Page 20 of Staying Selfless

“How do you know that?” My tone is desperate as I keep my eyes glued to the back of Logan’s frame while she walks away from me.

“Because you two are too ‘right’ for it not to.” She loops her arm through mine and turns us around to get into the elevator.

Chapter 8

Logan

“Is this an alcohol or an ice cream chat?” Jack asks as we walk back towards the hotel restaurant.

“Alcohol.”

“Alcohol it is.”

I follow Jack to the bar, taking a seat next to him in one of the high-top chairs. He orders a whiskey-neat for himself and a vodka-soda with extra lime for me.

“So,” he begins once the bartender sets our drinks in front of us. “How are you doing?”

I avert my eyes from his. “I’m okay.”

“Alright, you want to try that again without lying about it?” The corners of his lips tug upward.

I let out a little laugh. It’s a sad laugh, though, because that’s what I am. I’m sad.

“I’m overwhelmed,” I tell Jack as my voice cracks. “I’m trying to keep it together for everyone, but I’m having a hard time.”

“Well, you don’t need to keep it together for me. I think us crying on the phone over Christmas kind of took any weird stigma away with that.”

I can’t help but laugh, which feels good. Our conversation on Christmas was about the guilt I was feeling about my mom dying and the responsibility I felt for it. Then it was filled with Jack and me going back and forth, saying, “you stop crying,” and, “no, you stop crying,” with just a bit of laughter in between.

“I’m just sick of crying,” I tell him as my eyes begin to well.

“Isn’t it the worst?” Jack smiles before taking a sip of his whiskey. “I started crying twenty-three years ago, and now look at me. I’m a total fucking sap.”

“Oh, god, help me. I can’t do this for twenty-three years.”

“Where are you at right now? What’s overwhelming you?”

I let out a little sigh while I collect my thoughts. “I guess it’s just a lot of guilt that I’m facing right now.”

“About your mom?”

“Partly, yes. I also feel guilty about letting people down. Letting you guys down. But I think I feel the most guilty about what I put Eli through, and I’m having a hard time sifting through that and the actual loss of my mom. It’s like there are too many things in my head that I feel terrible about that I can’t organize them to work through them. I don’t know. I’m not making sense.”

“You don’t have to make sense,” Jack says. “That’s the worst part about grief. It’s messy. It’s sticky. It’ll hit you out of nowhere for no reason. Grief itself doesn’t make sense. And for someone like you and I who are usually organized in the way we think, having jumbled thoughts that pour into every crevice of our lives is frustrating and confusing.

“And you’re not letting us down, by the way,” Jack adds. “In fact, I’m really proud of you for coming back to Minnesota. Sometimes it’s easier to run away and hide, but you came back, and that’s a big step in the right direction.”

I give him a grateful smile.

“Can I give you some advice?” Jack takes another sip of his whiskey.

“Of course.”

“I think you should talk to EJ about her. I mean, you can always talk to me, you know that, but you’ve kind of kept her a secret from him and everyone else. Talking about her makes it so she was real. She might not be around still, but her memory could live on.”

“I know. But I don’t want to burden him.” My tone is dripping with guilt as a couple of fresh tears fall out of nowhere. I try to quickly wipe them away before continuing. “He has so much going on right now with hockey that I don’t want to add any more onto his plate.”

Jack holds up two fingers towards the bartender before pointing down at our empty glasses, signaling for refills.

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