I wasn't quite sure how I should go about dealing with the situation I was in.
On one hand, I felt like Logan shouldn't be let of the hook just because his mum was sick. I got treated differently as soon as the 'C' word got brought up. It made me feel different, and I couldn't stand it. I think Logan would feel against being friends again on a sympathy vote.
But on the other hand, I missed him, a lot. I missed the way I felt around him. I missed always having someone there to do stupid stuff with, to laugh and joke and just be with. I missed how a big part of why I stayed in New York was no longer there to share the journey with me. And I hated to admit it, but I missed him.
Miss Mathews stayed for awhile for a catch up. We moved on to lighter subjects, talking about all things from how the family was doing to jesse's wedding, which was only a few months away now. It was amazing to see her, and after she left, the feeling of complete loneliness swooped in like an eagle going for it's pray, consuming me whole.
When she was gone, I didn't feel like going back to finishing my work, the 'get ahead' attitude vanishing before my eyes. I lounged on the sofa and flicked through the channels on the huge TV thats been used less times than the fire hydrant. After going through what felt like a thousand channels, I left it on the news and went over to the kitchen to find a takeout menu.
"Hi, can I order a pizza to be picked up." I said to the employee at 'Uncle Paul's Pizza'.
"You sure can, what would you like to order?" She asked in a chirpy voice.
"Can I order a mediu -" Over the phone call, something the news reporter said made me stop mid sentence.
"For the first time in decades, theres a predicted meteor shower to hit America tonight. At twelve midnight, the usual dark sky will be filled with up to two hundred meteors. If the nights owl in you can stay awake until then, make sure you keep your eyes peeled for the stars that will make history. This is Lenny Bronan reporting live from the six o'clock news." If that wasn't a sign, then I didn't know was.
"Ma'am, hello! Are you there?"
I pulled the phone back up to my ear and dragged my eyes away from the TV, remembering I was mid ordering, "Yeah, s-sorry. I'm going to have to call you back." I said in a rush as I ended the call.
My body lit up like someone had struck a match and let it burn inside my brain. I quickly snapped into action and took the stairs two at a time, I threw on a hoodie and grabbed my phone, not caring what I looked like. Time was against me and I was panting by the time I was ready to leave.
At times like this I really appreciated Renee's very rich, very generous parents as I grabbed the keys to her shiny new 'well done' present. I didn't bother leaving a note, as I knew Renee would call me if she needed to. I slid into her Mercedes SUV when I reached the garage level in my apartment block and instantly hit the gas pedal as I took the roads.
I had three and a half hours to get to a place I had only been to once before, meaning, I wasn't entirely sure on the directions. I just had to hope for the best and prayed for a miracle.
I arrived at my destination with half an hour to spare after not taking my foot of the gas pedal once, literally chasing the sun as I went. As I drove up the winding dirty path and took a left into the field, I noticed the sleek black truck that I'd came to miss so much.
I cut the engine and slid out the drives side as I slam the car door shut.
"London?" Logan asked as he squinted his eyes in my direction through the darkness.
"Hey." I smiled as I slowly walked over to his car and jumped up up to sit next to him on the edge of his truck bed.
His eyebrows knitted together and he pulled his arm up as he nervously scratched the back of his neck.
"How did you know I was here?" He asked as be craned his neck round to look me in the eyes.
"I saw there was a meteor shower tonight on the news. Put two and two together and, well here I am."
We sat in silence as the rest of the sun got swallowed by the sparkly black cloak embroider by tiny sparkling diamonds.
I could tell Logan was nervous. He was fidgeting uncomfortably like a child at the dentist. He twiddled his fingers and ran his hands through his hair. I turned to look at him properly.
He had dark circles under his eyes like he hadn't slept all week and his facial hair was starting to grow, causing a light shadow to cover his olive skin.
"You look like crap." I smiles has I ran my hand over the dark circles under his piercing grey eyes.
As my fingers left his skin, he sucked in a sharp breath and shut his eyes, almost as if the lost of contact hurt him. "I've missed you." He said quietly.
"And I you." I replied as I gazed at the night sky.
"I just, I freaked out. I'm so sorry. And I know that's no excuse, and I know that I'm a crappy person who doesn't deserve to have you in my life. But, I'm selfish, I want you in my life."
"If you want me in your life, then you can't act like that. I'm gonna need to Logan, I'm going to need you to be there and not run."
"I know. It's just, there's something you have to know. Not that it's excuse, but it's part of the reason."
"Your mums sick." I whispered as I slid my hand into his and gave it a squeeze.
"How did you know?" He asked.
