Before I Ever Met You by Karina Halle
Logan.
Losing Logan.
The thought makes me double over, my knees hitting the tile floor with a sickly thud. I cry out in pain but it’s not my knees, it’s my heart, seeping open and bleeding. The pain is physical, deep, a fish hook that I can’t reach.
I cry out but there is no sound. My mouth is open, gaping and I can’t scream, I can’t breathe. Low, guttural noises rip through me as my lungs strain and strain.
I can’t make this choice.
I can’t throw all of this away.
I crawl to the couch and pull myself up, fingers digging into the cushions like an injured animal. I can’t imagine life without him, without being here. There has to be another way, there has to be.
Taking in a deep breath, I turn my phone over in my hands.
With what strength I have I call my father’s cell phone.
He answers right away, not even giving me enough time to process what I was going to say, let alone how to figure out how to speak.
“Veronica,” he says, his tone is hushed. I already know that my mother must be somewhere near him and that thought causes a dark, thick rage to boil inside my throat. “Is that you?”
“Daddy,” I say, my voice is so low and broken it doesn’t even sound human. “How could you?”
He sighs unsteadily. “Listen, dear, you know we love you.”
That was always my dad’s thing, to tell me “you know we love you” without having to tell me that they love me. If I knew they loved me, this wouldn’t be happening. I wouldn’t be who I am and I wouldn’t be begging my father.
“I love him,” I whisper.
“Whether you do or you don’t doesn’t have any bearing Veronica, and you know this. Your mother and I…she has a lot to lose. What will it look like to the world to have you marry your dead sister’s widower? It’s beyond reproach and you know it.”
“What will it look like?” I repeat. “You keep saying that, what will it look like, because you’re so fucking scared of what people think and see of you, that you have no regard for your own daughter and her feelings.”
“Oh hush now,” he says, “don’t be absurd. We have total regard for you and your feelings, that’s why we know this won’t work.”
“What?”
“We’re your parents, Veronica. We’ve watched you your whole life, your fascination with Juliet, trying to be like her. It’s normal, completely normal, for the youngest to try and emulate the oldest. But this is going too far. You know, if you reach deep inside yourself, you’ll see that whatever you think you have with Logan, whatever your feelings are for him, they aren’t real. It’s manufactured by your brain to make up for losing Juliet. By keeping Logan, you keep her alive. Maybe it’s the same for him, I don’t know, but either way it isn’t what you think it is.” He sighs. “Your mother and I are trying to prevent you from making a big mistake and costing our reputation. Can’t you think logically for one moment and see that?”
I swallow painfully, shaking my head. My tongue is pressed against the roof of my mouth. No words come out.
“I have to go, your mother is waiting,” he says. “We’re going out for dinner, you know, our usual New Year’s celebration with Aunt June. But listen, we can talk later. We can talk about all of this.”
“There’s nothing to talk about,” I whisper.
Another loud sigh. “If that’s what you think, then I guess that means you’re not changing your mind. You know dear, if it were up to me, I would give Logan time to buy us out and own it outright. But we can’t let this happen. Your mother…it’s her career that made us all who we are.”
“And I hate who I am.”
“Sometimes I do too. But this is life. And you have to make sacrifices sometimes. I’m sorry that this is yours but you have a choice. Come back home and start again. Or stay with him, and he’ll lose the hotel. There is no other way here and you know it. I know you do. Do the right thing for us all. For you, for Logan, for Juliet, for us. Do the right thing Veronica.”
I shake my head, dead tears falling from my eyes. “Juliet would have understood.”
“No, dear. Juliet is the reason we are doing this. To honor her, even if you won’t. I’ll book you a flight home so you don’t have to spend your money, you have enough experience now on your resume anyway and can start again. We all will. Together, as a family. See, this might even be a great thing. It might be the reason for everything.”
I don’t know what happens next. I’m caught in some kind of vortex, alternating between going numb and pulsing with rage. I’m at once a child, helpless and afraid, and then I am me, I am now, and I am the same. Angry, lost, and so fucking desperate.
When Kate comes in from reception, hours later, I’m sitting in the armchair and staring blankly at the wall, the wicker creating grooves into my sweating skin.
“Ron?” she says, appearing in front of me, hands on hips. “What are you doing?”
I can’t even look at her. I’ll have to say goodbye to her too. There’s no way I can do this to Logan and then stick around to watch our love collapse.
“Ron?” she says again and now her voice is higher, concerned. She comes closer and crouches down at my level. “Hey,” she says, putting her hand on mine and then recoiling. My hand is covered in sweat. “What’s wrong with you?”
I slowly bring my eyes over to meet hers, but I can’t do anything but blink.
I’ve never seen her look so worried.
“Are you having a seizure?”
“I need your help,” I whisper. That wasn’t at all what I was going to say. I was planning on saying nothing, on leaving her in the dark. But now I’m not so sure. I can’t do this alone.
“What is it?”
I lick my lips. My mouth feels like sandpaper. “Can you keep a secret? I mean a big secret.”
