I take a few steps back. “I shouldn’t have come here.”
“Hazel, talk to me,” he says, reaching for my hand. “Tell me what’s wrong.”
I yank it away. “I don’t want to talk! I just… I needed you, and you can’t even be here for me.” There’s a bite to my voice. It’s sharp and ugly and filled with the pain that I’m in. I don’t want it inside of me anymore.
My stomach feels like it’s folding in on itself as I recount the last couple of minutes. My face is on fire. This is beyond humiliating. It’s soul-crushing. How could I have done that? Logan means more to me than acting on some desperate desire.
The back of my eyes sting. I press my knuckles against them before I start to cry. “I should go,” I say, barely getting the words out.
“Hazel, wait,” Logan says, following me a few steps. “Please don’t leave.”
For some reason, I listen, pausing halfway down the stairs in front of the stage. I wait for a scolding. I almost want it. I want Logan to shout back. To be mad at me for doing this. For trying to come on to him here of all places.
But he doesn’t. Logan stands right where he is. He doesn’t look at me any differently than he always has. He doesn’t seem to be disgusted or mad. I don’t get the smile reserved just for me, but I do get a look of consideration I’ve never seen him give anyone else.
Then he steps closer, meeting me on the middle step. He cups my cheeks in his hands, the cast rough against my skin. When he looks into my eyes and says, “I’m here,” the tight knot of anger inside me loosens, just a bit.
I’m a mess. I’m out of control.
And he doesn’t not want me.
I wonder if he can sense all the pain I feel. Can he see me for who I really am?
Logan holds my gaze for a second longer. “Come with me,” he says.
“Don’t you have work?” I say, gentler this time, as he leads me outside through the back door.
“I’ll let my team know I’m taking my dinner break now.”
We walk a few blocks, the silence hanging between us. I let him guide me wherever we’re going. He’ll probably drop me off at the subway station where I can take myself home. Shower. Eat. Sleep off whatever he thinks is happening here.
It’s only when we’re in an elevator that I snap out of my daze. He’s not sending me home. He’s taking me somewhere.
The elevator doors open. We’re on some sort of observation deck. Logan gives a knowing nod to a guard keeping watch.
“You’re someone who knows everybody, aren’t you?” I ask.
Logan smirks. “Once I meet that guy,” he says, tilting his chin toward a person painted a deep turquoise and dressed like the Statue of Liberty taking selfies with the city backdrop, “then yes. I’ll officially know everybody.”
Despite my bad mood, a soft laugh slips out.
“You ever been to Top of the Rock before?” Logan asks. He’s still holding my hand.
I shake my head.
“We’re above Rockefeller Center,” he explains as he leads me to a corner where we can see the entire city laid out before us.
It looks like a miniature town, gathered up in the palms of someone’s hands.
The skyscrapers are gray and orange against a smear of purple and yellow sky.
From this angle, the Empire State Building is smack dab in the middle of the city, the Upper New York Bay just beyond it.
It’s dusk. The transition hours. It’s a time of day that’s always made me sad. At the lake house, it’s when I had to turn back into a human after being a fish all day long.
Now I realize that there’s something beautiful to it. Most of the day is behind you, but there’s still a whole night ahead of you. It’s like the ending and the beginning of something at once.
“This is where I come to think sometimes,” Logan says.
“During breaks, after work. Sometimes before. I know it’s touristy, but the view gets me every time.
It’s a city of stone and glass, but it was once mostly wood and brick.
It reminds me how much something can change, and how beautiful it can stay. ”
“Except for that really tall skyscraper in midtown,” I mumble.
Logan half laughs. “True. That one ruined the skyline.”
I gulp in a lungful of air seventy stories above the ground. It takes the edge off my anxiety. The churning in my stomach that’s been there since my conversation with Dad slows.
“I like that you can see the water,” I observe, taking in the glow from the structures downtown.
“Sometimes when people ask where I live, I tell them I live on an island,” Logan says. “Partly to mess with them, but also, I’m curious what the first place is that pops into their minds. I get a lot of Hawaii, Nantucket, or San Juan Islands.”
“Huh. You struck me as a Martha’s Vineyard man,” I say playfully.
Logan doesn’t sound like he’s joking when he says, “My mom does spend her summers there.” He slides his hands into his pockets.
“Mostly, I’m fascinated by how differently we all think.
What’s an island to one person varies from someone else’s definition of one.
What’s lucky to me may not be lucky to you.
We all have our own mental models. None of us is wrong. ”
I sit with this as I soak in the view. “Sometimes I forget I live here,” I finally say when the overwhelming beauty of the city becomes too much.
It’s a loaded statement, if I’ve ever said one.
“Like in the city.” I shake my head. “I haven’t had a chance to enjoy it.
” I swallow down the tightness in my throat.
“Your slim budget?” Logan asks, remembering.
I nod. “That extends to the city, too.” The twinkling artificial lights brighten as the sky’s glow fades.
“Growing up, I felt trapped. I wanted to come here because it felt like freedom. And it seemed fun. I didn’t get to have a lot of that, either.
