Of Love & Regret (8 page)

My chest
constricted when my gaze settled on a picture of Logan and Cassie. They were on
the steps of the student center with Cassie sitting between Logan’s legs. They
looked like the perfect golden couple. Cassie’s face was vibrant with laughter,
her brown eyes glowing with happiness and contentment. Logan had a wide smile
on his face, and he looked carefree and relaxed. I keenly remembered that
moment in time, since I had been the one to take the picture of them the
beginning of our junior year.

“Take a picture of us!” Cassie said as she
pushed her camera into my hands. The campus was teaming with students as we all
took advantage of an unseasonably warm day at the end of September.

I watched as Cassie pulled Logan in front of
the camera. “Let’s sit on the steps!” she suggested enthusiastically, and he
obliged with a patient smile. They had only been dating for a few weeks, but
their relationship had progressed at a fast and furious pace.

“Okay, ready?” I asked once Cassie had
stopped fussing about how they should be posed. She was nestled in between
Logan’s legs with his arms wrapped around her waist. He looked at me with a wry
smile, as if he were sharing a joke with me about how carried away Cassie could
become with taking a simple picture.

I had been shocked the first time he had
come to our dorm room to pick up Cassie for a date. She had talked endlessly
about a boy she had met at the school gym, and was ecstatic that he had asked
her out on a date, although she admitted that she had really done the asking,
and he had just agreed. The way she spoke about him, I had expected him to be a
golden-haired Adonis. My shock wasn’t due to the fact that he was exactly as
Cassie described him, but that he was also the boy I had been daydreaming about
for over a week.

Our brief encounter at the bookstore had
stayed with me, and for some reason I couldn’t get him out of my mind. I had admonished
myself for getting so caught up in a guy’s good looks, but that didn’t stop me
from thinking about him. Despite my preoccupation with him, with the vast number
of students at the University of Michigan, I doubted I would ever run into him
again.

I certainly didn’t expect him to be the boy
Cassie had been talking about non-stop. I figured there were countless tall,
blond-haired guys at our school and the chances of it being the same person
never even entered my mind.

That explained why my mouth dropped open
when Cassie opened our dorm room to reveal him standing there. He had
recognized me with a surprised smile, but I was unable to do more than stammer
out a halted greeting. I was glad I had never told Cassie about my encounter
with him, and I was especially glad that I had never told her how he occupied
my thoughts. Neither of us mentioned that we had met before, and I assumed he
didn’t bring it up because it wasn’t significant to him.

I was relieved when they left for their
date, and I had just chalked it up to coincidence. He was hot, but hot guys
weren’t exactly a rarity at our school, and I told myself it was no big deal.

“Maddie!” Cassie waved her hand in the air,
trying to get my attention. “Helloooo. Earth to Maddie.”

“Sorry,” I said with an embarrassed laugh. I
raised the camera and snapped a couple of shots.

Cassie jumped up from the steps to take a
look at the pictures I had taken. “Cute!” she squealed with a satisfied smile.
Logan got up from the steps and ambled towards us, but didn’t seem interested
in looking at the pictures. Cassie shoved the camera in his hands.

“Now take a picture of me and Maddie.”

I groaned, but followed her obligingly to
the steps. Cassie had gotten the camera this past summer, and she had been
obnoxious with her propensity to capture every moment of her life on film. I
humored her good-naturedly, despite hating to have my picture taken.

Cassie threw her arm around my shoulders and
we leaned into each other. “Smile!” she commanded through her own smile. “These
are the pictures we’re going to look back at when we’re old and wrinkly. We’re
not going to be hot forever, so the least you can do is smile so we have proof
that we were once young and pretty.”

I laughed at her statement. It was typical
Cassie to read so much more into a photo than just the capture of an image. I
heard the shutter go off and frowned at Logan.

“I wasn’t ready,” I protested.

“It’s a good picture,” Logan reassured me.
Cassie leapt off the steps to take a look and I followed behind her at a slower
pace.

“I love it,” she exclaimed. She looked up at
Logan coyly. “You got my best side.”

