Of Love & Regret (12 page)

Chapter Ten

I was jarred out
of sleep by the ringing of my cell phone. My eyes were puffy and swollen from
crying all night, and I could barely make out Emily’s name flashing across the
screen of my phone. I was tempted to ignore her. I had missed her numerous
calls and texts yesterday while I had been asleep, before Logan had barged in.
She had been trying to warn me that she had bumped into him and mentioned
Adam’s proposal because she hadn’t been aware that he didn’t know about it. After
Logan left my apartment, I had sent her a quick text saying that everything was
fine because I was too distraught to talk to anyone. I had also told her I
would call her Saturday afternoon. Apparently, she didn’t fully believe me
since she was calling me at eight-thirty in the morning.

I reluctantly
decided to answer her call, knowing that she would probably be relentless until
she got a hold of me.

“Well?” she asked
before I even got the chance to say hello. “What happened? You should have seen
Logan’s face when I told him about Adam asking you to marry him. He practically
ran out of the restaurant before I was even finished with my sentence. Did he storm
over to your place and profess his undying love to you?”

“Emily, I’m still
half-asleep. I can’t process you talking so fast in the morning.” I tried to
sound as normal as possible, but she picked up on the quaver in my voice.

“What’s wrong?”
she asked, all her gleeful enthusiasm vanishing. “You sound horrible. Are you
hung over again?”

I wished it were
something as simple as that. I had been a mess last night. After Logan left, I
had crumpled to the floor, unable to control my crying. Hours had passed before
I mustered enough energy to drag myself to bed, only to cry even more. I didn’t
think I could face anyone today, including Emily.

“I’m just feeling
a little under the weather. Can I take a rain check on lunch? I think I’m just
going to stay in today and try to sleep it off.”

“Something’s
wrong,” she insisted. “I can hear it in your voice.”

“I’m fine,” I said,
cursing the unsteadiness of my voice. “I just need to rest before I get
full-blown sick.”

“Are you telling
me the truth? If you’re not, I’m going to be pissed,” she warned.

“I promise, I’m
fine,” I said, trying to control my emotions that were threatening to overwhelm
me. Everything was far from fine. My life was in shambles, and the thought of
trying to function like a normal human being today seemed impossible.
Remembering the look on Logan’s face when I had told him to leave was too much
for me to handle, and I began to cry. I struggled to keep silent, but the force
of my emotions was too much and my breathing hitched.

“Wait, are you
crying?” Emily’s voice sounded alarmed. “You
are
crying! What’s wrong?”

“I’m just feeling
sick,” I lied, upset with myself that I couldn’t control the sobs that were now
fully evident. “I just need to sleep.”

“Fine, don’t tell
me the truth. You’ll just have to deal with me coming over.”

“Emily, wait!” I
panicked, not wanting her to see me like this. She would know something was
seriously wrong by taking just one look at me, and I didn’t know if I could
face her with the truth. “Maybe I can meet you for lunch after all. Let me see
how I feel as the day goes on.”

“Madison, stop
lying. I can tell something’s wrong. Really wrong. I’ll be there in half an
hour.”

“Don’t you have to
work today?” I asked in one last desperate attempt to keep her from coming
over.

“I can go in late.
See you soon.”

She hung up before
I could protest anymore. I put down my phone and wiped my tears away. What
would I say to her when she came over? Could I tell her the truth? I had never
told her that I had known Logan before Chicago, let alone about what had
happened between us that had led to Cassie’s death. I had been too ashamed to
tell Emily the truth about myself. That I was far from being a good person.

I forced myself to
get out of bed and pulled on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt. My face was a
puffy, blotchy mess and I attempted to lessen my swollen appearance by throwing
cold water on my face several times, but it was in vain.

By the time Emily
arrived and I buzzed her up, I had decided to tell her the whole truth. There
was no point in hiding the past anymore. I deserved to be judged for my past
misdeeds.

Emily winced when
she saw me, but the fact that she didn’t make a joke about my appearance told
me how worried she was. She pulled out a bottle of wine from the bag on her
shoulder.