She cocks her head, unamused. “What do you think I’ve been doing this last month?”
She’s right. She kept me and Logan secret this whole time. No one knew.
I burst into tears.
Big, sobbing tears that spill from my eyes, tears that torment my body.
“Oh my god,” she whispers. “What’s happened? Are you dying?”
It feels like it. Fuck, help me, it feels like it.
“I have to leave,” I say between sobs. “I have to go.”
“What, why?”
Somehow I manage to explain it, I explain everything my parents told me and everything that I know they’re capable of.
When I’m done, Kate is stunned. “I don’t get it. You sure they aren’t bluffing?”
I shake my head. “No. They don’t bluff. My mother is a politician.”
“A born bluffer.”
“Not when it threatens her career.”
“But I don’t get it. I mean, yeah okay I can see how bad it would look, but people get used to things, and really it’s not a big deal.”
“Kate. Believe me. This is a big deal. And this, what they’re doing, is nothing to them. It’s minor. But it will ruin everything we have. Kate, you’ll lose your job. We’ll all lose.”
“Fucking Charlie,” she swears. “I’m going to chop his perfect dick off.”
“Don’t get me started on Charlie,” I tell her. “Right now, he’s not important. What’s important is…”
I take in a deep shaking breath. I can’t say it again. I can’t do it.
“Just stay,” Kate whispers to me, taking my hand. “Stay and fight it. Maybe Logan has the money.” I shake my head, closing my eyes. More tears spill. “Maybe he’s ready for a change.”
“That’s why I can’t tell him what’s happening,” I tell her. “Because no matter what happens, he’ll give it up for me. I know him. He’s good. He’s too good for me. I have to do this or he’ll lose it all and I can’t be the one to make that happen.”
“So what are you going to say to him?”
“I can’t say anything,” I tell her. “About any of this. And neither can y
“So you’re just going to give him back his ring and leave?”
I nod, though my chest is aching from the sobs. “Yes. I have to tell him I don’t love him anymore and I’m not ready and I’ll have to leave a note and leave.”
She stands up. “A note?” she exclaims. “You can’t leave him a fucking note. You owe him way more than that. You owe him the truth. You owe him what’s going on. You’re going to destroy him inside, Ron. He loves you.” She puts her hand to her forehead and stares at me with a pained expression. “Please, please, don’t do this to him.”
I have no choice. Can’t she see this? “I have to!” I cry out. “If I try and lie to his face, he’ll see right through me. He’ll know. I can’t keep that lie up with him in front of me. It’s this or it’s nothing.”
“Then choose nothing, Ron, please, stay!”
I get up and hold out my pink finger. “You promised you wouldn’t tell, now swear on it.”
She stares at me with wild eyes. “Please, Ron.”
“Do it! Promise me. Let me be the bad guy here, let him blame me for leaving. It’s better than the alternative.”
She clamps her lips together until they are pressed into a thin, hard line and for a moment I think she’s not going to do it. She’s that stubborn. But then her finger wraps around mine and I know, pray, hope, her word is still good.
“I hate this,” she says, looking sick. “I hate that you’re leaving, I hate that you’re leaving him broken hearted. Don’t you think he’s gone through a lot with Juliet? Now you’re going to tell him you never loved him? Do you know what that’s going to do to him?”
“I can’t live with the guilt—”
“Did you ever think that maybe you should?” she questions. “That it’s a better sacrifice if he loses the hotel and you live with the guilt over that than it is for him to keep it and lose you?”
Maybe it is selfish. But I still think it’s the only way he’ll come out of it.
“What would you do?” I say to her. “If you were in my position. Forget Charlie, he’s a piece of shit. But think if you were in love. What would you do?”
“People don’t like having their life decided for them,” she says after mulling it over.
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“Because I don’t know.” She sighs. “I just want you both to be happy. And this way neither of you will be.”
“Yeah well, maybe it was a mistake that I came here to begin with.”
“Ron…”
I push past her. “I have to pack.”
“You can’t be going now.”
“My father sent me an email. I’m on the eleven-p.m. red-eye to Seattle.”
“What the actual fuck?” she practically explodes, following me into my bedroom. “You are fucking joking!”
“I need a ride to the airport soon,” I tell her. “Not Charlie.”
“Dude, no, no, no. You can’t just up and leave.”
“I have to! I told you I can’t face him, he’ll know and he’ll make me stay and he’ll give everything up for me when he shouldn’t. What the fuck am I supposed to do, just keep this a secret until the time is right? There is no right time, this is all horrible, it’s so horrible!”
“But…what about me? And Johnny? Daniel? Jin? Nikki? Your ohana? What about this place? What about everything you’ve worked so hard for here?”
I swallow hard, my nose clogged, my eyes hazy with tears. “You, Johnny, Jin, Nikki, and Daniel will no longer be here if I stay. We will all lose everything. Logan will lose the most. Unless you have extra money lying around to buy out my parents, nothing will change. Maybe you’ll keep your jobs when someone else buys it, maybe you won’t. But your life, our lives here, as we know it, won’t be the same if I don’t go. So you can see, I have to. It’s not just Logan, it’s all of you. And everything will go back to the way it was before I ever showed up.”