“Every side is your best side,” he commented
with a laugh and a quick kiss. I averted my eyes and grabbed the camera. I was
surprised that Logan was right. It was a good picture. Cassie was gazing
straight into the camera and looked beautiful, as always, but he had caught me
off guard. Usually, I looked too somber in pictures—hence Cassie’s
instruction for me to smile. My dislike of having my picture taken seemed to
translate into the actual image, despite my half-hearted attempts to smile.

But in this picture, I wasn’t aware of the
camera. I was laughing and my green eyes seemed to dominate the photo. I looked
relaxed and happy and much prettier than I imagined myself to be. Sure, I knew
I was by no means an ogre, but in this picture I was a more beautiful and
happier version of myself.

“Maybe you should change your major to
photography,” I joked to Logan as I handed the camera back to Cassie. “You must
have some magical skills to make me look halfway decent in a photo.”

“Shut it,” Cassie said with a poke in my
ribs. “You’d be gorgeous in every picture if you just smiled in them.”

Logan shrugged. “Some people just translate
better in photographs.” He gave me a slight smile. “And some people are too vibrant
to be captured in a static image. There’s more to you than just a smile.”

Cassie smacked him on the arm, but she was
laughing. “Keep your charm in your pants, Romeo. Maddie isn’t swayed by glib
words. You’ll have to win over my best friend another way.”

He allowed himself to be dragged away
towards the cafeteria, our original destination before we had been waylaid by
Cassie’s insistence on taking a picture. I followed behind them, unsettled by
his statement. I didn’t like the flicker of awareness his words had created. I
shook my head, warning myself to not read too much into them. I had easily transitioned
Logan from a crush to Cassie’s boyfriend. I needed to keep it that way.

Cassie turned her head to look at me and
stopped walking. “Come on, slowpoke!”

When I had caught up to them, she linked my
arm around her free one to make sure I didn’t fall behind. I told myself that
my reaction to Logan’s words was a momentary lapse in judgment, nothing more.

“Madison.”

I jumped at the
sound of my name, breaking out of my reverie. I turned to face Logan, who stood
at the doorway watching me.

“I didn’t mean to
take so long,” I said quickly, grabbing the lighter on her desk that I had
noticed earlier. “Let’s go.”

Logan ignored me
as he looked around Cassie’s bedroom. He took a tentative step in, as if he was
reluctant to enter this eerie shrine.

“Not a thing out
of place,” he commented softly. He walked over to me and glanced at the
pictures tacked up on the corkboard. He had a slight smile on his face as he
looked at the dozens of photos documenting Cassie’s short life. His gaze
settled on the picture he had taken of me and Cassie on the steps of the
student center, right next to the picture of him and Cassie.

“I remember this,”
he said quietly. “It was the first time I realized how beautiful you were.”

“Stop,” I said, my
voice trembling. “Not today.
Especially
not here.”

Logan’s face
darkened, and his usual, easy countenance disappeared. “Then when? Where?”

“Never,” I said
emphatically, trying to get a rein on my emotions that were veering out of
control. “There’s no reason to ever revisit the past.”

“We were young,”
Logan said, ignoring my plea. “We never meant to hurt Cassie.” He gently but
firmly grasped my arm when I turned away from him. “Maddie, we were just kids
trying to figure out our feelings.”

“Shut up!” My
control snapped, and the words tumbled out of me of their own accord. “I told
you not to call me that. I also told you that I don’t want to discuss the past.
We can’t be friends if you keep bringing it up. I thought you understood that!”

Logan’s hand dropped
from my arm and his face turned as hard as granite. “I’ve stood by and pasted a
damn smile on my face, trying to pretend that we could just be friends. I guess
I hoped you would work through your issues, and recognize what’s staring us in
the face. I don’t know what the hell I was thinking. You obviously have no
interest in dealing with the truth about what’s between us. In your own way,
you’re living in as much of a fantasy world about our relationship as Mrs.
Brooks is about Cassie’s death.”

His cruel words
battered against my already-raw emotions, and it took everything I had not to scream
at him.

