LOGAN
Instead of heading home, I turned toward the quiet streets and let my feet take over. I needed air. Stillness. A stretch of road and no one’s voice but my own to sort through everything clawing at my insides.
After talking to the guys, I’d made my way downstairs to find Ellie—just to see her face, make sure she was okay—but she was already gone. The bar felt hollow without her in it. Like all the oxygen had left the room the second she did.
I figured the girls had taken her home. They were gone too.
Hands shoved deep in my pockets, I walked. Each step heavier than the last, the kind that forces your heart to slow down so your mind can catch up. A part of me wanted to head straight to Miles’s place. Find him. Finish what I started. Let my fists say what words never could.
But I knew that wasn’t the answer.
Still, the anger coiled just beneath the surface like it had teeth, like it wouldn’t rest until something gave. It wasn’t just what he’d done—it was that he showed up tonight at all, uninvited, like he had some damn right to explain himself. Like his side of the story mattered.
But even through the rage, my thoughts drifted back to Ellie.
The tears in her eyes.
The way she’d looked at me.
Like I’d just pulled the rug out from under her when she’d barely found her footing again.
That look was going to haunt me.
I didn’t want to leave her like that. I also had guilt for telling the guys everything that happened to her, why we left. I didn’t see any other way around getting the reason to match the story without telling the whole truth.
More than anything, I needed to know she was okay. I needed to see her, touch her, feel her presence settle the storm inside me. Just one look and I’d remember what mattered.
Her.
I wanted her to hear everything from me. Not through whispers passed around Faircloud, not from her brother’s stunned expression or anyone else’s well-meaning reaction. She deserved that much. She deserved the truth from me.
I paused at her door, hand lifted, heart knocking just as loud inside my chest. I hesitated, then rapped gently against the wood.
I waited. Shifted my weight from foot to foot, fighting the urge to knock again. The silence on the other side stretched too long, and my nerves twisted tighter.
I knocked again—firmer this time. “Ellie,” I called, pressing my palm to the door like she might feel it. “It’s me. Please open up.”
Maybe she was asleep. It was late.
Knock.
Knock.
Finally, I heard the click of the lock, and then the door creaked open.
There she was.
Wrapped in a blanket, her pajamas soft and slouchy, hair damp like she’d just showered. Her face was clean, bare, and real. The kind of beautiful that knocked the breath out of me.
Her eyes were rimmed with red. Evidence of tears. Proof of the ache I’d caused.
My chest tightened. Words stuck in my throat, a traffic jam of apologies and explanations that couldn’t quite form.
She didn’t say anything either. She just… looked at me. Quiet and unreadable, letting silence sit between us like it had something important to say.
“Can… can I come in?”
She nodded once. “Of course.” Her voice was soft, a little rough, frayed at the edges.
I followed her inside, the door closing gently behind me.
She flicked on the lamp in the living room, bathing the space in a soft amber glow that made it feel smaller, safer.
I sat on her little couch, and she curled into the other end—knees drawn up to her chest, a pillow hugged to her middle like armor.
“Are you okay?” I asked, eyes sweeping over her, trying to read the signs she wasn’t saying aloud. Her throat bobbed as she swallowed, and she stared at the wall like maybe the answers were written there.
She nodded, once.
“Ellie… you can tell me how you feel,” I said gently. I could feel it in the room—something unsaid sitting heavy between us. Had I broken the trust we’d built? Gone too far? Did she look at me now and wonder if she’d been wrong?
I braced for her answer.
“I’m okay,” she whispered finally, turning her gaze toward me. “I was just… scared. That’s all.”
She stretched her leg out, toes brushing my thigh, seeking connection. My hand followed instinctively, sliding down to rest on her skin. I stroked slow, soothing circles with my thumb, grounding both of us.
“I’m sorry,” I murmured.
She shook her head. “No. Don’t be sorry.” Her voice was firmer now. “At first, I was a little angry at you… not because you defended me. But because of how it happened. I needed a second to catch up. But I talked it out.”
“Talked it out?” I asked, brow lifting.
“I told the girls everything,” she said, a quiet kind of pride in her voice.
Relief loosened something inside me.
I smiled. “I told the guys.”
A soft laugh bubbled from her lips. She tilted her head back and looked at the ceiling, shaking her head like we were both ridiculous.