"Your mum came to see me. She told me she was ill. Well, and I should of broke more bones than just your nose but I didn't think now was an appropriate time to bring that up." I smiled.
He let out a throaty chuckle, which I realised as he laughed that I missed so much. "Yeah about the broken nose, was you raised by boxers? You have a mean right hook on you." He said as he prodded his nose.
"Nope, I just thought it would be handy to know how to deal with douchebags. And would you look at that!" I joked as I admired the fading bruise on his nose.
"Why did you punch me. Was it because of what I said, or because I kissed holly?" He asked in a more serious tone.
I pulled my eyebrows together as I sunk in to thoughts. That was a good question. I replayed that night back in my head a thousand times, but I still didn't know the exact reason why I hit him. I remember how hurt I was at the venom in his voice and the malice glint in his eyes, how spiteful his alcohol riddled body language was, but I don't think nothing compared to how much it hurt to see him kiss another girl.
And that confused me. I wasn't the lovely dovey type. I didn't do relationships and I certainly didn't fall for guys I'd known for less than two months. I said to myself the day I stepped foot off the plane onto American soil that this was my chance. This was my ticket to the career that I'd dreamt about, that is worked so hard for. And nobody was going to come in my life and distract me. I was going to push guys aside and work on me.
But then Logan happens, and I found myself looking forward to seeing him smile, and treasuring the days when we just did nothing. And everything that once mean nothing started to mean quite a bit. I could start to watch romantic films without wanting to gag and smiling at couples who held hands as they took a stroll round Central Park instead of rolling my eyes. Logan happened.
"Well, I guess it was a bit of both. All of it hurt." I said quietly.
"It hurt to watch me kiss holly?" He asked with a confused expression plastered on his face.
"Yes." I whispered, surprised at my honesty.
"But, you don't wanna date me. You don't date and you made it clear that you just wanted me as a friend. Has that changed?"
"I don't know," I sighed, "I'm not that girl, I never have been. Dating doesn't appeal to me."
Logan let out a sigh and put his head in his hands. "So, what do we do now. Where do we go from here?"
I dragged my eyes up to his face and gazed up at his soft features. What do we do now? I knew for a fact that I didn't want to see him kissing any other girls, but could I really give him what he wanted? That was the part I wasn't sure off.
"I really don't know. I don't know at all."
"Well," He started with a hopeful glint in his eye, "Why don't we just try. I'm not asking for your hand in marriage, just, we'll, let's start over. We'll go easy, and then when your ready we'll go on a date. How does that sound?"
I let out a laugh when I imagined the look on my mothers face if she could of seen me now. She was one hundred times stricter than my father, with her no dating policy until I was at least thirty.
She drilled it into me that my career came first. But it had started to come to my attention, that in fact, she was no longer a part of my life anymore which meant that all those policy's that she drilled into me from a young age, had just flown out of the window.
I hopped down from the back of the truck bed and let a huge grin spread across my face. I stuck out my hand and looked Logan directly in the eyes, "Hi, I'm Rhi. Nice to meet you. And you are?"
Just as I finished my sentence, and like the first time we was here, which felt like way over an eternity ago, a thousand tiny meteors lit up the sky like a Christmas tree had just been switched on.
Moments like that exact one made you kind if believe in magic.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I sat at the breakfast bar with a bowl of cereal and glass of orange juice as I sorted through the mail that which had been piling up. There were magazines, letters and even a few newspapers dated back from when I first came to New York. I picked up the first newspaper and flicked through carelessly. "Wait, what?" I muttered to myself as I spotted a picture of someone. Me to be precise.
'Girl in the red dress diagnosed with... Cancer?'
My jaw dropped in disbelief as I scanned over the rest of the article.
'The girl in the red dress who had everyones attention at this years Music awards has reportedly diagnosed with cancer. The mystery girl who was on the arm of Phil Aric at the event this june in New York had everyones heads turning. An inside source has revealed that after just a few weeks into her trip to the big apple, the budding actress has in fact been diagnosed with Leukaemia, cancer of the blood'
My eyes widened as I read the rest of the article. Was this some kind of sick joke? I wasn't famous, so the question on my mind was why on earth was I, Rhiannon Lewis, small time girl from London with only four people who actually paid an interested in her life, was on the fifth page of the New York Times?
After I finished re-reading the article for the seventeenth time in disbelief, I grabbed my phone and dialled the one person I could think of that might have a few pointers as to why this was in the paper, and how to deal with it.
"Phil, hey its Rhiannon. Sorry to call this early on a sunday, but have you seen todays paper?" I asked as I eyed the picture of me.
"Erm no, why's that?" Phil asked through a yawn.