“I thought we
would need this.”

“It’s nine o’clock
in the morning!” Despite my misery, I couldn’t help being faintly amused by her
antics.

Emily shrugged.
“So what? I’d make some plebian joke about how it’s after five o’clock
somewhere in the world, but I don’t need a damn excuse to drink if I want to.”

She shooed me away
when I offered to open the bottle, and disappeared into the kitchen. Moments
later, she reappeared with two glasses of wine, handing me one as she sat down
next to me on the couch.

Despite my previous
protestation, I took a healthy swig of my wine. I would try anything to make
myself feel better.

“Well?” Emily
asked impatiently as she studied me. “Are you going to tell me why you look
like you’ve been sobbing your eyes out all night?”

I sighed deeply,
wondering where to start. I figured the beginning was the best place as any.

“I haven’t been
completely truthful about my relationship with Logan.”

“I knew it! You
guys have been seeing each other behind Adam’s back, haven’t you?”

I frowned at her
conclusion, although I wasn’t sure if I could deny it as emphatically as I
wanted to. “Not really.” I took a deep breath before continuing. “Do you mind
not asking any questions until I’m done telling you everything? This is going
to be hard enough as it is.”

“Go ahead. My
mouth is sealed.” Emily made a motion as if she were zipping her lips together.

I hesitated,
hoping that what I was about to reveal wouldn’t irrevocably change our
friendship, and then let the floodgates open.

“I’ve known Logan
longer than I’ve let on. We actually went to the University of Michigan
together. He was Cassie’s boyfriend back then.”

Emily’s eyes
widened, but she kept her word and didn’t speak. I stared down at my glass of
wine as I continued.

“I actually met him
before she did. It was the beginning of our junior year, and he accidentally
bumped into me at the school bookstore. He made me drop my books, so he picked
them up for me. That’s about all there was to our first encounter.”

I paused as
memories of the past rushed through me. “The night he came to our dorm room to
pick up Cassie for their first date, I was surprised that it was the same guy, but
it was no big deal. Their relationship developed pretty fast, and I was happy
for Cassie. Logan was the first serious boyfriend she ever had, and I thought
really highly of him.” I attempted a half-hearted smile. “I mean, what isn’t
there to like about him? He’s good-looking, smart, funny, chivalrous… all the
things that girls fall in love with.”

Emily was watching
me with rapt attention, and I forced myself to continue. “It wasn’t until a few
months into their relationship that Logan and I started spending time together
without Cassie. She was a drama major and was involved in the school’s production
of
A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Logan
spent a lot of time in our dorm room waiting for her to come home after rehearsals,
so inevitably we started hanging out. It seemed natural to spend so much time
together, and Cassie seemed happy that we got along so well.”

My hands twisted
together in my lap as I told the story. There was no judgment on Emily’s face
yet, but I knew it would come. “I swear it started out innocently. Weeks became
months as Cassie finished with one play and moved on to another. Nothing
happened between Logan and I all those times we hung out. We just became really
good friends, and I found myself becoming closer and closer to him. I guess it
was to be expected, since we were spending so much time together.” I bit my
lip, telling myself I needed to be completely honest. “I won’t lie and say I
wasn’t developing feelings for him. I knew I was, but I thought it didn’t
matter because I never for one second believed he reciprocated those feelings.
It just felt like a harmless one-sided crush, and I thought it would pass with
time.”

I remembered the
first stirrings of desire vividly. I had been taken off guard by the intensity
of my feelings for Logan. It had hit me one afternoon while he was laughing at
some scathing comment I had made about the immaturity of college boys. I
remembered watching him throw his head back and hearing the deep timbre of his
laugh as his blue eyes glowed in amusement. I remembered wanting to grab him in
that moment and pull his head towards mine, to lose myself in a kiss.