“And?” she asked, already knowing the answer.
“They’re ready to get in line to kick Miles’s ass.”
That pulled a real laugh from her. But then she looked back at me, her voice more careful this time. “What about Boone?”
I hesitated for just a beat. Then I looked down at where my hand rested on her leg, my thumb still moving.
“I told him how I feel about you.”
Her breath caught.
I looked up—into her eyes—and didn’t look away.
“I told him that I loved you. That I’d always be there to protect you, no matter what the consequence. I think he was happy to hear it.”
She let out a soft sigh, the corners of her mouth tugging up as she bit down gently on her bottom lip.
“Good,” she murmured.
A quiet moment passed between us—thick, meaningful, full of things unsaid.
I didn’t know what to say next. The entire time I’d been working through my internal dialogue, I’d braced myself for a different outcome.
For the conversation where she told me she was done.
That whatever this was between us, it had been too much, too fast. I’d been ready to fight for her.
But there was no fight.
No anger.
Just calm. Grace. A kind of peace she’d found on her own, in her own time, after talking it out with the people she found support in.
I was grateful I came.
Grateful to see her like this, solid and soft and okay.
Not shattered. Not curled up on the floor.
Still standing. Still Ellie.
“I came here ready to say a whole bunch of things,” I admitted, exhaling. “Honestly, I thought you were going to be pissed at me.”
“Why’s that?” she asked, shifting on the couch until she was sitting up, facing me now, her legs crossed, her blanket slipping down to her lap. I adjusted too, my posture relaxing, legs open as I leaned back, arm slung over the back of her couch.
“You were crying. We’d been caught up in so much, so fast, and I never got a real chance to check in with you. I didn’t know if you were okay, and that scared the hell out of me.”
She nodded, her expression soft. “For a moment… yeah, I was mad. But I think it was mostly adrenaline. Shock. Everything hit me at once and the tears just happened. I’m not mad at you for reacting the way you did,” she said gently. “Just… where you did it.”
Ellie paused, but I could see the thoughts swirling behind her eyes, so I didn’t interrupt. I gave her space, sat in the silence, and let her choose when to speak.
“My first thought was: What is everyone going to think?” she admitted, voice low, almost ashamed. “Ellie Cassidy, again. Stirring things up. Must be the problem. I made it about them. About how they’d perceive me. Not about what actually happened.”
Her gaze dropped to her lap. “It’s ridiculous. I know I can’t control what people think. I could be perfect, hell, I try to be perfect, and still, someone’s going to have something to say.”
Hearing that, how my reaction had triggered something old, something painful, the guilt settled heavier in my chest. I hadn’t thought about that part. About how public it had been. How that might’ve dragged her back into battles she’d been trying to leave behind.
“But I talked it through,” she said, lifting her eyes again.
“With Aspen. Penny. Theo. I told them everything. And the more I said it out loud, the clearer it became how much I’ve lived under the weight of other people’s opinions.
Their expectations. Their assumptions. I was shaping my world around them, not me. ”
She gave a short, dry laugh and shook her head, tucking her hair behind both ears. “It’s wild. I didn’t even realize how much I’d let them get in my head.”
“It’s not wild,” I said quietly. “I know this isn’t about me, but… I get it. People act like there’s one right way to be. One way to deal. But everyone’s walking around with a different story, different pain. What’s standard doesn’t exist.”
Ellie looked at me and smiled softly, then pointed toward me like I’d just made her point for her.
“Exactly. If one of my friends had gone through what I did, what would I have told them?” she asked, more to herself than to me.
She let that hang in the air, an echo of the kind of compassion she’d never quite given herself. I hoped she was learning now.
“Never would I want a friend of mine to feel like they can’t exist in the place they grew up,” Ellie said, her voice low, steady.
“Never would I want them to carry the weight of something that was never their fault. That’s the terrifying thing about life—sometimes, no matter how badly we want things to be different, they aren’t.
Because the truth is, not everything is within our control.
Sometimes,” she paused, her gaze lifting to meet mine, “it’s other people who need to do the changing. ”
She let those words settle, then smiled softly. “But,” she added, “there are some things I don’t want to change.”
She shifted on the couch, moving onto all fours, the blanket slipping off her shoulders and pooling at her knees as she inched toward me. She settled in close, sitting back on her heels so we were nearly touching.