Page 16 of Here We Go Again
She tunnels down deep into her sheets and tries to fall back tosleep, despite the way Shania is loudly listing the things that don’t impress her much. As long as Logan stays asleep, she doesn’t have to accept the reality of the last twenty-four hours.
But reality refuses to be ignored. It’s in the pounding music and a pounding headache, and the fact that she is so miserably hungover.
The details of last night are a bit fuzzy, but she remembers taking an Uber to Five Bar on Main Street, alternating whiskey shots and hazy IPAs, scrolling through Tinder until she found a hookup only ten miles away. Another Uber to a stranger’s house.
Impulsive and reckless and borderline self-destructive? Sure.
But as she pressed herself against a woman who didn’t expect Logan to learn her name in the back seat of a Kia Sonata parked in a suburban driveway while her kids slept inside the house, Logan could shut out all the noise in her head. She could let the lust and pleasure override all the other too-big feelings in her chest. In that dark car, she couldn’t think about Joe Delgado and the Tarot Card of Death.
She couldn’t think about Not-Hannah and all of her shortcomings eternally documented in a sharable video file.
She couldn’t think about Rosemary Hale and smashing the absolute shit out of her car.
She couldn’t think about beingleft.
Except the problem with trying to outrun her feelings with sex and alcohol is that they always catch up with her again. When she’s finally alone, and there’s nothing left to distract her from the thoughts inside her head. Logan scrubs her hands up and down over her face and groans. The only thing worse than the whiskey hangover is the bad-decision hangover, and she’s staring down the barrel of so many bad decisions at the moment.
Shania is done dismissing rocket scientists and Brad Pitt, and now Faith Hill croons from the other side of the paper-thin walls.I don’t want another heartbreak. I don’t need another turn to cry.
Logan does an inelegant flop off the bed and directly into a pile ofwashed-but-never-put-away laundry. Her entire bedroom—the same bedroom she slept in her whole childhood—is like the photo from a brochure on how to deal with your ADHD teenager. Stacks of old papers to grade on the desk and dresser, Post-its with her half-baked scribbles stuck to every surface, cans of empty Red Bull and mason jars with cold brew crusted to the bottom, twinkle lights strung across the ceiling, posters of Mia Hamm and Panic! At The Disco andGreaseshe never bothered to take down from middle school.
How does life get so off course?Faith wonders. Logan stifles an IPA burp, pulls on a pair of sweatpants, a sports bra, and a tank top that at least smells clean.
“She finally rises!” her dad declares as she enters the kitchen. He is mid-twirl, singing Faith into a slotted spoon while wearing a kimono that shows far too much dad thigh for Logan’s taste.
“Must we do this”—she waves a hand in the direction of his cooking dance routine—“so early in the morning?”
Her dad does another twirl. “It’s not early, Chicken.”Chickenis the nickname her dad gave her at four years old. As in,running around like a…“I’ve been up for hours.” He uses his spoon to point to the water, four ibuprofen, and slow-release Adderall waiting for her on the counter.
“Bully for you.” She gags down the meds and pours herself a mug of coffee.
“No, bully foryou. I’m making homemade loukoumades.”
This news improves her mood considerably. The Greek, honey-glazed donuts can cure almost anything, including the impending death of mentor-figures and chronic poor decision-making. Antonio Maletis—the man who gave Logan her bushy eyebrows, her nose, and her penchant for the dramatic—finishes rolling the balls of dough and does something with his pelvis that Logan should not have to witness when the Spotify playlist changes to some Jo Dee Messina.
There is so much to love about being Greek, loukoumades beingat the very top of that list, tied with spanakopita, Greek meatballs, and lamb gyros. She loves her perpetual olive complexion, even during gloomy Pacific Northwest winters, and she loves that everyone on her dad’s side of the family is just as loud as she is. But growing up in the Greek Orthodox Church had been less than delightful, for both Logan and her dad.
Despite the kimono and the Shania Twain and stereotypes to the contrary, her dad is, unfortunately, heterosexual, and intent on remaining that way. But Antonio Maletis loves show tunes and espadrilles and baking baklava with his mother, and in the nineties, in a conservative church thatstillrejects LGBTQIA+ people, those things were enough to condemn him as a “funny boy,” even if he attended mass every Sunday, sang in the church choir, and married Sophie Haralambopoulous, a good Greek girl, at twenty-three.
So, when Logan came out to her dad at fourteen and refused to ever go back to church, it wasn’t hard for Antonio to walk away from that part of his Greek heritage. It took her papou a decade or so to come around to the idea of having a lesbian granddaughter, but her dad embraced it instantly, kept the delicious food, and ditched the religious trauma.
Sophie Haralambopoulous, on the other hand, doesn’t even know her daughter is gay. She’s in Vermont with her new family and knows absolutely shit all about Logan. Period. And that’s why Logan still lives with her dad, despite what Rhiannon Schaffer thinks. He’s the one who stayed. And she can’t leave him. Not the way Sophie did.
“What’s up, Chicken?” her dad asks, tapping her head with the slotted spoon. “You seem far away this morning.”
She takes her black coffee over to the breakfast nook and curls into a chair like a cat. “Joe is dying.”
Antonio makes a comfortinghmmsound as he preps the donuts. “I know. He’s been sick for a long time now.”
“No, like, he’sdying. Soon. At least, that’s what he says. You know he’s dramatic as hell.”
“Oh, Logan.” Her dad drops the spoon and his dough balls and comes across the kitchen to reach for her. “I am so sorry to hear that. I know how much he means to you.”
Her dad’s pity hug makes her feel itchy, and she shakes him off. “I’m sure he’s fine. The doctors are always predicting his death, and the bastard just keeps on kicking.”
“Yes, but his quality of life…” Antonio shakes his head. “I can’t imagine being in and out of hospitals and rehab centers all the time.”
Please, girls. Don’t let me die in this beige room.
