Page 100 of Meet Me in the Valley
No words spoken, just a powerful wordless exchange between two best friends who are trying to find their way back to each other.
My eyes sting, lips pressing into a thin line as I fight the smile begging to break free. Then he reveals what he’s been hiding behind his back—something simple, something sohim—and for the first time in weeks, I give him my real smile.
The one that’s his.
All teeth, squinty eyes, and my unbidden laughter reviving from deep inside a place I thought had gone quiet.
Logan holds up a teddy bear wearing a Viva Las Vegas t-shirt in one hand, and a white flag in the other that says,“I’m sorry for being a piece of shit.”
“Truce?”
I hold his gaze for a moment, then give a slight nod and step aside, opening the door a little wider.
A truce.
As he walks past me, our shoulders barely brush, but it’s enough. His scent hits me instantly. Clean skin and that familiar musky cologne clinging to his neck like a deep-seated memory. I breathe him in without meaning to, greedy for something I didn’t realize I’d missed so much.
He places the things he got me on the kitchen island, surveying my box-filled living room with a nostalgic expression—eyes soft, small tilt of his lips, shoulders loose.
“You pack all of this yourself?”
“Mostly. I donated more than what I’ll be bringing.”
“It’s a good thing we weren’t on speaking terms while you were packing. Got myself out of helping you,” he teases, winking at me from across the living room.
When my eyes roll, it’s like my psyche resets itself. Little by little, we’re coming back to Tia and Logan. T and Lo.
Settling himself on my couch, he pats the space next to him. I grab the little teddy bear he got me and sit down. Our thighs are so close, but I don’t let us touch. The truce on my doorstep felt like a step in the right direction.
But there’s still a lot of hurt surging between us. We’re not naïve enough to ignore that what we allowed ourselves to do changed us irrevocably. We knew erasing the line that kept us safe meant taking a risk that we had no way of coming back from.
“You’re really leaving,” Logan says quietly.
He looks around like he’s trying to absorb the weight of it. We won’t be a short drive away. We won’t be working in the same place.
I hug the bear tight to my chest, fighting tears and struggling to keep them at bay as Logan’s eyes mist over. He carefully strokes the hair framing my face, and I automatically lean into his touch.
“I have to.”
Since getting back from Vegas, my dad’s told me that Mom’s had more bad days than good. I can hear the exhaustion in his voice every time we talk, though he tries to stay strong—for me. So I don’t feel like I have to carry the weight of the world.
But I already do.
Radio silence from Nora only adds to it. I worry about her constantly, wishing she’d just open up. But maybe, after twelve years apart, it’s time I admit the truth. We’re more strangers now than sisters.
Especially after the way she screamed at me to get out of her house. Those words still echo at night, keeping me awake, among all the other things in my life that have me twisted.
I wonder if Logan notices the dark circles under my eyes, the way I notice his.
He’s still as devastatingly handsome as ever, but I see it—the redness in his eyes, the tension in his jaw. It doesn’t comfort me to know he’s hurting, too. If anything, it makes me sadder.
“No, I know. It’s good, T. Selfless.” Logan offers me a barely there smile, the kind he wants to give but doesn’t quite let surface. Like he’s holding it back to protect himself.
“You gonna be okay without me here to make sure you’re actually cleaning and eating real food instead of living off cereal?” I nudge him with my shoulder, trying to lift the mood just a little—trying to make this moment feel less heavy than it is.
Logan lets out a hollow laugh, barely more than a breath. He mutters something so quietly, shaking his head back and forth that I almost miss it.
“What was that?” I ask him, wishing he’d look at me.
