Even if I wanted to embrace a relationship with Logan, it couldn’t happen anymore anyway. I was here. He was halfway across the country. If I went to him, I was turning my back on my family permanently. On the me I was supposed to be.
“Logan and I aren’t you and Reece.”
“You sure about that? You might be more like us than you think. How does it feel? Knowing you might stay forever in Muskogee while he goes off to college? The next time you see him down the road a few years, maybe at my wedding . . . if your mother lets you attend, that is.”
Her words hit their mark with all the accuracy of a well-aimed arrow. I flinched.
“Of course, he’ll probably be seeing someone by then,” she added. “He’ll have a date with him. Probably a girlfriend.”
“Stop. Stop it.”
“It hurts, right?”
I nodded, pressing my fingers to my mouth, holding the tears inside.
“Well, it wouldn’t hurt if there wasn’t something there. If you didn’t love him.”
I nodded, but didn’t let a sound escape. I didn’t dare. Not for her to hear.
“Georgia,” she pleaded softly. “I almost lost Reece . . . and myself. Don’t let that happen to you. Your home is here. Come back. It will all work out if you just come home. I’ll help you figure it out. We all will. That’s what friends do.”
I inhaled, closing my eyes tightly. “I have to go.”
Her answering sigh rippled through me. “Good-bye, Georgia.”
I hung up the phone and clutched it in my hand for a few moments before flipping to my photos. There was a group shot in there at Mulvaney’s taken a few months ago. Pepper, Reece, Emerson, Shaw, Suzanne. Even Annie was in there, tagging along with the group—whether we wanted her or not. I laughed, the watery sound filling the silence of my room.
And Logan. He was there, too. Coincidentally, he was next to me, his strong arm draped over my shoulders for the picture. My chest clenched. Not coincidental. I knew that now. There had been something even then, drawing us together before either one of us realized it. Or at least before I did.
I zoomed in on his face and let the ache in my chest intensify as I studied his strong features. The deeply set eyes and the square jaw. The golden-brown shadow of a beard growing in. The brilliant blue of his eyes seemed to stare directly into my heart.
I curled into a tight ball as dusk slid into night, tapping the screen of my phone every minute or so, stopping Logan’s face from going dark.
I don’t know how long I did this. Half an hour? An hour? Staring at his face, sodden in my longing and misery, a breath shuddered past my lips. I flipped to my contacts, to Logan’s name, and started texting before I lost my courage. I started several messages, deleting them all before settling on one.
Me: I’m sorry
At the very least he was due an apology. I went back to the photo of us, not expecting an immediate reply. Not after our last exchange at the police precinct when I had let us both down. When his message popped up, my heart tripped a little, feeling suddenly connected to him through this tenuous thread of dialogue. Even if he was halfway across the country.
Logan: What for?
Me: Everything
I wish I could take back the words I had said. I wish I had been more honest with him . . . with myself. I’d still be stuck in Muskogee, but there wouldn’t be the foul taste in my mouth whenever I thought of my last sight of him.
Logan: Where r u?
Me: Still at home. Alabama.
I’m sure he’d been apprised of my change in location by Pepper and Reece. For a moment, it appeared he was typing, and then nothing. I was reminded of his resolve that night in the police precinct. He was finished waiting on me. Inhaling a watery breath, I typed again.
Me: I wish I could do things over . . .
He didn’t reply. I stared at the screen for a few moments, resigning myself to the fact that he wouldn’t. Those words were enough. As much as I could offer. I wouldn’t tell him that I loved him. That wouldn’t be fair. Not with me stuck here and him there. He had moved on, and I was taking his advice and growing up.
The most adult thing I could do was let him go.
Chapter 22
GEORGIA! CAN YOU COME down here?”
I left my room and descended the stairs, assuming Mom wanted help with dinner.
When I stepped in the living room I noticed my sister’s face first. Jeremy was with her. They’d been watching a movie, but the big screen was frozen on pause. Pity gleamed in her green eyes, which I didn’t quite understand until my gaze shifted and collided with Harris.
For a moment, it felt like déjà vu with Harris standing in my living room, Mom beaming beside him, Dad sitting on the couch with an absent expression on his face as he read the latest Clive Cussler novel.
I opened my mouth, but words wouldn’t come. They were there, trapped in my head but couldn’t get past my lips. What are you doing here? Go away. Go away. Go away.
“Hi, Georgia.” He stepped forward and touched my elbow as he leaned in to kiss my cheek. My skin shivered. “Good to see you. You look great.”
I didn’t look great. I hadn’t washed my hair in two days and I had pulled it tight in a slick ponytail to try to hide the fact. As for the rest of me. I wore yoga pants and a Dartford T-shirt. Yes, the former me was making a silent protest.
“Isn’t it nice Harris decided to drop by? He’s home for a visit.” Mom stared at me with wide, almost pleading eyes, willing me to say something nice.
“Hello.”
There. That was civil.
Awkward silence filled the air. Mom jerked her head toward Harris, looking at me meaningfully, trying to convey only God knew what she wanted me to do.
Suddenly she clapped her hands together. “Well, it’s almost dinnertime and we haven’t made any plans yet.”
Um. Liar much? Any fool could smell the roast that was cooking in the oven.
“Oh.” Harris glanced between me and my mother, reading her unsubtle maneuvering. “Maybe we could all go grab something to eat?”
Mom waved a hand. “Oh, no! I’m not dressed to go out.” And I was? “You two kids should go to dinner.”
I glared at her. Was she really doing this? It wasn’t going to work. The ploy might have worked in The Parent Trap, but forcing me alone with Harris wasn’t going to get us back together.
Maybe I needed to let him know that. No matter what our mothers plotted, I wasn’t interested in reconciling. For all I knew, neither was he and he was only here because his mom had pressured him. I knew something about pressuring mothers, after all.