Of Love & Regret (20 page)

Once I realized
that it was going to be impossible to go back to sleep, I decided to get
rip-roaring drunk instead. I got out a half-empty bottle of vodka that I rarely
touched and decided I would spend the morning drowning myself in screwdrivers.

I was in the
middle of making my third drink when I heard a text come through my phone. I
quickly picked it up, sloshing some of the orange juice and mostly vodka
mixture out of my glass in the process. I shouldn’t have been expecting to hear
from Logan after last night but that didn’t stop my heart from twisting in
disappointment when I saw that it was from Emily.

What happened? Is everything okay between
you two now?

I had told her
yesterday about my intentions to try to fix things with Logan. I dreaded having
to tell her how horribly it had gone.

No, it’s over between us. For good this
time.

My phone rang
seconds after I pressed the send button on my text. I didn’t want to answer it
because talking about it would make it too real, but I knew Emily would be
relentless if I didn’t pick up.

“Hey,” I said
lamely before taking a big gulp of my drink.

“What happened?”
she asked, sounding concerned. “I texted instead of calling because I thought
you two would still be in bed from all the make-up sex you had.”

I laughed bitterly
at her words. If only that were true.

“I’m sure Logan
had plenty of sex last night, but it wasn’t with me.”

“Wait, what?”

Emily was
practically screeching and I took a deep breath before unloading the whole
story on her. Her shock at the outcome of things was evident in her silence
while I told her everything.

“You’ve got to be
shitting me!” she exclaimed when I was done. “Are you sure you’re not just
delusional and you dreamed all of that up?”

“I wish,” I said
glumly. “I have to face the fact that Logan and I are over. The worst part is,
I feel like I never knew who he really was. I never thought, in a million
years, that he’d treat me like such crap. I understand him being angry, but I
never thought he could be so cruel.”

“I’m sorry,
Madison,” she said, her voice full of sympathy. “This totally sucks. I can’t
believe it. I wish I could come over so we could spend the day eating ice cream
and drinking large amounts of alcohol, but I have a crazy day at work.”

“It’s okay, I’ll
be fine. I’d rather be alone, anyways. I’m miserable company right now.” As
much as I appreciated Emily’s concern, I didn’t want to deal with anyone today.

“I’ll come over
after work,” she insisted. “I’ll pick up some dinner on the way.”

We argued for a
few minutes, but in the end she acquiesced, although she made me promise to
call her if I changed my mind. I was relieved when I was finally able to end
the call. All I wanted was the silence of my apartment and the bottle of vodka
at my side.

I was completely
sloshed by the time the afternoon rolled around, and I ended up passing out on
the couch. When I woke up, groggy and feeling like I had cotton balls in my
mouth, I had no idea how long I had been asleep, but I was surprised that it
was already getting dark outside. I got up and staggered to the kitchen,
downing multiple glasses of water.

I was bleary-eyed
as I looked at the clock on top of the stove. I had been asleep for hours; it
was almost eight o’clock. My head throbbed, and I felt half-drunk and half-hung
over. The worst combination ever.

I opened the
fridge, thinking that I should get some food in my stomach, but I closed it
without taking anything out. The thought of eating made my stomach roil in
protest.

I groaned when my
phone rang; the sound of it was painful to my aching head. I picked it up and
answered it without checking to see who it was to stop the torturous sound as
quickly as possible.

“Hello?” I said
grumpily, resenting whoever it was that had made my phone make that piercing
noise. My irritation deepened when all I heard was silence. “Hello?” I repeated
crossly.

I took the phone
away from my ear to check the screen. It was a blocked number, and I frowned as
my mind immediately went to Adam. I wondered if he was trying to play games
with me. I put the phone back to my ear.

“Is this you,
Adam?” I said angrily, in no mood to deal with his antics. Instead of a
response, I heard the click of the call disconnecting. A thought flitted
through my mind. Could it have been Logan? But why would he call me from a
blocked number? And why would he say nothing?

