Page 102 of Meet Me in the Valley
“What does itlooklike I’m doing?” he grunts, yanking a piece of tape. The sound slices through the tension between us. “I’m making a fucking box.”
My eyes roll so hard I swear I see a past life.
I move to stop him, ready to pry the tape from his stubborn fingers, but he beats me to it, tossing it aside with a loud clatter. Then he storms into the kitchen, rummages through a drawer, and returns with a black Sharpie in hand like a man possessed.
“You’re being ridiculous,” I mutter.
He ignores me.
He kneels, scribbles something across the top of the box in big, bold letters, then slides it across the floor until it lands right at my feet.
LOGAN & TIA.
All caps. Underlined.
“There,” he says, breathless. “There’s your box. Happy?” A pause. “Can we move on now?”
I stare down at the box like it might blink first. Our names, written in bold black letters, sitting there like it’s supposed to make everything make sense.
Over the last two weeks, I’ve had too much time to sit with everything—to analyze what we were, what we became. Now that he’s here, inches away with the heat of his skin radiating into mine, there’s no doubt in my mind that Logan and I built a real friendship.
Torren’s dock, the night we met for real? That was the spark. But the fire that followed? That came from something else entirely.
When fate brought us back together in Austin all those years ago, a quiet codependency took root. I rarely made a move without him. So much of my growth—my self-discovery—happened with Logan by my side. But somewhere along the way, we stopped pushing each other forward. We started holding each other in place.
I look back at the women, the lifestyle he lived. I never judged him—not really. But deep down, I always knew he had more to offer. And the moment I felt my heart tug toward him was one of the most terrifying discoveries of my life.
Because how could I ever be enough for a man who didn’t believe he was enough for anyone—not even himself?
And maybe, just maybe, I didn’t do our friendship justice by letting him avoid and deflect all these years. The sobering realization is that Ienabledit. I made it easier for him to hide.
We didn’t break because we crossed a line. We broke because we kept running from our pain, from our pasts, and eventually, from each other.
We let lust and sex cloud the truths we didn’t want to face. Hard truths that hung over us like a guillotine, waiting to drop and cut us for dead.
We didn’t grow. Wehid. And somewhere in all that hiding, we mistook survival for connection.
Then Professor Silva’s mantra rings loud in my head like a church bell, beckoning me to see the truth and admit it for the very first time.
You can force your opponent’s submission, but true peace only comes when you submit to yourself.
A tight, breathy laugh escapes me. Not because it’s funny—but because it took this stupid box for me to see Professor Silva’s teachings weren’t just empty words he’d made me recite since I was a young girl.
The opponent was never a single thing or person. Not Alzheimer’s. Not Nora. Not Logan’s mom. Not even Logan.
It’s me.
My fear. My patterns. My inability to face the quiet parts of myself without using Logan as the buffer. He’s just as guilty, and the weight of this epiphany I know will crush him. But it’s my last chance at protecting what’s left of us before we ruin it by trying to force something neither of us is ready for.
And I can only get there by choosing myself.
“Logan …” I whisper, shaking my head gently. “This isn’t the answer.”
I step around the box, needing space from the symbolism he’s laid at my feet.
“You’re trying to fix it. I get it. But this?” I motion to the box. “It doesn’t work like that. It’s about the fact that right now, we’re not ready.” My voice wavers, and I bite down on the emotion that’s trying to rise.
“We’re not ready? Oryou’renot ready?”
