Chapter 51

the chapter you've all been TRULY waiting for. (beware, lots of angst coming up)

Emily

"It's a bubble where my brother hasn't looked me in the eyes or spoken two words to me for the past three fucking years"

I close my eyes, trying to stop my mind from replaying my old conversations with Logan. But I can't, goddamn it. I can't.

"My brother's girlfriend killed herself three years ago. Or maybe she did."

My eyes widen. "Logan, what are you saying?"

"I'm saying that I'm scared that she didn't, Em."

What if she didn't? What if she's the one he was referring to the other day at the lake? I can't help but think back of one of my conversations with Jade too.

"It was terrible, Em. They accused Noah of doing it - can you even imagine? Thank God for Amelia, who was there too. She was his alibi."

"That guy is insane. First he was accusing Noah, now he's accusing Logan."

Oh my God. Celeste, Noah's ex-girlfriend died in a room whereby only Noah and Amy were present. No one else knows what actually happened. And then Logan said that Noah didn't speak to him for years after that accident. Not to mention the fact that he's always been worried that she didn't actually do it -

I let out a long exhale.

No.

No, of course, it's not Logan. Whatever happened to her, Logan couldn't have done it. He couldn't even hurt a fly if he wanted to. There's something else.

There is something else and I need to find out what it is before I go completely insane. I haven't slept. I haven't eaten. I haven't showered. My mind has spinning in circles ever since the lake accident.

I try calling Amy for the sixth time. The dreadful ringing sound amplifies my anxiety. Come on, Amy, pick up. Please, pick up. If anyone knows what happened, it's you.

I press my forehead against the wall and Logan's pained expression haunts me again. He told me that he was in love with me. For the first time. And of course, I couldn't say it back.

Goddamn it, I literally broke him when I didn't say it back and I hate myself for it.

"Hello?"

My heart stops beating for a second. "Amy?"

"Yeah. Who's this?"

I take a deep breath. "Amy, it's Emily. Logan's uh - friend, I guess."

"Emily, hi! How are you? Is everything okay? You sound upset."

I have no clue how she can sound this cheerful, especially if she knows about what I think actually happened to Celeste. "I need to talk to you. It's urgent. Like, life-or-death type of urgency."

"Oh. Is it about Logan?"

"Yeah. He fell the other day and he was unconscious for a couple of minutes, but he's okay now."

"Oh, no! I hope that it wasn't like a serious injury or something?"

"No, no. The thing is that when he was unconscious, he said some stuff."

I gulp, thinking back of him repeating Amy's name and apologizing over and over again, until he mentioned someone's death.

"What did he say?" Amy's voice is suddenly more tense, strained, confirming what I already knew. She definitely knows something that we don't.

"He said your name a lot. He kept apologizing too," I pause, my words stumbling and running away from me.

"Is that all what he said?" She whispers, her voice breaking at the end.

I taste the saltiness of my tears and manage to make out a "No."

We're both silent for the next couple of moments, and I'm mostly just trying to hold myself together, to stay strong, but the thought of losing him right now makes it extremely hard to breathe. My chest is tight and my throat is closing up on me and I'm fucking suffocating.

"Please tell me what happened," My voice trembles. "Please."

I count the seconds between us. The silence is piercing and it tugs on my heart strings. "Amelia? Are you still here?"

"Yeah," Her voice is as shaky as mine. "I don't know how to say this, Emily. Once you know, there's no going back. You're going to have to carry this secret with you to the grave. And trust me, it's a fucking heavy secret to carry."

"I don't care. I need to know what happened. I need to know if he-" I purse my lips, biting back my words before giving in. "If he's still my Logan."

She sighs. "Okay, but first, you need to promise me that Logan will never find out."

"Okay."

"You don't understand. Noah and I are the only two people who know what happened. And we've kept it that way for three years now. You can't tell a soul about it."

"I promise."

"It all happened on Logan's fourteenth birthday. I was going to get something from Logan's room, and I heard someone crying while walking past Noah's room. So I walked inside and I found Celeste, Noah's girlfriend."

She sighs, clearly pained by all the memories that this conversation must be triggering. "I knew that she had issues - like, she was depressed and had eating issues and, you get the picture. But when I walked in on her, she was having this manic episode and she had broken this lamp and-"

I shake my head as I try to picture it all happening. God, they were fourteen. No one deserves to go through something like this.

"- And she had cut herself, Em. There was blood everywhere," Her voice breaks.

"I'm sorry," I manage to make out.

"I called Noah because I didn't know what to do. The moment he came in, she pressed a piece of broken glass into my neck and asked Noah to choose between my life or hers."

"Jesus Christ, Amy. I'm so, so sorry."

Her voice shakes. "And I couldn't see Logan standing behind Noah. I couldn't see the gun he had. I couldn't see anything, because the fucking piece of glass was pressed into my neck and my heart was beating out of my chest and I was going to die, Em."

My heart shatters into a gazillion pieces. No, no, no, no. No, Logan couldn't have done it. Not my Logan. He wouldn't have hurt her. No.

"And there was so much blood and I didn't know if it was hers or mine. All I know is that she was going to kill me, and Logan stopped her."

"He shot her," I breathe out.

"No - he didn't aim at her. He's never even used a gun before. He aimed at the window, he just wanted to scare her into letting me go, I guess. I don't know, Em! All what I know is that he shot at the window but she moved last-minute and the bullet hit her leg and she had already lost a lot of blood because of all the cutting and her immunity system was already weak because of the eating disorder-"

"So he did it," I repeat, my heart squeezing tightly inside my chest.

Logan. My Logan. Of course, he did it. He saw his best friend getting murdered. Of course, he would risk everything to save her. Because he's that type of person. I can't hear a word from what Amy is saying.

All I think about is how I've judged him so harshly and I misunderstood everything. He's not a spoiled good-for-nothing playboy. He's selfless, kind, and loving to the most profound degrees.

"He doesn't remember," I whisper.

"He has dissociative amnesia. The moment he shot the bullet, he froze and he woke up the next day not realizing that anything has happened. So, Noah and I swore to keep it a secret."

I shake my head. "You were too young to go through this. To make this decision. He wouldn't have gone to jail, the case would've been dismissed as self-defense."

"He would have never forgiven himself, Emily. You know him. And I couldn't let him go through this pain, not when he did it to save my life."

I bite my lip, not even being able to picture how the hell am I going to look him in the eyes when I know something like this - when I know that it's been torturing him for ages.

"Amy, he needs to know."

"Em, no. No, you can't tell him. You hear me? He can never know about this. I already warned you that it would be a secret that you take to the grave. He doesn't need to know this!"

"But he has nightmares, Amelia! He is tortured by his mind, by not knowing what is real and what is not. He gets flashbacks, he just doesn't understand that these are actual memories and not dreams and it's hurting him-"

"I'm not losing him too! Emily, if you care about Logan, you would know that he will live in severe self-hatred for the rest of his life if he ever found it. We can't let it happen. We can't lose him."

I sigh, not being able to formulate a coherent answer. "I have to go."

"Em, please, swear on your life that this conversation is going to stay between us."

And then Logan's face flashes in my mind. His smile, the light in his green eyes, his warmth, his dimples, his - I can't take all that happiness away from him. I can't let him sink back into a self-loathing hole.

So I'll hate myself instead. I'll keep their secret and hate myself every single moment of my entire existence. "You have my word."

-

a/n

i literally could not proof-read this because i was so excited to post it.

SO - what do you think? did you expect this? (i mean, if you have read summer 010 then you obviously knew this was coming).

not gonna lie, there's a lot of angst coming up. :D