“But it won’t be the same,” Kate says, wiping away a tear. “Because you brought us all even closer together. Your effect on Logan is the same on us all. We’re all closer, a better ohana. Without you here, we won’t have that. We’ll be in mourning all over again.”
I stare at her for a few moments until I pull her into a hug. “I’m so sorry. So sorry. This is the only thing I know to do.”
And then I start packing. Kate watches me for a bit, then walks into the kitchen to crack open some rum, then comes back and sits on my bed, drinking and watching me until she finally joins in.
“You know he’ll come for you,” she says to me. “You know he won’t let you escape.”
My heart pangs. “There’s a lot of ocean and a lot of land between here and Chicago.”
“He’ll come,” she says. “I won’t say a word because I promised, but he’ll come. And then you better be ready.”
She’s trying to plant hope inside me. I have learned from the last time that the hope that gets in the cracks is the one driving the knife at the end.
So I don’t listen. Instead I take out the Moonwater Inn stationary and pen and I write a note. The hardest note I’ve ever had to write because every single line of it is an absolute lie.
I have to break Logan’s heart into pieces in order to get out of here. I have to have him hate me in order for him to believe it. The letter is what will decide whether Logan will come back for me or not.
* * *
Dear Logan,
* * *
I write this because I know if I say it to your face, I will feel sorry for you and change my mind. I know it makes me seem like a coward to do it like this and maybe I am. But this is the only way.
You’ve been a great boss to me and a great friend during my months here at Moonwater, but I’m afraid it’s time for us to part ways. I am returning your ring, as beautiful as it is. I know it was given to me with the best intentions, and the manner of your proposal made it so hard to say no. I didn’t want to embarrass you or hurt you in front of your staff.
But the truth is, last night made me realize that I have to stop what we have now, that it’s gone too far. I have played you and for that I am sorry.
I don’t love you Logan, and that’s the hard truth of it. I wish I did. It would make things so much easier. But while I care about you, I don’t love you. Whatever we have shared was purely physical, and more than that, I was with you for all the wrong reasons.
I have always been in Juliet’s shadow, from the very start. When she died, I felt like I would never get a chance for closure and I would never measure up to her. This you know about me.
I’m ashamed and afraid to admit this but here it goes: I was only with you because I wanted what Juliet had. I wanted to feel what it felt to be Juliet for a moment.
That moment went on for too long. I got carried away.
And now that moment must end.
Please know that this isn’t easy since I think you’re a nice guy. But what we had was never real and I was never the person you thought I was. I never meant to hurt you though I know I am now.
Take care Logan and remember that there is someone else out there for you. Someone you deserve. You love hard and you need to be with someone who can give it back to you.
I cannot.
I’m sorry.
Mahalo,
Veronica
* * *
Tears are streaming down my cheeks, I have to hold the paper away so they don’t stain the ink. A single tear stain on the paper and Logan would know the truth. He would know how much I care, how hard this is to do.
Kate tries to take it from my hand but I snatch it away.
“You can’t read it,” I manage to say through sobs. “It’s for him.”
She frowns. “How mean is it?” she asks softly.
“One hundred-percent believable,” I tell her. “At least I know it’s exactly what my parents think happened between us.”
Kate shakes her head, her mouth grim. “This is so wrong and so fucked up. You have n
I have some.
I put the note on my bamboo dresser and then…then I slip off my ring.
It feels wrong.
So, so wrong.
It belongs on my finger, this symbol of us, this symbol of our love.
Don’t do it. It’s not too late. Change your mind.
But I can’t.
I place the ring on the note and turn away, hauling my bags over to the door.
Kate is standing there, barricading it.
“I don’t know if I can let you do this,” she says. “As your friend, I should stop you.”
“As my friend,” I plead, “you need to let me go.”
Our eyes are locked in a match, seeing who will look away first.
Kate does, looking utterly defeated. I feel a million times worse. I feel like I’ve crawled out of a swamp, a dark, damp place I belong in.
Because Logan is at reception, Kate heads over to her car in the parking lot and I go around past the pool to the service entrance.
I try not to think about what I’m doing.
I try not to take it all in.
I try to deflect everything.
It’s working.
Until I see Charlie coming out of his place.
Sees me with my luggage.
“What the hell?” he asks. “Where are you going?”
I’m so angry. I thought I could get through it, past it, but I can’t. Every single ounce of rage and hate I have burning away in the pit of my stomach is rising, rising, rising.
Charlie stops in front of me, a brown tank-top, backward cap. Looking like he always does.
I don’t even think.
I punch him square in the nose.
He yelps, doubling over, covering his nose with his hands. “What the fuck?” he squeaks.
“You know exactly what that’s for,” I sneer at him as he looks up at me. “You fucking snitch.”
“Wait, what?’ he cries out, whimpering. His eyes are watering from the pain. “I don’t…wait, is this about your mother?”