8. Logan
— ? —
Logan
I wake to pain.
It lives in my left arm, a deep, searing ache that pulses with every heartbeat, that makes me want to claw my own skin off just to escape it.
I’ve felt pain before, plenty of times. Workshop accidents, the broken wrist from that fall off a ladder at nineteen, the general wear of working with your hands every day.
But this is different. This is the kind of pain that rewrites you.
The second thing I notice is the smell: antiseptic, recycled air, the particular sterility of a hospital room.
The third thing I notice is that something is wrong.
I open my eyes.
The room is bright, morning light streaming through windows I don’t recognize, machines beeping steadily beside me.
My left arm is bandaged from shoulder to wrist, thick white gauze that makes me look like half a mummy, and when I try to move it, the pain spikes so sharply that I have to close my eyes and breathe through it.
The fire. Fran.
It comes back in pieces. The smoke pouring from the windows as I pulled into the driveway. Sloane on the lawn, hysterical, clutching at me. The moment I looked up and saw Fran in that window, glass shattering around her, and realized Sloane had been wrong.
She said Fran wasn’t home. She said she’d left earlier, gone to the farm or something.
But Fran was in the house. Fran was trapped in our bedroom with smoke filling her lungs, and I almost didn’t know. I almost walked away.
I don’t remember everything after that, just fragments, disconnected images, a day of surfacing and going under again.
Running back inside. Kicking down the bedroom door.
It wouldn’t open, the handle turned uselessly, and I had to kick it three, four times before the wood splintered.
Something falling, something burning, pain exploding through my arm as I carried her out.
“Mr. Davis?” A nurse appears in the doorway, her expression carefully neutral. “You’re awake. How are you feeling?”
“My wife.” My voice comes out like gravel. “Where’s my wife? Is she-”
“Mrs. Davis was discharged just a few minutes ago.” The nurse hesitates, something flickering across her face that I can’t read. “She’s likely still on the premises.”
“Discharged?” I’m already trying to sit up, ignoring the way my vision swims. “Where did she go? Is she-”
“I’m sorry, I don’t have that information. She requested privacy regarding her location.” The nurse moves closer, checking monitors. “Mr. Davis, you really should rest. Your injuries-”
“Can I see her room? The room she was in?”
The nurse pauses, considering. “I suppose… if you’re feeling up to it, I could assist you across the hall. It’s only a few steps. But Mr. Davis, I should warn you-”
“Please.” My voice cracks on the word. “I need to see.”
She helps me to my feet, slowly, carefully, supporting my weight as I fight through the dizziness and the pain. Every step feels like walking through water, but I make it to the door, make it into the hallway, make it to the room directly across from mine.
The room where my wife was.
It’s empty. The bed is freshly vacated, the sheets rumpled where she must have been lying, not yet stripped by housekeeping. The monitors are silent, disconnected. She was here. She’s not anymore.
And on the pillow, her pillow, there’s a ring.
Her ring.
I cross the room in two unsteady steps and pick it up with trembling fingers. It’s still warm, from her hand, from the pillow, from something, and I hold it in my palm like it might shatter if I grip too hard.
She left her ring. She left our marriage.
“Mr. Davis?” The nurse’s voice is gentle behind me. “I’m sorry. I know this must be difficult.”
I don’t answer. I’m staring at the ring, at everything I thought we were building together sitting in the palm of my hand. Nineteen months of marriage. A life I thought was real, even when it wasn’t working.
And she left.
Movement outside the window catches my eye. I turn, pressing closer to the glass, and there she is.
Fran. Crossing the parking lot, a bag over her shoulder, moving toward a truck I recognize. Theo’s truck.
She’s walking away. Walking away from me, from us, from everything.
I lift my good hand, press it against the glass like I could reach her from here. She’s getting into the truck now, climbing into the passenger seat, and I could. I could try to get down there, try to catch her, try to-
The pain in my arm spikes so hard my vision goes white. I sway on my feet, and the nurse is suddenly there, steadying me.
