A/N: Song recommendation on the side from CountingLockets!
I hadn't left the beach, still sitting in the sand, watching the waves crash down in the distance. I'd tucked my knees up against my chest now, but left my jacket laying by my side. Goosebumps surfaced on my skin as I shivered against the cold, but I didn't make any effort to warm myself up. I didn't want to be warm. Being cold was a good distraction.
I never tore my gaze away from staring at the grey picture in front of me. Grey clouds, grey sky, grey everything. It was like the world was reflecting back to me how I was feeling. The crashing sea was my inner turmoil, the harsh wind was my anger, and the colour of it all...grey - that was my emotions. That was my future. It all just looked bleak.
In a way, it made me wish that back when we first met in the classroom, I had just walked away and not given him enough time to ask for my number. But I knew that I didn't really want that. Logan has possibly been one of the best things that could have happened to me. The thought of losing him was tearing up my mind. I couldn't stand the thought.
I knew it wasn't going to be like the movies. There wasn't going to be some miraculous recovery or miracle that would mean he was going to be okay. Logan would leave, and there was nothing that I could do about it. I couldn't help him in any way. At all. I felt so goddamn useless.
I twirled my phone around, from where I held it loosely in my palm. I don't know how long it'd been since I ran off to the beach, but Logan had been ringing pretty much every five minutes since. I couldn't work up the courage to answer it, I was afraid that I'd forget how to speak. But in the end I did answer, and Logan mumbled something about wanting to speak to me.
But even just hearing his voice...I couldn't. I just couldn't talk to him right now, I didn't even know what there was to say. I couldn't find the will to stand up and move, either. So I stayed where I was, accepting the cold with a fine line to my lips. I kept my gaze fixated on the line between the sky and the sea, letting my mind wander off into thoughts about the edge of the world.
But my mind soon rotated it's focus back onto Logan. I wish I could shake the thought of him leaving and just concentrate on the fact that, right now, he was still here. He hadn't left yet, and I should be spending every minute that I have free, with him. I shouldn't be sat in the sand, staring out at the ocean and just torturing myself about it.
It must have been about five or ten minutes later that I saw a shadow to my left, just before a figure was sitting down beside me. I didn't need to look at his face to know who it was. I felt somewhat relieved that he was here. Like somewhere in the back of my mind, I wanted him to come and find me.
"How'd you know where I was?" I muttered, reaching a hand out to pick up some sand, letting it drift through my fingers and get carried off in the wind.
"Heard the sea in the background when I called," I could see him looking at me from the corner of my eye. I didn't meet his gaze. Found that I couldn't pull my eyes from the edge of the world, even when I tried.
"What're you doing out here?"
"Thinking," I said, sounding distant and empty. I saw the movement as Logan nodded his head gently, turning to look out at the sea. He kept glancing my way, seemingly contemplating whether to do something or not. He stayed still, and silent, for a few more minutes. Then he shuffled closer to me, reaching around to grab my jacket and shaking the sand from it.
"You should put this on," he offered it to me, but I only shook my head in reply. He sighed. I imagined him rolling his eyes in that way he always did, whenever I did something stupid. The sort of eye roll that showed his affection, even when he was trying to come across as annoyed.
He threw the jacket over my shoulders, but obviously decided that wasn't going to bring him enough satisfaction. So he pulled me against him, with one hand around my back and the other around my chest, holding me there in case I tried to escape. That one simple action caused a tsunami of emotions to roll on in, taking out the flood gates I'd only recently succeeded in building.
My hands clutched to his shirt as I cried, which only made Logan hold me tighter, and successfully caused me to break down.
"I don't want you to die," the words were muffled by his shirt. The hand around my chest came up to bury itself in my hair, as he kissed me on the forehead. "I don't want you to leave. Logan, please don't leave."
"I'm so sorry, Ash," he whispered into my hair. "I don't want to leave either. It's gonna be okay. You're gonna be okay." He tried to reassure me, but I wasn't listening.
"No I'm not, Logan. You're what makes me okay." I managed to say through the snivelling. Logan's hold on me didn't loosen up, and I didn't want it to. I felt like it was the only thing letting me know that he was still here with me. I didn't know how much time he had, I'm not sure I even wanted to know.
"I'm here right now, and that's all that matters. Isn't that what you once said? Isn't it enough that I'm here now?"
I leaned away, enough to look straight into his eyes. "This is a completely different scenario. You're dying Logan. I'm not. Completely fucking different! It's not enough time. I don't care how long it is, it's not goddamn enough!"
I wanted to throw something, just to hear the satisfying noise as it smashes. I wanted to do something destructive. Just do something to get this anger out of my system, get this frustration out. Do something that would distract me, even if for only a little while. Even better, I wanted to wake up from this nightmare that was my fucking life.
Every time it seemed like things were picking up, and I was starting to feel good again - happy and content, almost - life would just flip the coin and fuck me over. As quick as that. No remorse. I was just so sick of it. Why it had to be Logan...I just- I don't want to lose him. It's too soon. Way too soon.
I collapsed back into Logan's arms, burying my head in his shirt and holding on tightly. "Why did it have to be you?"
