As I'm Finding the Words

Logan remembered reading somewhere that that the sternum was the strongest bone in the human body, its sole purpose to protect the heart, and even though he could feel the bone in his chest, he sometimes wondered if it was defective. It sure as hell wasn’t doing its job, because every time Logan saw her with him, a sharp pain shot through his chest, like someone had ripped the precious organ right out of his body, and yet somehow, he was still standing there.

His heart was still beating.

In the same book, two paragraphs down, it said that the average human heart beats seventy-two times per minute, but his heart rate had to be much lower. He felt like his heart skipped a beat whenever she was near, whenever she said his name in her lazy Southern drawl, whenever the beachy smell of her perfume wafted into his nostrils.

And even though Logan Mitchell considered himself a genius, there must have been some blockage in his brain because he hadn’t realized that he was in love with her until it was too late.

He felt as if he were constantly being reminded of that fact as the two them sat on the roof of the Palm Woods, Los Angeles nothing but a blur of city lights and traffic beneath them. The wind whipped through her hair as she hugged her knees against her chest, and her honey-brown eyes remained focused on the concrete beneath her feet. Logan spent the majority of his seventeen years of life at a complete and utter lost for words, so her despondent expression wasn’t unfamiliar to him. He just never expected to see the look he usually wore so well mirrored in her eyes.

He’d never known Kandi to be so guarded, but as of late, something felt off between the two of them. Since she’d gotten her huge break and started dating her co-star Dak Zevon, Logan had noticed that she was slowly becoming more secluded, steadily caving into herself more and more with each passing day. Though they had two classes together, Kandi had quit bothering to show up, leaving Logan without a lab partner, and even though he knew it was partially due to her filming schedule, he knew she was skipping as well.

A part of him felt guilty for being upset with her for abandoning him. He hadn’t been a stellar best friend either, leaving her out to dry because his girlfriend was jealous of their close relationship.

Logan could feel the two of them drifting apart, and he felt like there was nothing he could do to stop the shift.

Desperate to get any sort of response from her, he asked, “So…how are things with Dak going?” He couldn’t deny the bitter taste that the name left in his mouth, and Kandi noticed the way his expression twisted.

With the way she diverted her gaze, he could tell she was lying. “Everything’s fine.”

A moment of silence lapsed between them before she added, “I mean, it’s not perfect, but no relationship is perfect, right?”

Logan slowly shook his head, but he couldn’t help but think to himself that their relationship, Logan and Kandi’s, would be perfect if they only let it. “Does he make you happy?”

Two pairs of brown eyes locked, and a sigh escaped her lips before she finally answered his question. “Honestly…no. Not anymore. It used to be okay, in the beginning, but now…Now I’m beginning to feel like there’s nothing there.”

Logan nodded, though he could tell by her hopeless expression, by the way her teeth gnawed at her lower lip, that she was still holding something back, hiding the nasty details from him. She didn’t want to feel the judgment in his stare, and Logan had made the mistake of criticizing her decisions before, so she was hesitant to spill her thoughts to him now.

But there was still that part of her that needed to confess, to get all of the stress that she’d kept bottled up for inside for so long off her chest. And despite everything they’d both been though, how much they’d both changed in the short span of only a couple months, Logan was still her best friend.

Her walls were falling down.

“Maybe I’m just being paranoid, but I just feel like Dak doesn’t care about me, like he’s using me or something, which wouldn’t make any sense since he’s the Dak Zevon and everything.” Her fingers formed air quotation marks around his name for emphasis. “He keeps trying to take things further physically, and that scares me because…I don’t want to do those things with him. I feel like I should want to, but I don’t.”

Logan remained quiet, unsure of the right words to say, the words she needed him to say, so he simply nodded his understanding. He didn’t want her to stay with Dak because he knew, despite his own feelings for her, that Dak didn’t deserve her. To put it frankly, he treated her like shit. Kandi would never admit the fact, but word traveled fast around their small apartment building, so Logan had heard about some of the events that had taken place.

“Logan,” she said as she held his gaze. “I feel like I’m in love with the idea of Dak, but I don’t really love him, and I don’t know what I should do.”

“Break up with him!” Logan could hear his own voice scream in his head, but he couldn’t force the words from his lips.

When she didn’t get any form of response from Logan, she continued. “Maybe I’d be better off alone.”

Because she would rather be alone than even consider being with Logan.

Even though he knew she didn’t mean it in that way, Logan couldn’t help but internalize her statement. He felt like he could be good for her, and in return, that she could make him whole. She was everything he’d ever wanted, and he was everything that she needed, and it frustrated him more than he could put into words that she never seemed to notice what was right in front of her.

“K, you deserve better than him.”

The depth and sincerity in his syrupy eyes must have frightened her because all she could do was offer him a weak smile before disappearing down the staircase.

The timing between them was never right. The exact moment that Logan felt bold enough to voice the syllables that had lingered along the tip of tongue was the moment she was slipping through his fingers.