I love you.

I’ll see you soon, Lo.

Message #270

Do you know this month the baby would’ve been born? I’d be in the hospital, and you would’ve held my hand. I know it probably sounds like I’m crying, but I’m not.

I’m just a little drunk tonight.

I don’t drink, so it doesn’t take much. A friend took me out to help me clear my mind.

Hearing your voice would help even more.

But you haven’t called me.

Maybe this isn’t your number anymore.

Maybe you’ve moved on.

Maybe you don’t fucking care anymore. I don’t even care that you don’t fucking care!

It doesn’t matter.

Fuck you for not calling me, Logan. Not once. You haven’t called me.

Sorry.

I’m a little drunk tonight.

I’ll see you soon, Lo.

Message #435

What do you do during the night when it rains?

I lie in bed and think of your voice.

I’ll see you soon, Lo.

Message #756

I decided that I hate you. I hate everything about you.

But still, I hope I’ll see you soon, Lo.

Message #1090

I’m waving the white flag, Logan. I’m tired, and I give up. I’ll stop now.

Five years.

I’ll stop with the messages.

I love you.

I miss you.

I wish you the best.

Message #1123

Logan, it’s Kellan. Listen, I know you’ve made your life out in Iowa, and things are going well for you. And I wouldn’t ask you to ever come back to this crappy town unless I really needed you and…

Erika and I are getting married. But I can’t get married without my brother. I can’t stand at the altar, without the only family I have beside me.

I know this is asking a lot.

But I promise to never ask for anything else.

Plus, I bought you the documentary on NASA that we spoke about a few weeks ago.

You only get it if you’re my best-fucking-man.

Yes. I am trying to buy your love and I don’t feel guilty at all.

Chat soon.

Chapter Fourteen

Logan

Five years later

Each night I lit a cigarette and sat it on my windowsill. As it burned, I allowed myself to remember my past. I allowed myself to hurt and to mourn up until the moment the flames hit the filter. Then I shut my brain off, and allowed myself to forget, because the pain was too much to swallow. When my brain was shut down, I kept busy, making sure memories wouldn’t slip in. I watched documentaries, I worked dead-end jobs, I worked out—I did everything possible to keep from remembering.

But now, my brother had called me back to the one place that I’d spent the past five years running from. The moment I made it back to True Falls, I sat in the train station, debating if I should’ve found a way to collect money to get a one-way ticket straight back to Iowa.

“Coming or going?” a woman asked, sitting two seats away from me. I turned to her, somewhat taken back by her intense green eyes. She gave me a small smile, and chewed on her thumb nail.

“Not sure yet,” I replied. “What about you?”

“Coming. Staying, I think.” She kept smiling, but the more she did it, the sadder she appeared. I didn’t know smiling could look so heartbreakingly sad. “I’m just trying to waste some time before I head back to my life.”

I could understand that.

I sat back in my chair, trying to keep from remembering the life I’d left behind all those years ago.

“I even booked a hotel for tonight,” she said, biting her bottom lip. “Just so I could have a few more hours to forget, you know? Before I returned to the real world.” I nodded once. She slid two chairs closer to me, her leg brushing against mine. “You don’t remember me, do you?”

Tilting my head her way, she gave me that sad grin again, and combed her fingers through her long hair. “Am I supposed to?”

Her head shook back and forth. “Probably not. My name’s Sadie.” She blinked once, almost as if knowing her name was supposed to mean something to me. Her lips curved down. “Anyway. You seem like a guy who’d like to forget for a while, too. If you want, you’re welcome to come to the motel with me.”

I should’ve told her no. I should’ve ignored her invite. But there was something about how sad she looked, how her pained soul seemed to burn like mine. So I grabbed my duffle bag, tossed it over my shoulder, and I followed Sadie to the land of forgetting.

***

“We’ve attended the same schools for years,” Sadie said as we laid in some piece of shit motel room. I’d been in the motel before, many moons ago, passed out in a filthy bathtub. Being there didn’t bring back the best memories, but I figured since I returned to Wisconsin after five years, everything would be covered in crap recollections.

Her wine-stained lips moved as she stridently smacked on her gum. “Senior year you copied my test for every math exam. I was legit the reason you graduated.” She pushed herself up on her elbows. “I wrote four of your English essays. You can speak Spanish because of me! Sadie? Sadie Lincoln?”

Not a clue.

“I can’t speak Spanish.”

“Well you could. You really don’t remember me?”

Her eyes were saddened by this, but she shouldn’t have been sad. It was nothing personal. There was plenty that I didn’t remember.

Then there was everything I wished I could forget.

“To be fair, I spent most of my high school career fucked up.”

That wasn’t a lie.

“Or with that Alyssa Walters girl,” she remarked.

My chest tightened right along with my jaw. Just hearing her name made my mind flood with memories.

“Is she still in town?” I asked, trying to sound nonchalant. Alyssa stopped leaving me messages months ago, and whenever Kellan called me, we didn’t speak on the subject.

Sadie nodded. “Working at Hungry Harry’s diner. I saw her working at Sam’s Furniture store, too. She plays piano at some bars. I don’t know. She’s been all over the place. I’m surprised you didn’t know that. You two were pretty much glued to each other, which was weird because you had nothing in common.”

“We had plenty in common.”

A sarcastic chuckle fell from her. “Really? The straight A music kid and the straight D—thanks to me—druggie with a crackhead mother had a lot in common?”