It wasn’t like Logan to not call if he was going to be late. I pushed the door open and stood outside. Time passed slowly as I gazed around. At the sidewalk that was wet from the rainstorm that had just passed. At the spring leaves that blew in the cool breeze and stuck to the ground. At the birds singing in the sky.
When the streetlights switched on to illuminate the impending dusk, I glanced at the time again.
Six forty.
A dark and terrible thought pushed to the front of my mind as I pressed end on the call I’d just made. It was something my mother had always said, and it had been in my mind ever since Killian’s death.
Things come in threes.
Was this the third?
One last time I tried to call him, but Logan’s phone was still going directly to voicemail. I left a short message: “Logan, it’s me. I’m going to go ahead and walk home. In case we miss each other, meet me there.”
I could call Peyton and ask her to come back and pick me up, but the walk to my townhouse was short and I hoped it would help unravel the unease I was feeling in the pit of my stomach. I refused to think the way my mind was headed. Logan and I had simply crossed wires. Miscommunicated. He was probably at my house waiting for me and hadn’t realized his phone had died.
Yet, deep within, I knew that wasn’t the case. He was always beside his phone. Always answered every single one of my calls.
Nonetheless, I pushed that aside until I couldn’t any longer.
As soon as I turned the corner onto my street, I noticed the Porsche was gone. Picking up the pace, I started to run down the street. I felt like it was Charlie all over again. Charlie was my first love. The only person I had said “I love you” to besides Logan. At the time I was young and na?ve, and I mistakenly thought love conquered all.
I learned the hard way—that couldn’t be farther from the truth.
Charlie and I were inseparable.
We were such a perfect pair with such similar interests.
We’d been living together for a while when one day, he came home and announced, “My family is coming to visit.”
I was shocked. “When?”
“Next month. They’re going to adore you, love.”
Nervousness was the only thing I felt for the next week. When I came home from work one night, out of the blue, he started talking about marriage.
Marriage? Was this because of his family coming?
I felt sick. I couldn’t discuss marriage until he knew everything about me. “Charlie,” I interrupted as he was going on about how perfect we were for each other.
“Yes, love,” he said.
“I have something to tell you.”
Right then and there, with no preparation at all, I was forced to tell him I was unable to have children.
Charlie did his best to accept that hard truth but as the weeks passed leading to his family’s arrival, I could tell he wasn’t doing well processing the information. He was from a large family and I had come to learn he, too, wanted a large family.
All talk of marriage had ceased and he began to pull away from me. More time passed and we were no longer inseparable. I had thought about ending things before he eventually did, but I just couldn’t. I didn’t want to be alone, so I held on to hope. Hope that I shouldn’t have had.
Three days before his family was to arrive, I had to go out of town. It was a Wednesday and I had to travel from Paris to Monaco. The back-to-back meetings and seven-hour commute had me returning just in time to meet them on Saturday. But by some stroke of luck, on Friday morning I had finished my work and decided to hop on an earlier train.
Feeling stressed about our relationship, I knew Charlie and I needed to spend some time together and just talk before his family arrived, so I stopped at the store and bought what I needed to make a nice dinner. My arms were loaded with bags when I burst open the door to our flat and found it practically empty. Everything that Charlie had brought into our relationship was gone, and so was he. He’d left a note on the counter that said, I’m sorry. I just can’t.
Approaching my townhouse, it felt like déjà vu as I reached my door and swung it open. “Logan!” I yelled.
There was no answer.
I knew there wouldn’t be. The Rover wasn’t parked out front and the Porsche was gone. Still, who knew? Maybe something had changed.
Hopeful, I hurried up the stairs and into my room. “Logan,” I said hoarsely.
There was no answer.
That’s when I knew there wasn’t ever going to be one. His things that had been scattered around the room for weeks were gone. I’d told him the truth about myself and like Charlie, he couldn’t handle it and had packed up and left.
“Logan,” I whispered, and crumpled to my knees.
No tears fell, though. Somewhere in the back of my mind I knew this was how things would end for us. There was no other way. Love really never would conquer all.
My father hadn’t talked much about the future with me, but he had told me I’d end up alone. Taking charge of my own life, I’d set that course all by myself, but then with Logan, things had changed and I thought maybe my father had been wrong. In that regard, he wasn’t.
That horrid memory started to materialize.