"Hey, hey," he grabbed my head in his hands, forcing me to look in his eyes, holding my gaze with an intensity in those dark-browns that I'd never seen before. "Listen to me. I'm not gone yet, yeah? I'm still here. Look," he pressed his forehead against mine, but didn't break eye contact. "I'm still here. I'm here." His voice lowered to a whisper, as he closed his eyes.
"But why did it have to be you?" I whispered as a tear fell down my cheek. Logan's hands were still either side of my face, so I was sure he felt it collide with his skin. That was confirmed when I felt his thumbs brushing them away, from underneath my eyes.
"Because life's a bitch."
I felt my lips curve into the smallest of smiles. "You said a naughty word," my voice was so quiet and weak. I saw Logan's eyes open, before he mimicked my smile and we shared a short chuckle of humour.
"I love you," he whispered, tears overflowing the lids of his eyes. My chest felt heavy and tight, constricted. Hearing those words under these conditions made it so much harder to accept that he was, someday, going to be gone. I knew Logan had a limit on his life, no matter how long, it was still a limit. I just had to do everything I could to make the rest of his life, the best of his life.
"I love you," I replied in a whisper, too. Logan leaned forward, catching my bottom lip between his in a lingering kiss. "I've never said that to anyone before." I said, once our lips had separated.
"Me neither," his smile grew wider, pressing his lips against mine in another, brief, kiss. I could feel his smile against mine, and when he pulled back I saw that it had now stretched into a grin. It was infectious, and before I knew it, despite everything, I couldn't hold back a grin of my own.
"Come on," he said, standing up and offering me his hand. I took it, and he pulled me up to my feet, too. I shoved my arms in my jacket and zipped it up, finding my phone and slipping it into my pocket. "It's too cold out here."
"Logan," he turned back to face me, just as he was about to start walking off. "I don't blame you. I just want you to know that. You don't need to apologise for anything," he nodded along with my words, but didn't look entirely convinced. "I'm glad you called me that night."
"Okay," he said, turning to start walking again. But I pulled him back to face me. I needed him to know that those weren't just words to make him feel better. They were true. I didn't blame him, it wasn't his fault and I was glad I met him.
"Don't give me that bullshit okay. Logan, didn't you goddamn hear me? I love you." I said the words strongly, slowly, so that he listened and actually heard them. "I've never said those three words to another person in my life. You're the first, Logan. The first."
"But I won't be the last," he replied, casting his eyes down, before letting them slowly rise back up to meet my own again. "It's selfish of me to say that, I know. Maybe it's a little obsessive, I don't care. I don't like the thought."
I took a step closer to him. "But you're the first. You're the one I'll never forget. You're the one that made me feel this way for the first time. You're the one that I fucking love, right here, right now. That's all that goddamn matters. If I ever do love again, it will never be like this."
Logan dropped his head again, a gentle nod to the movement. "You know what else I'll be, Ash? I'll be the first one to leave you, too. That thought, that thought - it kills me. That's worse than dying, itself. And you know what you'll remember the most? You'll remember the pain you felt. Not the love."
"That's not true." I countered, defiantly. "You won't be the first one to leave me, Logan, because that spot's already been taken. I've lost someone before you, and that's why it makes this harder for me. Because I already know that pain. I already know how it feels to have loved and lost. I know it's not the same kind of love, but it's love all the same." I was shouting now, hands flailing about in the air as I tried to express my emotions.
"Who?" Was the only word he said. I let my hands fall to my sides as I just stared at him. The one person I felt like I could talk to about my past, the one person who made me feel like I could relive the past and survive it. So I gave in, and I said something that I'd been trying so hard to forget ever since I was fifteen.
"My parents."
Logan's eyes slid shut. Sorrow? Sympathy? I wasn't sure. They stayed like that for a few moments, before fluttering open. His eyes held the unsaid question, wondering how it happened, when.
"I was fifteen. It was late January, snow was still on the ground. The cars just crashed into each other in a pile up. My parents' car was in the middle."
"Ash," I knew he was going to tell me he was sorry, but I wasn't in the mood to hear the pity speech.
"That's how I ended up on the streets. I didn't have any relatives, couldn't stay in school. My life pretty much went tits up from then on out. But hey, did what I had to do to get by and sure, life was shit. But then I met you, Logan, and life started to seem...not so shit."
"And now I'm leaving you, too,"
I sighed. "At some point, you will. But fuck that. Fuck everything. You're here, I'm here. Let's just...make the most of a shitty, fucked up situation, yeah?" I tried to hold back another wave of tears, because I couldn't just keep breaking down on Logan. I needed to be strong. This had to be so goddamn scary for him, and I was making it all about myself. He was the one that needed someone. He was the one that was dying.
"Okay," he said, but this time it made me smile and I nodded, taking his hand in mine.
"Okay." We turned and started walking for the steps to the path, heading all the way back to Logan's. I wanted to try and stay off the subject of death and the past, and I was sure that's what Logan wanted too. But neither of us really knew what to say, so the journey back to his house was filled with silence.
I decided that I was going to stay with him for the rest of the day. I wish I never had to leave, but I knew at some point I'd have to. I hoped that came later than sooner.