Page 139 of The Hallows Queen

I remember you, Logan.

I watch as the dancing dots come up in the text box, then her response comes through.

Unsaved number:

Unfortunately, all I can do is text, because I’m sitting at a football practice in Philly, but I wanted to reach out and have a quick chat, girl to girl.

The dots come up again and stay that way for a few minutes before her next message comes through.

Unsaved number:

Listen, maybe it isn’t my place to say anything, but I’ve never been good at keeping out of Hayden’s business, because I care about him. I felt like I needed to say something.

Luckily, I’m tight with his assistant, and she got your phone number from his phone bill.

I’m not there, and I won’t pretend to know your side of what happened when we all lived in Lux, but I can’t sit back and listen to my best friend break all over again.

His life has never been easy, but I have never seen him the way he was when he first got back from rehab. He spent months looking for you, Penelope. He went to the hospital where your dad was, but by the time he got back, your dad had already passed.

He was an empty shell for the rest of our senior year. He didn’t go to prom, he didn’t do any of the senior activities he should have done, he didn’t even walk at graduation.

All he wanted was you back. He spent every day walking the halls as a ghost, haunted by what he did to you.

I’m sobbing as I finish reading the message, my hands shaking. Tears splash off my phone, and my eyes burn as I watch the dots dance across my screen as Logan keeps typing.

Unsaved number:

What he did was fucked up – I won’t tell you any different, but that’s all he knew. He was addicted to drugs, dealing with a loss that he never processed correctly, abandoned by his father, and fighting the urges inside of himself to self-harm every minute of the day. I didn’t know at the time how bad it had gotten; I never knew how much bad shit he was doing in secret. And maybe that’s on me and my friends for not paying close enough attention, but at the end of the day, he wasn’t in the right state of mind to make the right decisions. He was sick. He always will be, but the difference now is that he’s strong enough to know it.

He won’t tell you that he’s in therapy once a week, that he’s on meds that balance him out, that he’s been sober for three years, he got straight As through college and started working with his dad his junior year, and now he’s the CEO of a major corporation. He finally visited his mother’s grave in Paris, spent time with his grandparents, he fixed things with his dad and accepted that it was never his fault that he didn’t have love growing up. And now that his dad has died, I thought maybe I would be shipping him back to rehab, but he’s kept strong. He’s celebrating three years sober today, did he tell you that?

Crying, I read the message twice, letting her honesty seep into my soul, then another message comes through.

Unsaved number:

You’re inside him, Penelope, you never left.

Maybe over the last few years, you’ve moved on, maybe he wasn’t a big part of your life like you were his, but he never even thought about moving on. Even when we tried to set him up in college, even when people threw themselves at him at parties, even when we lectured him that he needed to move on, it was always you and it always will be. You were the first person in his life who he loved, and I’m sure you’ll be the last.

He’ll be at the church on the corner of Grove and Beckett, out by the beach, tonight at 6:30. You should go and listen.

I spend the next thirty minutes reading her messages repeatedly, sadness pooling in my eyes and dripping down my face, and by the time I look up at the clock, it’s nearing 6. I hover my thumbs over the screen, then type a message back to Logan.

Me:

Thank you.

Standing up, I rush to my room to change my clothes and splash some water on my face. My skin is red and blotchy from crying, and my eyes are bloodshot, but I don’t want to spend any more time here than I need to – I don’t want to have enough time to change my mind about going to find Hayden. I’m dizzy and nervous when I grab my purse and rush out of my apartment, but I push myself to get into the driver’s seat of my car and head for the church on Grove and Beckett. I’m not sure what I’m going to find, because I’ve never known Hayden to be religious, and ideas float around in my mind for the entire drive.

The little parking lot is half full when I pull in at 6:35, and I park in the back just in case I want to stay hidden. Turning off the engine, I toy with my keys in my lap for a minute, feeling so nervous that my stomach is flipping. I take a deep breath, then blow it out and open my car door.

When I get to the front doors of the church, there’s a flyer taped to them.

NA meeting tonight: 6:30PM, conference room.

Taking a breath, I pull the door open slowly. The air conditioning blows over me as I walk in and close the door with a quiet click, and I walk through the lobby to find the right room. There’s a pair of doors sitting in the back with glass panels, so I look through them. A dozen or so people are sitting in folding chairs in the room, and I spot Hayden in the front row, listening to someone standing at the podium talking.

Surprisingly, I’m able to creep into the room and sit down in the back corner without anyone noticing. A few people take turns standing up in front of the group to share their stories, and tears fill my eyes as I listen to their struggles. After twenty minutes, a man with light hair and an aged face steps up to the podium and smiles at the crowd.

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