Page 67 of Forgiving Her First Love

Oh God.

Tears formed behind her clenched eyelids, leaking onto her lashes. He wasn’t here for her. The emptiness of that emptied her mind, making it impossible to form a clear thought. She couldn’t move and only knew she was breathing because each inhale felt forged in fire, each exhale nothing but noxious smoke.

“I’ll walk down with you,” Logan said, voice sounding far away. “Or I can stay with Art if you would rather not, but I need you to tell me what you want to do with Biyen? Trys will keep him. Or Reid and Emma. You can wait to tell him later if you want to.”

Clarity arrived. “No. I have to tell him. Oh my God, Logan.” Now it was coming. The agony of loss was seeping past her shock. It was becoming real.

“I know.” His arms came around her, holding her together as she shook and fell apart. “I know. I know.”

He did know. That was the excruciating, consoling, unbearable truth as she clung to him and massive sobs convulsed her. Many would mourn her grandfather, but no one else would cry this hard with her. While she wet the shirt under her cheek with her tears, he clenched his fingers against her back and released choked noises against her hair. He moaned in anguish, same as her. For long minutes, they were captives racked in the shared cage of losing someone precious.

Eventually, her nose was in danger of running all over him so she broke away and grabbed a tissue.

He took a couple for himself and ran them across his cheeks, eyes bloodshot, face lined as if he’d aged ten years. She must look equally devastated.

“Will you get Biyen for me?” she asked, voice rusty and thin.

He nodded and picked up his sunglasses, putting them on as he walked outside.

*

This was the worst day of his life.

Logan felt as though he walked through glycerin. The air felt thick enough to make every movement an effort. He could hardly breathe it in. His lungs were clogged and his throat was tight.

“What’s going on?” Reid asked as Logan strode down the wharf toward him.

Biyen was on the deck of the Storm Ridge, putting on the life preserver Trystan handed him.

“Trystan is going to take me to the fueling station,” Biyen said. “Is Mom coming?”

“Bud, I’m sorry. Your Mom needs to talk to you. She’s up at the hardware store. Can you go see her right now?”

“Aweh.” He glumly handed back the jacket.

“I’ll wait for you,” Trystan promised.

“What’s going on?” Reid asked.

Logan held up a hand as he watched Biyen walk up the wharf and ramp, then break into a run toward the hardware store when he reached solid ground.

“It’s Art. Can you…” Fuck this was hard. He scrubbed across his stubbled jaw, trying to make his numb lips work. “The coroner is on the way.”

“Oh fuck,” Reid breathed.

“Sophie’s at the hardware store? I’ll go sit with her.” Trystan tried to hand off the keys to the Storm Ridge to Logan.

“I’ll stay with her,” Logan snarled.

For a minute, they held a staring contest through the lenses of their reflective sunglasses.

“I lost him, too.” It felt almost childish to say it, but Logan’s grief was too colossal to downplay. This wasn’t like losing their father, where they all held a certain ambivalence about the man who had raised them. Art had been his teacher. He had patiently answered Logan’s questions and helped him understand this world—the one filled with the smell of salt and the creak of wood and the endless rhythm of tides. When he was here, he was never lost.

There was nothing Logan could do about Art being gone, but he needed to be with Sophie, to look after her while she went through this. He needed to go through it with her.

Trystan gave a jerky nod. Then he abruptly clasped his shoulder and pulled him into a brief, hard hug, smacking his back once.

“I’m sorry, man. We all feel this one. I’ll go ask her if she wants me to take Biyen for a while.”

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