I almost shook my
head at that ridiculous notion, but the pounding headache stopped me. Logan had
shown me last night that he wanted nothing more to do with me. Everything
between us, our friendship and our romantic relationship, was over. I didn’t
expect him to contact me again. I expected him to drop out of my life.

And I was right.

Chapter Fifteen

I sighed in
satisfaction as I pressed send on the email with my column attached to my boss.
It had been a long week, and I was happy to have work out of the way. It was
late Friday afternoon, and I was excited for the weekend to start. Emily and I
were going to the Indiana Dunes, a stretch of beach on Lake Michigan’s shoreline,
for some much deserved rest and relaxation. We were going to spend our days
swimming, biking, and eating way too much food.

I was already
packed, and I had about an hour to waste before Emily was supposed to pick me
up in the rental car. I turned on the TV and flicked through the channels,
trying to find something that would hold my attention. I paused at the classic
movie channel that was showing
Rear
Window.
There was a dull ache in my chest as I watched a scene between
James Stewart and Grace Kelly. It was a reminder of who I had last watched the
movie with, even if it had just been over the phone.

I quickly changed
the channel, banishing the thought. I finally settled on the news since there
was nothing else on. A few minutes later, my cell phone rang and I saw that it
was Emily calling.

“Hey!” I said
enthusiastically. “Are you almost done with work?”

“Even better. I
got out earlier than I thought I would, so I’m on my way over now. I should be
there in about five minutes. Are you ready?”

“Yup. I’ll be
outside waiting for you. See you soon!”

I grabbed my
suitcase and my sunglasses, and locked the apartment door behind me. I wrestled
my suitcase down the long flights of stairs, and opened the door to the balmy
summer heat. It was early June, and it was sticky hot and humid. I put my
sunglasses on and sat down on the front steps to wait for Emily.

I didn’t have to
wait long before she pulled up in front of my apartment building and double-parked.
I waved as I grabbed my suitcase and quickly ran down the steps. After I had
stowed my suitcase in the trunk, I opened the passenger side door and climbed
in, grateful for the blast of air conditioning that hit me.

“This heat is
killing me,” I complained as she pulled back out onto the road. “I’m sweating
so much that I look like a drowned rat.”

“Pretty soon we’ll
be lounging on the beach by the water,” Emily said. “Plus, I’m sure we’ll have plenty
of eye candy in the form of hot guys wearing barely any clothes.”

I laughed at the
eager look on her face. “I can get on board with that. I’m so glad you were
able to get away this weekend.”

“You’re telling
me! I’m getting pretty sick of my job. Sylvia doesn’t seem to realize that I
have a life outside of work.”

Although I knew
Emily appreciated that her boss trusted her enough to depend on her so heavily,
it put a serious cramp in her personal life. It had gotten even worse recently,
since Sylvia’s interior design business had expanded.

“That sucks,” I
said in commiseration. “Would you ever think about leaving?”

Emily frowned as
she thought it over. “No, I’m just hoping to stick it out until I get a
promotion. I need her to stop thinking of me only as her assistant and give me the
chance to do some designs on my own.” She sighed heavily. “Let’s forget about
work for the weekend. For the next two days, work doesn’t exist!”

Emily and I spent
the rest of the drive chatting about nothing important, from TV shows to
Hollywood gossip. The further we got from Chicago, the more relaxed I felt and
the tension in my body dissipated. The hour drive went by quickly, and soon we
were pulling up to our hotel.

The hotel was
small and quaint, and we were quickly checked in. Emily and I dropped off our
suitcases in our room and decided to have dinner at an Italian restaurant that
was within walking distance of our hotel.

We had a relaxing
night filled with delicious food and multiple bottles of wine. Afterwards, we
decided to continue our little party of two and bought a bottle of wine to
drink by the pool back at the hotel.

We giggled like high-schoolers
as we snuck past the gate and settled into a couple of lounge chairs. Despite
being closed, the lights in the pool were still on, providing us with some
illumination.

