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Who sat beside Paige.
He exhaled deeply through his nose, trying to control the panic, but he couldn’t stop the crazy jump in his pulse. It was like watching a train wreck from the viewpoint of a passenger, waiting for the impact, braced for the explosion which would surely slay him. His life flashed before his eyes.
She was going to destroy him in mere moments. He could probably start the countdown.
A little startled to see she hadn’t left either—since that had seemed to be her standard reaction around him—he held her gaze for longer than he meant to.
“Logan?” He jumped at Sam’s call. Clearing his throat, he tore his attention from Trace’s little sister to the group’s leader. Sam smiled. “You were out of the room when we all introduced ourselves. So…this is Paige. Paige, Logan.”
Slicing his gaze back to Paige, he managed a greeting nod but didn’t even try to speak. She didn’t respond past staring at him as if he was insane. Logan jiggled his leg, couldn’t stop his bobbing knee if he tried. His anxiety needed some kind of outlet.
No one else seemed to sense the animosity and terror bouncing back and forth between them. It was all so surreal. Save for the heavy, frantic thump of his heartbeat grounding him inside himself, he felt almost as if he were watching the scene unfold from outside his body.
Sam started group as she always did, with a bright, rather forced smile. “Tonight, let’s go around and share one thing we miss most about our loved ones. I’ll go first.” After a bracing breath, she said, “I miss seeing my husband stretched out on the couch, watching football.” After a humorless laugh, she added, “I used to razz him mercilessly when he was alive about being a couch potato. But now…I’ll walk through the living room and it’ll look so…bare. I’d give anything to see him lying there again.”
Jamie went next, talking about her grandmother’s snickerdoodle cookies.
Then Brenda spoke of her best friend she’d lost to leukemia.
After her, everyone turned to Logan. He shook his head and hoarsely rasped, “Pass,” as he usually did. He’d never been urged to share anything, and he couldn’t explain how much that relieved him.
But tonight, as soon as he croaked the word, Paige raised her hand immediately from across the room. “May I go next?”
When he met her blazing, condemning glare, sweat trickled down the side of his face. Dear God, it was time for impact. The breath shuddered from his lungs and his flesh went clammy.
“Yes, of course you may.” Sam’s voice was soothing, which only made Logan feel worse. “Feel free to jump in whenever you like, Paige. We’re a very laid-back group.”
“I miss my brother’s laugh,” Paige said, her gaze still on Logan.
The pain on her face made his bones shudder with regret. He closed his eyes, unable to hold her accusing stare, wishing he could do something—anything—to take her anguish away, to take it all away.
“How long has he been gone?” Sam asked softly.
“Almost three years.”
It’ll be three years exactly on February fifth, Logan silently added.
“He was killed,” Paige said.
Logan flinched. Though the air conditioning had just turned on, blowing a cool breeze across the back of his neck, his body heated uncomfortably, sweat seeping from his brow. He opened his lashes to find Paige still watching him from her beautiful, hate-filled eyes.
He wanted to bolt, to dart away and never look back, but fear paralyzed him. He couldn’t budge, couldn’t even break eye contact as she kept talking.
“My brother died when I was fifteen and he’d only been eighteen for a week.”
He deserved this, Logan told himself. But, God, he felt sick. He wasn’t sure if he was going to vomit or pass out. Maybe both.
Though his body went into full panic mode, he stayed horrifyingly conscious as she continued.
“He was a basketball player and had just led his team in winning the most important game of the season against our biggest rivals. Afterward, he went out celebrating with his girlfriend and their friends, and ran across a couple members of the losing team.”
Shoulders lifting and lips parting, Logan sucked in an unsteady breath. He tore his gaze away from her and stared blankly at a spot on the floor in the center of the circle, lost in his own memories of that night.
“When he got into a fight w
ith the captain of the opposing team, he was knocked unconscious and hit his head on a glass bottle when he fell. He died instantly.”
Instantly was right. It still traumatized Logan to realize just how instantly a person could die. How unexpectedly.