“Mr. Davis, you need to sit down. You’re not well enough for this.”
“My wife is leaving.” The words come out desperate, broken. “She’s right there. She’s getting in my brother’s truck and she’s leaving and I have to-”
“You can’t go after her in this condition.” The nurse’s voice is firm but kind. “Sir, please. You have significant injuries. You can barely stand. Whatever’s happening between you and your wife, it can wait until you’re stronger.”
I watch through the window as Theo’s truck pulls out of the parking lot. Watch it turn onto the road. Watch it disappear.
She’s gone.
She left her ring on her pillow and walked out without saying goodbye, and now she’s gone.
“I don’t understand.” My voice sounds foreign to my own ears. “I saved her. I went back into the fire. I got her out.”
“You did.” The nurse guides me back toward my room. “And you were seriously injured doing it. The burns on your arm - Mr. Davis, you’re going to need significant treatment. Possibly skin grafts. The doctors will discuss all of this with you.”
I don’t care about the burns. I don’t care about skin grafts or treatment or any of it. All I can think about is Fran, where she’s going, why she left, what I did wrong.
“I need to call my brother,” I say. “Theo. He was driving the truck. He knows where she’s going.”
“That can wait until after-”
“Please.” I look at the nurse, and whatever she sees in my face makes her stop arguing. “Please. I need to know she’s okay.”
They let me use a phone after I’m back in bed, after a doctor has come and explained my injuries in terms that wash over me like water.
Second-degree burns, possibly some third-degree. Infection risk, scarring likely, physical therapy probable. I nod at the right moments, answer questions when I have to, but my mind is elsewhere. My mind is in a truck heading away from me, carrying the only person I’ve ever loved.
I call Theo.
“Logan.” His voice is careful when he answers. “I figured I’d be hearing from you.”
“Where is she?”
A pause. “I dropped her at the bus station. She didn’t tell me where she was going - made sure I couldn’t tell you even if I wanted to.”
“Theo-”
“She said she’d text when she’s safe. Said she needs space.” His voice softens. “She was scared, Logan. Really scared. Saving her life was the right thing to do, but it doesn’t erase everything that came before. It doesn’t give you a claim on her.”
He hangs up before I can respond.
***
The day passes in a blur of doctors and nurses and well-meaning family members.
My parents arrive around noon, full of concern and questions. My mother fusses over my bandages while my father talks to the doctors about treatment plans and timelines. Neither of them mentions Fran directly, though I catch them exchanging looks when they think I’m not watching.
“Where’s your wife?” my mother finally asks, her voice carefully neutral. “I would have thought she’d be here.”
“She was discharged this morning. She’s… recovering elsewhere.”
“Elsewhere?” My mother’s eyebrows rise. “What does that mean?”
“It means she needs time.” I don’t have the energy to explain more than that. “Leave it alone, Mother.”
She looks like she wants to push, but something in my expression stops her. Instead, she pats my uninjured hand and murmurs something about getting more comfortable pillows from home.
***
The afternoon brings a fire investigator, a methodical man named Torres who asks me to walk through everything I remember from that night. I tell him about coming home, about finding Sloane on the lawn, about seeing Fran in the window.
“The bedroom door,” Torres says, making notes. “You said it was locked?”
“It wouldn’t open. The handle turned, but the door wouldn’t move. I had to kick it down.”
“And you don’t know what side the key was on? Whether it was locked from inside or outside?”
I try to remember. The smoke, the heat, the desperate need to get to Fran. I wasn’t thinking about locks or keys or how doors work. I was just thinking about getting to my wife.
“I don’t know,” I admit. “I just know it wouldn’t open.”
Torres nods, writes something else down. “We’re still investigating the cause and origin of the fire. Your wife’s statement will be important - do you know how we can reach her?”
“She’s… not available right now. But I can pass along any questions.”
“I appreciate that.” He hands me a card. “We’ll be in touch as the investigation progresses. In the meantime, try to remember anything else - anything unusual you noticed that night, anyone who might have had access to the house.”