“I feel like we’re
kids sneaking alcohol from our parents,” Emily said as she passed me a plastic
cup filled with wine. I could tell she was as buzzed as I was and I lay back in
my lounge chair with a satisfied sigh. Brilliant stars twinkled in the night
sky, and even though we were only an hour away from Chicago, it felt like we
were a world away.

“I remember one
time when Cassie stole a bottle of rum from her parents,” I reminisced, staring
up at the night sky. “We made rum and Cokes, although you could hardly call it
that since we barely put any rum in them. Still, four drinks later, we were
drunk off our asses. We ended up eating everything in her kitchen and then
proceeded to puke it all out.”

Cassie’s mother
had found us laid out on the living room couch moaning about how we were dying.
She had been furious, but I had begged her not to tell my father. He was
stressed enough about work, and the last thing I wanted was to give him something
else to worry about. After swearing up and down that I would never do anything
so stupid again, Mrs. Brooks had kept it from him, and had told me she trusted
me to not make the same mistake again. I had taken my promise seriously and it
wasn’t until college that I drank again.

“To this day, I
still can’t drink rum and Cokes because they make me nauseous.”

“I’m glad you’re
able to talk about Cassie,” Emily said gently. “You never used to bring her up
but now I get to hear about the good memories with her.”

“I realized that
by holding onto her death and how she died, I was blotting out all the good
things I wanted to remember about her. It wasn’t fair to her. She deserves to
be remembered as the person she was when she was alive, not for how she chose
to end her life.”

Emily took a long
sip of her drink before responding in a hesitant tone. “Do you ever think about
Logan?”

The mention of his
name made me slam a mental door on my emotions. The only way I knew how to cope
with the loss of Logan was to try to forget about him, although I knew deep
down it was impossible. It had been a little over a year since he disappeared
from my life, and there had been no contact since then. I never mentioned him,
and Emily followed suit because she knew how painful our breakup had been. I
was surprised she was mentioning him now, and I attributed it to the copious
amounts of alcohol we had imbibed. It’s also what made me answer honestly.

“I try not to, but
so many things remind me of him,” I confessed quietly. “You’d think by now that
I’d be over him, but I still avoid things that make me think of him. I can’t go
to the aquarium anymore because I think about all the times I dragged him
there. I can’t even go to the Half Pitcher anymore to get some damn nachos
because it reminds me of Logan.” I gave Emily a rueful smile, trying not to
dampen the mood. “Maybe I just miss the idea of Logan.” My smile faltered
because I knew how false that was. I missed everything about him. I’d even just
take friendship with him again because the lack of his presence in my life had
left a gaping hole. It would be painful and hard not to have anything with him
beyond a friendship, but nothing could be harder than having him completely
absent from my life.

I shook my head at
my wandering thoughts. They were useless because I doubted I would ever see him
again.

Emily had been
silent during my ruminations and I glanced at her. She had a funny expression
on her face and I wondered if all the wine was getting to her.

“Are you okay?” I
asked, concerned. “Maybe you should stop drinking. You have a weird look on
your face like you’re going to be sick.”

She turned to fully
face me and took a deep breath. “I didn’t know whether I should tell you, but I’d
rather warn you than take the chance of you being caught off guard.”

I frowned at her,
confused. “What are you talking about?”

“Logan is back in
town.”

My stomach dropped
at her words but I was silent as she explained.

“Sylvia got
commissioned to redo the offices of Walker & Parkson. At first, I didn’t
know why the name sounded so familiar, but then I realized it’s the law firm
that Logan works for. I didn’t think much of it, since I assumed he was still
at the L.A. office. But I saw him this past week when Sylvia and I went in for
a meeting.”

My emotions were
in turmoil, but I tried to pretend like it wasn’t a big deal. “That doesn’t
mean he’s back in Chicago for good. He could have just been there for a
meeting.”

