Page 107 of Hypothetical Heart
“You’ve never been one to say things you don’t mean, Logan. If you want me to make it easy for you, then I will. We’re nothing.”
“Winnie.” he grabs both my shoulders. “Listen to me for a minute!”
“Why?” I shout back. “So you can reaffirm that my feelings for you are different from yours for me?”
“That has never been the case, and you know it!”
“Maybe I don’t, Logan!” I hear movement downstairs, and for a moment, I’m scared someone is going to come up here, but the sound stops, and Logan and I go silent.
Neither of us says anything for a while. He hurt me, and now I can see I'm hurting him too. There's no guide for what to do when someone so good causes you pain, and you know you've hurt them as well.
“I’m not going to beg you to want me,” I finally say, letting out a long breath. “I never have, and I never will. That’s your choice to make.”
“It’s the one I have made,” his voice breaks, and I feel like I’m breaking his heart. God. “Over and over again, I’ve made that choice, and I’ll continue to do so for as long as you let me.”
His words play through my head on a loop, like they’re fighting for room to reside within my brain forever.
At this moment, after all the time I’ve spent wishing for Logan to say the words he just said, I can’t get myself to care for whether he’s placating me, and I’m simply falling for it.
Because if there’s one thing I know about Logan Callaghan, it’s that I’ll fall for him every time. Over and over.
“Okay,” I say.
“Okay?”
“I believe you. What you said last night was a mistake, and it didn’t come out entirely how you intended it to.”
“It was a mistake, Win,” he tells me, sincerity dripping from him. “I may always say what I mean, but I don’t always mean what I say.”
I should have known this from the moment the words left his mouth. Logan may not hold his tongue very often, but that doesn’t mean everything he says is always perceived how he wants it to be.
“Yeah.” I lean into him, the strength of his large frame steadying me. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have freaked out the way I did.”
“It’s not your fault,” he assures me, squeezing my hands as he pulls me closer. “I’m sorry for what I said. I didn’t intend to give you the impression that I thought we were nothing. I was only trying not to make it obvious that all of their assumptions were correct.”
We both know this doesn’t mean we’re together now because it doesn’t feel right to solidify our relationship directly after one of the biggest fights we’ve had in a while. But it stands as further confirmation that it’s what we both want.
“Well, I think they might have a hint now.” I laugh as he drags me into his embrace. “They did watch me storm off because you rejected me.”
“Who gives a fuck? They’ll get over it.” It’s not like we’re even together, anyway. They have nothing to suspect. “And I did not reject you.”
I laugh, and my head drops on his shoulder, and his hands wrap around my waist. It’s the type of comfort I look for in moments of uncertainty, where I feel like I’m teetering on the edge and need something to pull me upright again.
“It kind of seems like they’re on board.”
“They’re our friends, Win. Of course they’re on board.” I can only imagine the looks on Genevieve and Eloise’s faces when they find out.
“Let’s go downstairs. Everyone’s probably waiting for us.”
Staring at the ceiling of my bedroom in the beach house, my brain rattles while it debates what to do about the current predicament.
For as long as I’ve known her, Winnie and I have been beating around the bush of feelings that we have for each other, both of us too scared to progress any further than friends.
My issue has always been the idea that if anything ever happened between us romantically, there’s a good chance that if something went wrong, our friendship would never recover.
Winnie’s fear, however, is the idea of forever. I admit, it is terrifying to think something could happen to either of us, and we would lose both our best friend and the person we’re going to spend the rest of our lives with.
But whenever I think about Winnie and I, there is only one word to sum up everything I feel for her.
