Page 40 of Whenever You Call

“And I was with him,” I added, cutting her off.

A look of disappointment washed over her. “Did you… take them too?”

“Sometimes,” I admitted. “But never like Dale. Never like—”

“Cole,” she finished for me, clearing her throat, and carefully folding her arms beneath her chest. “What happened?”

“Dale took one ecstasy pill too many. He wasn’t hydrated enough, and he had a bad reaction to the trip.” I never relived that night for anyone, and I was desperate to give the bare minimum when it came to the details, but my mouth wouldn’t stop talking. “We were by the lake. Some stupid college party at a mutual friend’s house. Dale never knew when to just enjoy a beer or keep it lowkey. I don’t think any of us really understood how deep into the whole scene he’d fallen, and that night, he disappeared for a while. I’d tried to keep my eyes on him all evening, knowing something was…off. But he was good at slipping away. Good at making people think they had nothing to worry about, and I stupidly got sidetracked by some girl in a tight dress.” I swallowed harshly. “Once we realized Dale had been gone too long, a few of us went looking for him down by the lake and… you know.”

“He’d… gone?”

“Almost,” I croaked, feeling the walls of my throat closing up. I never talked about this shit with anyone. Never spoke about the reason I’d left Michigan and come to Los Angeles to start a new life—one where I could try to right the wrongs of the people who hadn’t saved Dale that day, no matter how hard they’d all tried. And, fuck, did they try.

Hannah took a step closer to me, leaving nothing between us. Her delicate hands landed on my chest, just over my rapidly beating heart.

“The paramedics couldn’t save him,” I said, holding her gaze like she was the anchor to my emotions, tying them down, keeping them steady, unwilling to set them free. I was desperate to touch her, too. To hold her somehow and bleed all my regret and guilt out so I never had to look at her and feel either of those emotions again, but deep down, I’d changed as a man. I’d become a fucking coward who couldn’t own up to his own feelings. One who couldn’t handle seeing this woman angry at him for a single moment because she was already broken, and I got off too much on trying to fix her.

Hannah pressed her palm down against my racing heart. “You feel guilty, I see that, but it wasn’t your fault, Logan.”

“I should have saved him.”I should have saved them both.

“Some people can’t be saved.”

She couldn’t have said anything worse.

Everybody could be saved. It was the very code I lived by.

My face must have shown it, too, because her confused expression returned, and her hands drifted down my chest until I stepped away completely, putting some much-needed distance between us so I could get some clarity.

What the fuck am I doing here? This isn’t normal. This isn’t healthy. This…

“This is fucked up,” I whispered to myself without thought.

“What?”

I looked up to see a sadness in her eyes that didn’t belong there. But my thoughts weren’t aligning with my need to make sure she was okay, and the memories of Dale’s face mixed with Cole’s were at the forefront of my mind, making everything turn red and hazy as the grief and disappointment crept in at a pace I couldn’t control.

Running my hand through the back of my hair gave me a moment’s pause, and I shook my head before glancing around the kitchen, trying to find anything to focus on that wasn’t this woman who was stealing all of my rational thought and morals.

But they only drifted out to the foyer in the distance, reminding me of the first time I stepped inside this house—of Cole’s dying face and the panic in his eyes.

“I… I should go,” I said in a rush.

“Logan, wait—”

“I can’t. I…

“Logan…”

“I’ll see you around, Hannah.”

Before I could be drawn into her again, and before she could even get my name out of her mouth again and tempt me to stay, I walked out of her place with nothing but the weight of two deaths on my back and her sad eyes forever burned into my mind.

Chapter17

HANNAH

I’ll see you around, Hannah.

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