” A cold breeze sweeps across my cheeks.
It feels cleansing in a way. I almost feel brand-new.
“Here, I could be anyone I wanted to be.” Whoever that is.
I think about all the versions of me I imagined myself being when I moved here for my first—and only—job. Independent. Explorative. In control.
“It’s the best place for reinvention,” Logan says.
That’s what I had hoped, but life doesn’t go that way.
“It’s nice being away from it all for a second. Peaceful,” I say.
And now, given everything, I might need to leave. How can I still justify living in one of the most expensive cities in the world?
He gives me a small smile. “What happened today?”
I think I might start crying again if I look at Logan, so I stare at an orange, cone-shaped roof to the left of the Empire State Building. “My dad refinanced the lake house. We might lose it.”
Even though I’ve had some distance from the afternoon, the floor feels like it’s falling out from underneath me for a second time today. Paired with how high up we are, my legs stiffen more, and I cling to Logan. It’s disorienting, being practically on top of the world but feeling so low.
Logan holds me steady as he releases a tense breath. “No. That can’t happen.”
“We only have until the end of the month to cover the missed payments.”
“Okay, so you still have the house,” he says. “That’s good at least. There’s still time.”
“I don’t have the money to cover all of it.” I don’t even want to think about what would’ve happened if we didn’t win the lottery. At least now, I can still help a little.
“Do you need more money? You can have mine,” Logan offers without a second thought.
Now I can’t help but look up at him. My jaw has dropped.
He’s just casually offering me his annual lottery winnings?
“I don’t borrow from those I care about, and you’ve given me enough.
But that’s generous of you,” I say. “I shouldn’t have paid off all my student loans.
I just wanted to do something for myself, you know? ”
Paying off my debts felt too good to be true. How did I not hear the alarm bells ringing?
“It’s not like you bought a boat,” he says. “You paid off your education.”
I nod distractedly. “Maybe I can take out a personal loan. Though I’ll need a job for that. Maybe we should’ve taken that lump sum.”
“It’s nice that you want to help, but won’t there just be more problems?”
Undoubtedly.
“I need to figure something out.” Maybe this time I can convince Dad to transfer the house into my name so that this doesn’t happen again. “Dad and Jerry need me.”
They probably always will. I’ve had so many conversations with Dad about gambling and getting help. I know my pleas alone won’t change anything. They won’t cure his addiction.
My voice is tense when I say, “I have no idea what to do.”
Logan positions me in front of him as he wraps his arms around me. I nestle in, leaning back against his chest. We stand there for a few minutes, my body rising and falling in sync with his every breath.
“I’m so sorry about earlier,” I say, turning to face him. I try not to feel again how desperate I was. How I try to eject myself from a shitty situation only to find myself in a different problem. “I shouldn’t have done that. I wanted to feel something good.”
Of all the bad things that happened today, how does what I did to Logan feel like the worst of all of them?
Logan raises one eyebrow. “And I was that something good?”
“You’re something more than good,” I say. “You didn’t deserve that.”
He kisses the tip of my nose. On purpose. The simple, tender act of it locks something into place. I like this man. A lot. I never again want to do anything like I did earlier tonight to jeopardize a future with him.
Another breeze blows over the observation deck, this time so forceful that my jacket puffs out.
Like if it were one degree stronger, I could lift off.
With the city so small beneath me, it appears less chaotic.
More controllable. I can see all of it at once.
The bigger picture. It’s a fleeting moment, but what it feels like is a wake-up call.
If I’m always reaching for temporary fixes, I can never make long-lasting ones. I’m keeping myself in a feedback loop. It’s a loop where I’ll never be truly happy.
Before anything solidifies deeper in my brain, it blows away on a much lighter breeze. No liftoff today.
“When we do this,” Logan says, his voice low and unhurried, “I want it to be mind-blowing, not mind-numbing.”
My mind only hears when. After all that, Logan still wants to be with me.
“And not in a highly trafficked bathroom,” I contribute.
“You have no idea what you were asking,” Logan says. “By this time in the day, that bathroom is a disaster.”
Despite everything feeling uncontrollable, I do the one thing I can control. I smile. And then I kiss him. “Mind-blowing, not mind-numbing,” I repeat like a promise.
I scan the horizon. Dad’s only in the next state over, though Atlantic City might as well be a world away.
It’s like we’re existing on totally different planets.
He’s probably in his lucky red shirt, using whatever auspicious number he saw multiples of today.
He’s definitely got his lucky penny in his pocket and Mom’s wedding band on a chain around his neck.
Then it hits me. Maybe I’ve been acting too much like Dad. Logan and I need to try something different. What we’ve been doing isn’t going to work.
I glance back up at Logan. The soft, purple light of dusk makes his sharp angles softer. I commit to memory the planes of his face as he looks out at the city. Our city.
At least for now.
“Thank you,” I say, my breath falling in rhythm with his heartbeat.
He gives my shoulder a light squeeze. “You’re not alone in this.”