Page 120 of Here We Go Again
“He’s someone who chose me, and he’s dying. But because I’m so afraid of being abandoned, I can barely acknowledge what’s happening. And then there’s Rosemary”—just her name is a vicious tear through her blooming heart—“and for some deranged reason, she loves me, but I don’t know how to let her love me. I don’t know how to let anyone get close because I’m afraid they will hurt me like you did.”
“Well.” Sophie presses her lips together in a thin, mean line. In that gesture, Logan doesn’t see herself at all. “I guess I’m to blame for every single problem in your life. You’re welcome. Now you don’t have to accept any responsibility for your actions. You can just say it’s all my fault for being such an awful mom!”
That comment reverberates through Logan’s chest. She hasn’t used her mom as an excuse—she knows that. But she hasn’t let herself heal from what happened, either—has refused therapy and help—and maybe in some ways, that’s the same thing. She let this woman’s cruelty control her entire life, but the truth is, Logan’s been in control the entire time. She doesn’t need to understand why her mom left in order to let herself be loved; that’s a choice she can make. And she’s finally ready to make it.
The French doors open and two girls step inside from the back patio. “Mom? Is everything okay? We heard yelling,” asks the girl who Logan places as Phoebe. Only this Phoebe doesn’t look like a perfect Greek daughter ordered from a catalogue. Real-life Phoebe’s dark hair is shaved on one side, with purple streaks through the rest. Nose ring, ankle tattoo, a crop top and a pair of high-waisted shorts, her hand threaded through the other girl’s. This Phoebe looksexactlylike Logan at eighteen.
“Everything is fine,” Sophie responds with a calculated air of nonchalance. Heaven forbid her new daughter knows about the old one.
Logan turns to her sister. “She’s a real fucking piece of work, isn’t she?”
Phoebe rolls her eyes. “You have no idea.”
Sophie loses some of her cool. “Phoebe! Go to your room!”
“You queer?” Logan asks bluntly, gesturing to the hand-holding between these two girls.
“Duh,” Phoebe says with a Gen-Z monotone. She appraises her older sister with a critical stare. “Are you?”
Logan is wearing overalls with a sports bra and her dino tropical shirt over the top like a coat. “Duh.”
Phoebe cocks her head to the side. “You’re my sister, aren’t you? The one no one ever talks about?”
Despite all the evidence of Sophie’s coldness and callousness, this still hurts. “Yeah. I’m that sister.”
Logan grabs a fistful of baklava for the road and shoves it into the front pocket of her overalls like it’s a Joey pouch for future emotional eating. “It’s nice to finally meet you,” she says to her sister. “You seem cool. Maybe we can chat sometime.”
She doesn’t say anything else to Sophie.
She’s already gotten all that she’s going to get from this reunion.
When she gets back out to the Gay Mobile, she feels amped up, restless, torn between needing to sob and wanting to hysterically laugh. She finally confronted her mother after all these years, and her mother just… sucked.
She climbs into the driver’s seat but doesn’t start the van. Logan has to do something with herself before she sits still for the seven-hour drive back to Bar Harbor.
What shereallywants to do is call Rosemary. She wants to cry to Rosemary and laugh with Rosemary and hear Rosemary matter-of-factly say something like, “So your mom is a bitch. What else is new?”
But she can’t call Rosemary. She has no right to, not until she’s ready to figure out exactly what she needs to say to make things right. Katharine fucking Hepburn, how can she ever make it right?
She holds her phone in her agitated hands and scrolls pastRosemary’s contact repeatedly, until she spots a different contact a few names below that.New Science Teacher, winky face.
Logan jumps out of the Gay Mobile and presses the call button as she marches toward the park. Rhiannon Schaffer answers on the second ring. Logan is immediately word-vomiting into the phone. “I am so, so sorry for the way I treated you. I was an asshole. Worse than an asshole. I wasSatan’sasshole after he’s eaten Taco Bell. And I’m not calling to ask for forgiveness or anything!”
There’s a sound of protest on the other end of the line, but she plows on both in the conversation and in her walk to the park. “I acted like our relationship didn’t mean anything because I was scared, but that doesn’t make it okay.” She takes a deep breath as her lungs strain from the exercise. “I should’ve worked through my attachment shit before we started hooking up, and before I hurt you, and I’m just really sorry.”
“Who is this?” Rhiannon asks innocently.
“Ouch. Okay, I deserve that.”
The call is silent for a minute, and Logan wonders if there’s a chance Rhiannon truly doesn’t remember her. Logan finds a bench and sits down under a slice of shade.
“Whatever.” Rhiannon huffs. “Thanks for the apology, asshole.”
Logan smiles into the phone. “You’re welcome.”
“And you didn’t really hurt me. I knew what I was getting myself into with you.”
She winces. “Right. The apathetic asshole who doesn’t care about anyone or anything.”