“Fuck you.” My
voice was low and the barely restrained rage was evident. “Don’t you ever
compare me to Mrs. Brooks. I never asked you to be my friend. I didn’t beg you
to be a part of my life.
You’re
the
one who kept barging into my life, trying to convince me that you wanted
nothing more than friendship. Well, you can renege on your offer of friendship,
because I don’t want it anymore. It’s not my fault you lied about your true
intentions.”

A part of me
expected Logan’s face to crumple and for him to immediately apologize. We had
never spoken so cruelly to each other, even when we had been uncharacteristically
fighting last week, but as much as I wanted to take my ugly words back, my
anger and hurt wouldn’t allow it.

His jaw clenched
and his eyes looked more black than blue. “My pleasure,” he bit out. “I’m tired
of playing the fool.”

He turned around
abruptly and stalked out of the room. I grabbed onto the chair next to me to
stop myself from collapsing to the floor. I had no idea what had just happened
between us, but I knew our relationship was irrevocably changed… if there even
was a relationship left to salvage.

I took several
deep breaths, trying to regain my composure, before I left Cassie’s bedroom.
The last thing I needed was for Mrs. Brooks to see how upset I was.

When I came back
downstairs, Mr. and Mrs. Brooks were standing next to the dining table in front
of the cake while Logan had his back to them, facing the window. He didn’t turn
around when he heard my approach, but Mrs. Brooks’ face brightened.

“There you are,”
she said with a wide smile. “Now we can light the candles.”

“Sorry I took so
long,” I replied, trying to sound normal despite the chaotic emotions that
threatened to overwhelm me.

“Don’t worry about
it, dear,” Mrs. Brooks said kindly. “Cassie keeps her room such a mess. I’m not
surprised it took you a while to find a lighter.”

I silently handed
Mr. Brooks the lighter and watched as he lit the candles on top of the cake. It
was a beautiful cake covered in intricate frosting with the words “Happy
Birthday Cassie” piped in yellow.

Mrs. Brooks ushered
me in front of the cake, and I stared at it, feeling sick to my stomach. I
could almost feel Cassie’s disapproving presence next to me, wondering what the
hell we were doing pretending that she was still alive. She would have
protested loudly at this display, dismayed that we hadn’t moved past her death.
She had never been one to dwell on the obstacles of life, preferring to move
forward and push ahead.

“I know it’s silly
to sing Happy Birthday without Cassie here, but I’m sure she’d appreciate it.
I’ll tell her all about it once she comes home.”

I nodded weakly at
Mrs. Brooks, although the only thing I wanted to do was run from the mocking
cake and candles and from Logan’s tense back.

“Logan,” Mrs.
Brooks called out. “Come join us.”

His shoulders stiffened,
but he slowly turned around. His expression was unreadable as he moved to join
us, and he studiously avoided my gaze.

Mrs. Brooks
started singing and her husband joined in soon after. I added my trembling
voice, although I desperately wanted to shut my eyes against this mockery of a
celebration. I didn’t hear Logan join in, and I wasn’t surprised.

“Blow out the
candles,” Mrs. Brooks encouraged when I just stood there after we were done
singing. I swallowed audibly, feeling an irrational fear that if I blew out the
candles in Cassie’s stead, I would somehow be damning myself.

“Madison,” Mr.
Brooks prompted, a stern look on his usually gentle face. “It’s time to blow
out the candles.”

In a flash of
insight, I wondered who was sicker
—
Cassie’s
mother, who actually believed she was still alive, or her father, who knew the
truth but lived a lie for his wife.

I told myself to
just blow out the damn candles so I could get the hell out of there, but my
body refused to cooperate. I felt myself start to tremble. I couldn’t do it. I
couldn’t blow out Cassie’s birthday candles for so many reasons, but the main
reason was that it was just
wrong.
I
felt as though I would be betraying her, betraying the short yet brilliant life
she had lived, by not acknowledging that she was gone. I wouldn’t be blowing
out her candles because she was stuck in traffic. I would be blowing out her
candles to perpetuate the lie that she was still alive. She would have hated
that.