I had been shocked
by the desire that had come out of nowhere. It made me deeply uncomfortable and
I felt as though I was betraying Cassie, even though it was only by thought. I
had avoided spending time with Logan for the next couple of weeks, but the pull
of his company had been irresistible. I told myself as long as I didn’t act on
it, there was nothing wrong with my feelings. And I was sure I would never act
on them.

I had stopped
talking, lost in my thoughts, and Emily raised her eyebrows impatiently, obviously
wanting me to hurry up and continue. I swallowed audibly before speaking again.

“Then one day, it
happened. We were in our dorm room, waiting for Cassie to come home from
rehearsals. I didn’t question why Logan had come over hours before Cassie would
be home. He had gradually started coming over earlier and earlier as the months
passed, and I just figured he didn’t have anything better to do.”

I took a deep
breath before taking the plunge. “We were watching TV. I was sitting on my bed,
and Logan was on the floor. I asked him to hand me a soda from our mini-fridge,
and when I leaned over to grab it from him, somehow we ended up kissing.”

It had been so
much more than that. I remembered the look on Logan’s face when my hair had
accidentally brushed his cheek as I leaned over the edge of the bed to grab the
soda from him. Suddenly, there had been a palpable tension in the room that I
didn’t understand. I had just stared at him when he reached up to tuck my hair
behind my ear. I would never forget the feeling of the rough pads of his fingertips
as he caressed my cheek or his hand sliding down to the base of my head, urging
me closer.

All thought had
fled my mind the first moment our lips touched. In that instant, nothing
existed except me and Logan. Not even Cassie.

Our gentle
exploration had quickly deepened to an intensity that had taken my breath away.
This was far from my first kiss, but it was the first kiss that had awakened
something buried deep inside me.

Only the scream
from the cheesy horror movie we had been watching jolted me back into reality.
I felt my own horror when I realized what we had done.

“Then what?” Emily
asked, no longer able to remain silent. “Don’t leave me hanging!”

“We realized we
had made a terrible mistake. We both fell over ourselves apologizing, and Logan
left. It was awkward for the next few weeks, and we avoided each other as much
as possible.” I dropped my head as I recalled how awful I had felt during that
time. My voice was low when I spoke again. “But a door had been opened that
seemed impossible to shut. I couldn’t stop thinking about him. If I wasn’t
thinking about him during the day, I was dreaming about him at night. But I was
determined that nothing would ever happen between us again.”

I looked up,
forcing myself to face Emily as I continued. “But then one day Logan came to
our room. He knew Cassie wouldn’t be there because she was on an overnight trip
with her drama club to see a play in another town. I shouldn’t have let him
into my room, but I did.”

“Why are you here?” I asked after I shut the
door behind him. I wasn’t sure if letting him inside was the right decision,
but I definitely didn’t want anyone in the hallway to see us talking. My guilty
conscience made me believe that anything we did was suspicious, even having a simple
conversation together.

I made my face impassive, determined to not
let him see how he affected me. “You know Cassie’s not here.”

“I need to talk to you.”

Logan had a determined look on his face,
and it made me nervous. I crossed my arms against my chest, trying to erect a
barrier between us. “About what?”

“About us.”

I laughed, but the sound was hollow. “There is
no us. We agreed that what happened between us was a mistake and we should
forget about it.”

The corners of Logan’s mouth turned down.
“Are you telling me that you’ve been able to forget about it? That you haven’t
been thinking about me at all?”

His question struck a nerve, because far
from being able to forget about what had happened between us, it was all I
could think about.

“This conversation is pointless.” I couldn’t
let myself be drawn into something that would lead to disaster. “You’re Cassie’s
boyfriend. I’m her best friend. The last thing I want to do is hurt her, and I
thought you felt the same way. You should leave.”

I made a move to reach around him to open
the door, but he gripped my arm to stop me. I froze, alarmed by how the simple touch
of his hand affected me.

“Maddie, tell me the truth. How do you feel
about me?”

I shook my head, unwilling to admit I was a
lovelorn fool who had spent hours and days pining after someone I could never have.
Because I could never have Logan. He was Cassie’s.