Page 39 of Whenever You Call

“About?”

“How that, when you’re here, I don’t panic about panicking.”

“It’s the paramedic in me. Makes you feel safe.”

“No, Logan, it’s the you in you. You’re just a good person to have around, but you don’t like hearing that, do you? Compliments make you feel awkward.”

“Talking about myself is boring. I live with me every day.”

“Ah, I’m not used to being around people who think like that. Cole’s favorite topic was always Cole.” A small laugh escaped her, but something told me she didn’t find it funny.

“He achieved a lot,” I said. “In a short amount of time, too. Can’t blame the guy for being proud of that.”

“Oh, I can blame him for alot,” she said, any happiness falling from her face quickly, making me feel like a fucking idiot the moment the words fell from her mouth. “I can, and I will.”

“That wasn’t—”

“That’s the problem though, isn’t it? I’m meant to think of him fondly in these early stages. I’m not meant to be angry, disappointed, or even a little relieved that I don’t have to deal with his bullshit anymore.”

“I didn’t mean you couldn’t blame him. It came out wrong.”

“No, it came out right.” She moved to the edge of her seat before picking up the bowls and standing.

I stood with her, my hands falling by my side as I watched her move around the table and head back inside, into the kitchen. I followed, watching as she dumped the plates into the sink with a little too much force, the sound of them hitting together ringing out around the room until she pressed her hands to the top of her head and looked up at me with wide, helpless eyes.

“Sorry,” she muttered weakly.

“Don’t be.”

“I just hate how mad he still makes me.”

I took a step closer. “Nothing you feel is wrong, Hannah.”

“Then why does it feel wrong? Why do I feel guilty talking to you about him like that?”

I took another step. “Because you’re letting other people get inside your head. You’re worried about their needs over your own.”

“He had a lot of people love him.”

“But he loved you the most.”

She puffed out a sarcastic laugh and dropped her hands to her chest. “He loved himself the most.”

I wanted to tell her everything right there and then. To confess how he’d looked up at me through eyes that knew they were dying. To tell her the last word to fall from his dying lips. But I couldn’t confess any of that shit. Not while her emotions were bouncing all over the place from one minute to the next. All I could try to do was help her feel better about this fucked-up situation she’d become stuck in the middle of.

I took another step closer, and then another, until she was only an arm's length away from me, staring up into my eyes as though I held all the answers that could heal whatever Cole had broken inside of her.

I didn’t have any answers.

But I did have a story.

“I know the pain you feel inside. I know the confusion. The anger. The bitterness. The regret.”

“How?” she whispered.

“I lost my best friend when I was eighteen. Drug overdose. Just like Cole.”

“Logan, I’m so sorry—"

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