Chapter 18
XVIII
LOGAN
Life had been hectic, and Logan hadn't seen any of his friends in months when Tad invited him to lunch. When he arrived at Tad's office, he expected him to be ready, but instead found him buried in a mountain of paperwork that seemed one gust of wind away from toppling over.
“You're early,” Tad remarked, glancing up as Logan walked in.
“Actually,” Logan replied, “I'm right on time.”
Tad paused, looked at the clock, and muttered, “Shit. Can you give me a few minutes? Have a seat.”
Logan pulled out a chair and sat down, watching as Tad continued to focus on his screen. Suddenly, a phone started ringing, interrupting the silence.
“That’s not mine,” Logan said, gesturing to Tad’s iPhone vibrating from a pile of manilla folders next to them.
“I never get a break,” Tad said with a sigh. He reached for it, and in an instant, his face changed. “How many?” Logan heard him say.
He tried not to pry as Tad started firing off questions. “What is the ETA? Have the next of kin been notified?” There was a pause, and Tad glanced at Logan, his eyes widening in a way he hadn’t seen before.
“Who is on duty?” A pause. “What about Simon?”
After hanging up, he sighed and ran a frustrated hand through his hair.
“Multiple casualties are en route from Bastian,” he said, shaking his head.
He was tired; it didn’t take a fool to know that.
After thirteen straight days, the whites of his eyes were reddened, and the grey around them had deepened to near black.
“How many?”
“Six.”
“What happened?”
“Two separate IED attacks. Two of the guys are really messed up. One has burns to over thirty percent of his body.” He paused again, lowering his gaze to the floor. “Do you remember Callan Thomas? From Highgate? He’s one of them.”
Logan swallowed hard. “I think I remember.”
“His wife is pregnant, too, I think.”
Logan swallowed again, trying to claw back his emotions. He’d never told Tad about Daisy, knowing full well his advice would serve no good. Tad was, and always had been, one to drive his life on impulse. Life is short, as he put it—too short for regrets and too long for unspent chances.
“I should go,” Tad continued. “Sounds like they might need extras. Next week?”
Logan nodded, a knot tightening in his stomach. There would be no next week. Whether it was fate, instinct, or just a lucky guess, Logan could already sense what was ahead and whatever it was, it didn’t feel good.
The afternoon dragged like a Friday afternoon, and Logan couldn’t think of anything else but Daisy. He’d seen enough veterans at the clinic to know that coming home with the mental scars was challenging enough, but physical injuries can be catastrophic.
He stared at the screen, his mind jumping each time a phone rang. Then, by the time he knew it, five o'clock had rolled around, and when he lifted his head, there wasn’t a soul left to be seen.
“You’re still here,” his boss, Robert, interrupted.
“I know,” he replied, shooting him a glance. “Time seems to have slipped away on me.”
Robert scowled. He wasn’t a fool. In his sixties, he’d been reading people for over thirty years, and Logan couldn’t help but feel that, in the moment, Robert was staring at him through a looking glass, analysing each silent clue of his mind.
“What’s going on with you?” he finally said, pulling the seat from under the desk to sit down. “You’ve been distracted lately.”
“I’m—” Logan cut himself off. If he lied, Robert would see it. “I’m going through a break-up,” he said instead. He could manage a half-lie and get away with it. Robert wouldn’t answer questions if he sensed an element of truth; it wasn’t in his nature to.
“A break-up? I didn’t know you were seeing anyone.”
Logan shrugged, the weight of his emotions pressing harder against his chest. “It wasn’t anything serious, more like a friendship,” he explained. “There was something there, and now…now, there isn’t. That kind of thing.”
“She must have been more than a friend for it to be affecting you so much,” Robert paused and leant back in his chair, studying him. “Whether you like it or not, it seems to me, you’ve got it bad.”
“I really don’t.”
Robert sighed, slow and deliberate, like he’d seen this exact conversation play out before. Maybe he had, just with different people. “Have you always been this way?”
Logan frowned. “What do you mean?”
“You’re very stubborn, Logan. You always have been. Do you want to know what I’ve learned about stubborn people?”
He phrased it like a question, but Logan knew he wasn’t going to wait for an answer.
“That resistance, that mentality you have,” he continued, “that need to prove to everyone that you’re invincible—it’ll kill you in the end. We are nothing without our emotions, Logan. The minute you force yourself to shut them off, you risk losing the one thing that makes us human.”
Robert had a point, and deep down, Logan knew it. A man could hide behind forced smiles, weave lies into his words, pretend the weight of the world hadn’t settled on his shoulders. But the eyes always give the truth away.
“Whoever she is, don’t let her be the one that got away,” he added, biting his lip. “You know as well as I do, an unsettled mind isn’t a healthy one.”
He left, and Logan sat there, lost in his thoughts.
Suddenly, he felt small, like that young boy again, sitting on the floor of the pub, watching his mother give away her love without a second thought.
She swore it had been all for him, and each pound she earned would give him a better life, but he knew more now.
His mother had been lonely. In strangers' beds and one-hour flings, she’d starve it off long enough to convince herself she hadn’t lost the beauty of her youth.
And then, as time passed and reality came calling, she’d rationalise her actions as healing.
Her logic was broken, and although it took him years to figure it out, so was she.
Did that mean he was, too?
He knew better than anyone that there’s an unspoken, emotional pull between two broken souls—and he’d sensed that damaged connection in Daisy from the moment they met.
Maybe, buried beneath the confusion, that’s all it was: a desire to fix her.
To show her that the world may be broken, but that doesn’t mean she has to be.
Perhaps, like with his mother, he wanted to prove that love is sacred, that she didn’t have to give it away.
Then again, maybe he was just a hypocrite.
After all, twice engaged and once married, he wasn’t exactly the best example.