Emily bit her lip
and watched me closely as she spoke. “I talked to him. I was just so surprised
to see him, and I couldn’t really avoid him since he saw me, too. He told me
that he’s just moved back to Chicago because the senior partners want him to
help restructure the firm’s organization here. They like the changes he made to
the Los Angeles branch, and I guess he was pretty successful in growing that
office.”

For a moment, I
couldn’t process everything Emily was telling me. Even though I had desperately
missed Logan, there was a cold comfort in knowing he was in L.A. I never had to
worry about bumping into him. But now he was back in Chicago. What would I do
if I saw him? What would I say?

I gave myself a
mental shake. The chances of me bumping into Logan were few and far between.
Even if I did, I doubted he would even acknowledge my presence. Life without
Logan would continue, regardless of whether he was in Los Angeles or Chicago.

“Did I do the
right thing by telling you?” Emily asked anxiously when I didn’t say anything.
“I thought it was better that you know.”

I tried to smile
to reassure her. “I appreciate you telling me. It’s better that I know, but it
really makes no difference whether he’s here or in L.A. I doubt I’ll ever see
him, but if I ever do happen to run into him, at least I won’t be taken totally
off guard.”

Despite my
nonchalant tone, I desperately wanted to ask her if Logan had asked about me
but I forced myself not to. She would have mentioned it if he had, and there
was no point in looking pathetic in front of her. I drained my cup in one gulp.

“I’m beat. Let’s
go to bed so we’re refreshed for tomorrow.”

Emily agreed, but
I was aware of her still watching me, probably to make sure I was okay. After
the shock of the news of Logan being back in Chicago wore off, I was able to convince
myself of my earlier words. Nothing had changed between us. He might as well be
in China, because the distance between us was so much more than physical.
Still, it was a while before I fell sleep that night.

The next day, we
woke up to a beautiful morning, and I was able to push back the thoughts of
Logan to enjoy it. I refused to let it ruin my weekend getaway, and I especially
didn’t want Emily to regret telling me.

After a hearty
breakfast, we rented a couple of bikes and navigated a bike trail that
eventually led us to the beach. It was a perfect, blissful day as we lazed on
the sand, but I couldn’t totally relax. I knew it was idiotic of me, but I
couldn’t stop thinking about Logan. Most of me fervently wished that I would
never see him again, but a tiny part of me was desperate to bump into him. I
came to the conclusion that I must be a masochist, and for the hundredth time,
I lectured myself for thinking about him.

We went back to
the hotel and took a quick nap to recharge our batteries. Afterwards, we
changed into more formal attire and treated ourselves to dinner at a fancy,
upscale French restaurant. The food was delicious, and Emily and I kept the
conversation light, and I was almost able to forget about Logan. We ended the
night at an outdoor terrace back at our hotel, sipping glasses of wine while
gazing at the peaceful, starry sky.

I was reluctant to
leave when I woke up on Sunday morning. We spent a few more hours at the beach
and then finally packed up our things, checked out of the hotel, and got back
on the road.

“The weekend flew
by,” Emily remarked as she leaned back in her seat. Since she had driven to the
Indiana Dunes, I was making the drive back. “I still can’t get over how good
the food was last night.” She made a face. “Now it’s back to work and Sylvia
being on my back.”

I laughed at the
sour look on her face. “Just think
—
one
day, you’ll be the difficult boss who drives your assistant crazy.”

Emily’s face
brightened at my comment. “I can’t wait until that day comes!”

The drive home
went by quickly, and we parted ways with promises to meet up for lunch next
week. Alone, back in my apartment, it was harder to push the thoughts of Logan
out of my mind. A sick part of me was tempted to go downtown on the crazy, off chance
that I might run into him. I didn’t even know if he lived in the same area, let
alone the same apartment.

It was late by the
time I dropped into bed. My emotions had run the gamut from desolation to excitement,
and had finally settled on futile resignation. Logan being in town had changed
nothing in my life. It was still as empty and bleak as the day he had turned
his back on me.