After Torres leaves, I lie in my hospital bed and think about the questions he asked. The locked door. The origin of the fire. Standard investigation, he said. They’ll figure out what happened.
I hope they do. I hope there’s an explanation that makes sense of all this, some faulty wiring, some accident, something that doesn’t require me to understand how my wife ended up trapped in a locked bedroom while my house burned down around her.
***
Theo comes back that evening.
He brings food, real food, not the hospital tray stuff, and a change of clothes and the expression of someone who’s been thinking hard about what to say.
“She texted me,” he says without preamble. “Fran. Just that she arrived safe. Wouldn’t say where.”
“But she’s okay?”
“She’s okay. As okay as she can be.” Theo sets the food on my bedside table. “She said she needs time. She said she’ll be in touch when she’s ready.”
“When she’s ready.” I stare at the ceiling. “What am I supposed to do with that?”
“You’re supposed to respect it.” Theo sits down in the chair by my bed. “Logan, I need to tell you something. And I need you to actually hear it.”
“Fine.”
“You’ve been a terrible husband.” The words land like a slap. “The coldness, the distance, making her feel invisible - that’s not how you treat someone you love. At some point, your reasons stop mattering and only your actions count.”
The ring is still in my hand. I haven’t let go of it since I picked it up this morning.
“There’s something else,” I say quietly. “Something I never told Fran. About why we got married.”
Theo’s eyebrows rise. “What do you mean?”
“Grandmother’s will. There’s a clause - I can’t inherit anything unless I’ve been married for two years.” I force myself to meet his eyes. “We’re nineteen months in. Five more months, and the inheritance passes to me.”
“Jesus, Logan.” Theo runs a hand through his hair. “Does Fran know about this?”
“No. I never told her.”
“So she thinks - what? That you married her for the business alliance? The family connection?”
“She knows it was arranged. She just doesn’t know about the inheritance condition.” The words taste like ash. “I was ashamed. I knew how it would sound - rich boy needs a wife to unlock his grandmother’s fortune, so his family buys him one.”
“That is how it sounds.”
“I know.” I close my eyes. “The thing is, Theo - somewhere along the way, it stopped being about the money. I fell in love with her. Really in love. But I didn’t know how to tell her that without admitting why we got married in the first place.”
“So you said nothing. And she spent nineteen months thinking she was just a business arrangement.”
“I thought I was protecting her. Protecting us.” I laugh, bitter. “Turns out I was just lying to both of us.”
Theo is quiet for a long moment. Then: “What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know. She left without saying goodbye. She left her ring.” I hold it up, watching it catch the light. “She made her choice.”
“She made a choice in crisis. That’s not the same as a final decision.” Theo leans forward. “But Logan - if you want any chance of fixing this, you have to change. Not just apologize. Actually become someone different.”
“I know.”
“Do you? Because I’ve watched you hide behind your work and your walls for thirty years. Fran got closer than anyone, and look what happened.”
I don’t have an answer for that. He’s right. He’s completely right.
“Do you have something I could put this on?” I ask, holding up the ring. “A cord or a chain. Something I can wear.”
Theo digs in his pocket and produces a simple leather cord, the kind he wears his own pendant on. “Here. I’ve got another one at home.”
I thread the ring onto the cord and tie it around my neck, letting it rest against my chest.
She left it for me. Maybe she meant it as a goodbye.
But I’m not going to chase her. I’m not going to demand answers or track her down or force her to face me before she’s ready. That’s not my right. I gave up that right somewhere in nineteen months of making her feel invisible.
“I have to earn this back,” I say quietly. “Not the ring. Her. I have to become someone worth coming back to.”
“That’s the first smart thing you’ve said all day.” Theo stands. “Get some rest. Heal. And when she’s ready to talk - if she’s ready - try to actually listen this time.”
He leaves, and I’m alone with my bandaged arm and the ring against my chest and the weight of everything I need to change.
I don’t know if she’ll ever want me back. I don’t know if I can be what she needs.
But I’m going to try. Every damn day, for as long as it takes.
That’s all I’ve got right now.