Things to apologize to Kat for:

1. I lied about going to NA meetings. Instead, I was using them as an excuse to sneak off and get high.
2. A couple of times, when what I needed wasn’t easily accessible, I stole your meds to keep me going until I could find something better.
3. Twice I stole money from the register at Petaloúda. I let Jess take the blame, which led to you having to fire her, which ultimately meant you had to spend more hours at the salon. With you gone, I didn’t have to sneak around so much.
4. I can’t say with one hundred percent certainty that I was faithful in New York, but I think I was.
5. I was selfish. I let myself get caught up in my own shit and didn’t stop to think about how my actions would affect you. I took you for granted, and I’m sorry.

I stare at her face, watching every emotion roll right into the next. Unburdening myself should feel like a weight lifted, but instead, it feels like my soul’s being twisted and stretched. I can’t undo it. No matter how badly I want to. It’s done. I can only repent and pray that she can forgive.

When Kat looks away, a thick panel of ebony hair falls over her shoulder, concealing her face as she stares down at the low-pile carpet. “Talk to me, Kat.”

“I think I should go.”

She rises from the edge of the bed, the shoddy mattress springing up from her sudden movement. I jump up after her. “Don’t walk away from me. Please,” I beg, taking hold of her arm tighter than I intend. I deserve this. She should walk away from me. I’m poison. A disease that will only inflict her the longer we’re together. Volatile from the start, explosive right up until the end.

Jerking from my grasp, she backs into the hall, the stoic look on her face smashing my heart to bits. There’s nothing. No tiny shred of evidence that she feels anything at all. A frown, a razor-edged glare of anger at least. Something to show she’s still fighting for us. “It’s just too much, Chase. I need time to process all of this.”

She spins on her heel and storms off, her shoes clacking along the tile floor, creating a wind-tunnel echo in my ears. All I can do is watch. Every step she takes is another step toward a life without me in it, and I can’t accept that. Even if she’s given up, I never will. I’ll never stop fighting for us until the day I die. That’s what I do. I hold on to the people I love because I know that kind of connection doesn’t happen every day. I thought I had it with Desiree. I clung to her memory for years after she passed, but what I have with Kat is so much more. She doesn’t have my heart; she is my heart. And I can’t live without it.

“I love you, Katarina! You’re still gonna be my wife when all this is over!”

She stops at the end of the hall just outside the entrance to the lounge. Seconds pass before she turns to face me, but I don’t bother waiting. I take off after her, reaching her back before being gifted with the sight of her tear-filled eyes. “I love you, too, Chase. I always have.” Shrugging one strap of her bag off her shoulder, she reaches into the black hole she calls a purse. “I got you this,” she whispers at the end of a sniffle, then pulls out a cell phone.

“Does this mean I can call you?” I ask, taking it from her hand. Cool chills skitter across my skin. I think back to the day I stood on Athena’s porch handing a cell phone to the beautiful girl standing in the doorway. Her sweet smile pilfered the breath from my lungs that day and every one after it. I had no way of knowing I was staring into the face of my future. Up until that point, I’d spent two years thinking all love ever does is break and burn and end. But sitting at a table on a bar patio one random Thursday, I watched it begin again.

Now here she is, offering the same gesture of faith. It’s just a phone, but it means more than that. It’s our new beginning. Our second chance to make this right.

“You better.” Her lips curl at the edges in a not-quite smile that still makes it hard to breathe after all this time. I step forward, hoping to take her in my arms again, but screaming bursts through the open door of the lounge. Gasps and wails, the muted thump of something clattering to the carpet. When I twist around to see the commotion, dread slams me in the chest.

Logan.

“I don’t belong here!” He’s on the table, tears spilling down his cheeks, a pencil pressed into the soft skin on his neck. Next to the table, an older couple stands on either side. The man in a suit, and the woman in a floral dress that hangs to her ankles. “I’m not a fucking drug addict, but you gave me no choice!” he wails, his eyes pinched, and his lips twisted into a drooling scowl. “And now he’s gone, and I’m still here, and it’s all your fault!”

“The Lord will forgive your sins, but you need to accept your actions as sinful. His blood is on his own head, son. Leviticus 20:13.”

“Don’t you see? He made us this way. It’s not wrong!” Pain oozes from every syllable. A low hum whispers through the crowd of onlookers. They stand there, watching this horrifying scene unfold, gaping at Logan as if he’s a sideshow. For some reason, that creepy bobblehead comes to mind. Freak Show.

“Logan.” It’s a full second before I realize I said his name. It’s not until all the eyes in the room shift toward the doorway, until I feel the full weight of Logan’s despair crash down on my shoulders, that I find myself moving closer. “It’s okay, man.”

“Don’t come near me, Chase!” He jams the pencil harder into his neck, the skin stretching under the sharpened point.

I take a few small, tentative steps to feel him out. This isn’t an attempt at suicide—this is a cry for help. After two full weeks of silence, Logan is finally ready to be heard, and dammit, I’m going to listen. “Who’s gone, Logan?”

“It was my idea. We did it together, but I woke up, and he didn’t.”

“It’s okay. I understand.”

“You don’t know anything about me.”

“I do,” I tell him, approaching the table as if a lion was perched on top of it instead of a sobbing teenager. “I lost someone I love, too. The pain you’re feeling. The all-consuming agony eating away at your will to live. I’ve felt it.” His face crumples like a newspaper, the pencil in his grip beginning to quiver. I step up on a chair and glance at the doorway. Kat’s still there, her arms crossed over her chest with glistening cheeks full of tears. She’s familiar with the sordid tales of Desiree LaMonde. She lived with the ghost of that woman holding us at arm’s length for longer than I care to admit. “What was his name?”

“Daniel,” Logan chokes out as if the syllables burn his trachea.

“What would Daniel say if he were here right now?”

He presses his lips together, blinking back the tears already drenching his face with salt water. I saw him, but I never really looked. His face is smooth and soft around the edges. A sweep of sandy hair hangs across his forehead, the rest of his head shaved close to the scalp. Lanky and thin, graceful on his feet. How hard it must be to live a lie when the truth is so damn obvious. “He would say it didn’t matter what people thought. That Utah was one small state and there’s a whole world out there who doesn’t care we’re in love.”

“Daniel sounds like a real smart guy. You two were lucky you found each other. Coming out showed strength and courage. Be proud of who you are. Daniel was.”

“But he’s dead now. He died for me. I wanna be with him.”

I glance at Kat again, then fix my sight back on Logan. “When Desiree died, a piece of me did, too, but in losing her, I found something better. I found sobriety, the will to be strong and carry on. I found Kat.” When I point in the direction of the door, Logan’s gaze snaps in her direction. “My wife, the mother of our kid, and the woman who gave me a reason to live.” Slowly, I extend my hand and wrap my fingers around the end of the pencil. Logan releases his grip and lets it slide through his grasp as I pull it away. “Daniel will always be with you in your heart, but that doesn't mean there isn’t room for anyone else.”

In my peripheral vision, I see Rodney sneak through the gaping crowd. I drop the pencil and hop down off my chair. “He’s ready to talk now,” I say to Rodney on my way back over to Kat.