Chapter 20 Hazel #2
He says this like it was the only choice he had to be truly free. Like it’s plain and simple. But I know it couldn’t have been easy.
“It’s difficult to justify turning down a lot of money without looking like an asshole,” he says. “And then here I go winning millions.”
I draw figure-eights into the condensation on my bottle. “You made choices for your own reasons. Some things in life we’re allowed to do just for ourselves, right?”
Logan half smiles at my use of his words. “Yeah.”
My head spins with all this new information.
The way Logan lived, his parents’ approach to money, his fiscal responsibility, the built-in security.
His siblings didn’t even ask for money when they found out he won.
They didn’t even think it was a lot. I try not to remember the years I had to steal cash from Dad to mail to the utility companies.
“The way we grew up could not have been more different. Too different, do you think?”
“Money can be a sensitive and complicated topic no matter how you grew up,” he says. “If anything, I think that’s something we can both relate to.”
“I didn’t want to go around announcing that I had lottery money,” I say, processing everything. “So I get why you wouldn’t go around telling people that you come from money. Or that you turned it down.”
Suddenly, our night in the pizzeria becomes clear. Logan really would have walked away from the money. He’s done it before.
“You took the money for me,” I manage to get out. The thought sends a sharp pain shooting right through my center. I scoot closer to the edge of my seat so I can grab his hand.
Logan rocks forward, tilting his head to meet my eyes.
“It wasn’t a hardship to accept it,” he says, his jaw flexing as he works through something in his head, “I just don’t want money to lay the path for me so easily, I guess.
I like the life I’m creating for myself.
I learned how to support myself my way. That means something to me. ”
“I can understand that.” I think of all the times Dad believed the lottery was his answer to everything.
“We beat the odds, though,” Logan says, squinting at the view. “Sometimes there are things in life you can’t turn down. I’m realizing that the lottery winnings aren’t free of strings, but accepting that money was not the same as accepting my dad’s.”
That, I get, too. But for me, those strings feel a lot more like guilt.
Logan pulls his hat over his windblown hair.
“I’m grateful to have had luck on my side,” he pushes on.
“I just… I had no doubt that I was going to figure it out and be okay. That knowledge was comforting, for both me and my mom, when I moved away. Also, I was born a white man in America. I know that helps me.”
I nod, thinking about how my dad’s life might’ve been different if he were a white man instead of a Chinese one.
“You know you’re allowed to have made the decision you did and still have struggles, right?” I ask.
Logan doesn’t answer this, which gives me time to think.
I follow up with, “Expectations.”
“What about them?”
“It’s like Maxwell said, you didn’t question good things happening to you,” I rush out. “You expected them to happen. Because of that, you still went after what you wanted. Doing so got you closer to your goals.”
“I don’t know about all that.”
“If you always expected to lose, you probably wouldn’t have taken action the way you did. Every time you try, you’re giving yourself one more chance to succeed.”
It’s nothing Logan hasn’t heard before. But now that I’m learning more about him, Maxwell’s rationale seems more plausible for why Logan considers himself lucky.
“You think what he was saying could be real?” Logan asks.
“No, I don’t,” I say. “I really think what he was saying could be real.”
He laughs at this. “I think we might’ve picked up a little too much from Maxwell.”
“I know you were always told you were lucky,” I say. “But being told you’re something doesn’t make it true. You made everything that’s happened in your life come true.”
This logic is great for Logan, but not so much for my situation.
Because if it is, then logically, wouldn’t it be the opposite for me?
If all I heard growing up was how unlucky we were, did that make me fearful to try new things?
To say yes? To expect that anything exceptionally good could happen for me?
Have I only been paying attention to the bad?
I take a sip of my drink, washing these thoughts down for another time. A time when we aren’t dealing with a crisis.
Logan leans back against his chair and lets out the kind of sigh that accompanies newfound realization. “Huh.”
I’m glad to have gotten through to him. I gesture toward the waves. “And that’s why we add water.”
A light breeze sweeps over us. Logan breathes it in.
Ahead of us, the fishing boats sway from side to side on the surface of the water like they’re stuck in place. The sound of the waves lapping over each other becomes louder when I turn my attention to them.
After a few quiet moments, Logan says, “You’re right. There aren’t that many seagulls here.”
“More food for us, I guess.” I finish the last of my roll.
“I can’t believe the damn plane was a warning about the clerk. You think we can fly back to New York?”
“It’s not worth the risk,” I say. “And who knows? Maybe we’ll find a face-reader fortune teller on the way back.”
“At a rest stop, probably,” he quips, taking a long chug of his blueberry soda.
I laugh. “My n?i nai once told me I had very lucky cheeks.”
He chuckles. “They are very cute cheeks.”
“Who knew you were the wealthy New York girl going to the fancy Catskills resort, and I was the dance instructor?” I ask. “All this time I could’ve been calling you Baby.”
He smirks at my Dirty Dancing reference. “I’m Rose, and you’re Jack.”
“I’m Noah, and you’re Allie.”
Then, despite the heaviness of our situation and the fallout that inevitably awaits, a ripple-smile flashes across Logan’s cheeks.
And that smile on his face does more for me than all the water in the world combined.