Page 139 of The Lost and the Found

Hayden

The sun had been setting laterand later, meaning we were reaching the end of spring.

We hadn’t seen a snowfall in weeks and I was excited for what it meant. Summer in Chicago was beautiful, but I hadn’t seen its beauty in years.

Stress and worry tended to take the beauty out of everything. But I was a week away from my finals, and if everything went as planned, I would be graduating college with a 3.9 GPA and a future to look forward to. I was pretty proud of that accomplishment.

Things were finally looking up for me, not only because I was hopeful about the job prospects, which I was, but also because it meant I got to spend the beautiful summer months with Logan—and though having him around wasn’t part of my original plan, I realized that that was okay.

My mom’s favorite quote was “If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans,” by Woody Allen. I didn’t know why she had been so obsessed with this quote when I was growing up, but I got it now.

You couldn’t plan for life, no matter how much you want to.

But there were some things I needed to do first, before I could actually take that first step into the future I was imagining for myself—I was going to see Mathew.

I couldn’t think straight on the ride over there. I kept telling myself that whatever Logan was hiding from me couldn’t be that bad, and I wondered whether I would be able to walk away from him if I needed to…

What a scary thought. I wondered when I had become so codependent on Logan, and why I hadn’t noticed it until I was too far gone.

I didn’t tell Logan where I was going. He thought I was going to work, and I didn’t correct him. Honestly, I didn’t know how he would react if he found out where I was actually going. Would he stop me, or would he come clean to me?

Or worse, would he lie?

That was the one thing I was most afraid of. He had definitely been keeping something from me, but Logan had never outright lied to me. And it was because of that that I let myself trust him.

But if he lied to me now, I’m not sure I could trust him.

A relationship without trust was doomed. I could probably forgive a lot of things, but I couldn’t forgive being lied to—especially not about something big.

Shaking my thoughts out of my head, I pulled up to Mathew’s restaurant, parking in the spot closest to the door and shutting off the engine. But I couldn’t get out. My hand was on the door handle, yet the thought of going in there, of seeing Mathew and looking for an answer, just didn’t sit right with me.

However, the other option was to go straight to Logan, and though I hoped he would tell me, I was scared that he might lie to me, and I was fearful of what that would mean for our relationship.

I knew it didn’t sound reasonable, but I was beyond trying to reason through this.

Letting out a deep breath, I opened the door and climbed out. It had been warmer in recent days, so all I had on was a sweater. I let out a small shiver when a cold rush of wind caught me by surprise.

I walked inside the restaurant quickly, and the hostess greeted me. She was the same one who was here the last time Logan and I were here, and she must have recognized me based on her expression. I pretended not to notice the way her eyes moved behind me, as if hoping to catch sight of Logan, or the way they turned away in disappointment when she didn’t see him.

I walked over to her. “Hi, is Mathew here?”

She nodded. “Yeah, last I saw, he was in the back.”

“Great. Can I get a table for one?”

“Just one?” she asked.

I bit my lip to keep from smiling. “Just one. Though, when you get the chance, can you let Mathew know that Hayden is here to see him?”

She nodded.

I smiled. “Perfect.”

It wasn’t long before a table cleared up and she walked me over to it. I almost smiled when I recognized the same booth Logan and I sat in the last time we were here. I picked up the menu she left open, and I waited for Mathew.

Thankfully, I didn’t see Charlie there, and my server was actually someone nice this time. He was wearing the standard uniform that all the servers wore, and he was tall but lanky, with an awkward smile that made him endearing.

A few minutes after he set down my iced tea, I found Mathew making his way through the restaurant toward me, his smile almost eager.

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