"Theres a story about me in it. About my cancer. How did this happen when I'm a nobody?"
"Hold on, let me grab todays paper. Give me two minutes and I'll call you back."
I ended the call and started to pace. What if the people from school see this? I cant have people looking at me like I'm the sick girl, the way my doctors look at me. I can't handle being treated like one push and I'll break. This story had to disappear, and fast.
'An inside source.' An inside source? Who on earth would speak to a reporter about my illness? I literally had a handful of people in New York who knew about my illness, so the question was which one of those would do this to me? Renee wouldn't, she was my best friend, she was smarter than that, and neither would Jordan. My teachers of course wouldn't.
The buzzer pinged signalling someone was on their was up in the elevator, so after glancing at the grand clock that hung above my fireplace, I slid from my seat, newspaper still in hand and pulled open the door just in time for Logan to appear.
"Hey Lon-"
"Have you seen this?" I interjected before he could finish his greetings, shoving the newspaper into his line of site.
He took the paper from my hands with a confused expression plastered across his face as his eyes shot back and forth across the page like a ping pong ball, "Crap."
"Crap? So I guess this is something to do with you then." I said through gritted teeth as I snatched back the paper.
"Yes, we'll no. Not me. Well kind of, I guess it's my fault." He sighed as he stepped closer to me with a sorry expression.
"Are you bipolar? What is it, yes or no?"
"Yes. I didn't speak to a reporter. But I know who could of. Holly."
"You told Holly?," I yelled in disbelief, "Wait, of course you told Holly. You know what, just go. I really don't have time for this. I need to go and try to kill this story before I have the whole school treating me exactly how I wanted to avoid being treated."
"Rhiannon wait," Logan pleaded as he blocked my attempt to slam the door, "I was hurt and drunk and she was there. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. I never thought she would do something like this. You have to believe me when I say that I would never have told her if I thought she would hurt you with it."
"Logan, do you not realise that we always go back to this? You do something that tops the last jerk move you did and then you apologise for it expecting me to sit back and take it. What you did before was a kick in the teeth, but this? This is unforgivable. If this story gets out then there's no way I'm sticking around to watch my life fall apart. And you will have no one to blame but yourself." I slammed the door successfully this time before Logan had a chance to respond.
I threw my back against the door and leaned my head back, letting out the lungful of air I only then realised I was holding in. I heard Logan let out a Logan string of curse words, before the elevator doors shut.
I don't think I'd ever felt so betrayed in all of my eighteen years on this earth. I literally felt my heart thump in my chest and by the time I pushed off the door I was shaking. I grabbed my phone when it started to ring and accepted the call.
"Phil, you gotta help me. How do I get rid of this story?" I asked desperately.
"We'll, I've spoke to the paper and they can't do anything. It's already printed and out there. But, no publicity is bad publicity. And nothing that was printed was bad, I guess. So, just breath, go for a run or something and calm down."
"Calm down? Your joking, right? Phil, I never wanted this getting out, especially to my school. Please, just get rid of this." I ended the call with a sigh.
What I didn't understand was, why? Holly had had it out for me since the minute I stepped foot in school. I knew she was the complete other end of the scale when it came to decent human beings, but to stoop this low? That was messed up. I'd never done anything to her, yet she could do this to me without chipping anything away from her conscience? That is if she has one, which is questionable.
And as for Logan, well.. Where do I start? Not even twenty four hours had passed after making up and he'd managed to let something screw it up. I felt like I was stuck in a never ending cycle. Logan and I are fine, Logan messes it up, we argue, we don't speak, we make up, repeat.
I sat myself on the sofa, rested my elbows on my knee's and lowered my head into my hands, with a heavy, all consuming sigh.
That was it, I was so over this drama. My mother was right and I had known it all along, I just couldn't see past her leaving me. Nothing was worth getting in the way of my career, if I wanted this, if I truly craved this with every fibre of my being, then I had to ditch the extra baggage and focus solely on this. Where I was right now. That's all that mattered.
I mean, come on! I was eighteen years old with my whole life ahead of me. I was spending every day doing something I loved more than anything else in the world in a city that owned my heart. I had a family that loved me and friends who would take a bullet for me. I was beyond lucky. Yes, I was smitten by a guy that messed up way more times than not, and yes I had cancer which sucked majorly. But I was alive, with all of that to live for.
As I shuffled through all of this in my mind, I decided that was it for me. No more guy drama, no more arguments and fights. No more sloppiness. The mask was back on and my armour against what you normal folks call 'love' was screwed tightly into place. No more Logan.
A whole new Rhi, or the old one, just stronger.