Page 101 of Here We Go Again

“You’re a riot,” she deadpans, and he hack-laughs wetly. It sounds like he’s drowning from the inside out.

She throws herself down in the chair pulled close to the bed. The blanket is beige and pulled up over his herringbone hospital gown. His skin is even beige-ier. He both is and isn’t Joe. His eyes are their usual rich brown, but glassy, a little vacant. Easily drifting in and out of focus. His skin is drooping more prominently around his jaw line. And there’s that pinch in the corner of his mouth that suggests he’s in pain, though he’d never admit it.

“I really thought you were dead,” she tells him.

A spark alights in his eyes before he says, cavalierly, “Just give it a few more days.”

Logan refuses to start crying this early in the visit. “Well, you can’t die here, okay? It’s not on the itinerary, and you know how Hale gets.”

“Is sheHaleagain?”

She truly doesn’t know. And then, quite predictably, she’s crying again. “Joe, I’m so, so sorry. This… it’s all my fault.”

He begins to protest, but she cuts him off with the argument that’s been spiraling through her head for the last two days.Pushed you, detours, pretended it wasn’t real.

“My sweet girl,” he says in a tired voice. “None of this is your fault. I was always going to end up here.”

She tries to blink away her tears, but they’re coming too quickly. She wants to hide them behind her sunglasses. She wants to push them away and pretend like nothing ever hurts her. But her dad is right. Joe is worth this hurt. “I told myself you wouldn’t,” she confesses. “You said you were going to die, and I waved it off. Refused to acknowledge it. I pretended it wasn’t happening because I didn’t want to feel any of it.”

“I know,” he says.

“Then why did you pick me to take you on this trip?” She realizes she’s shouting at a dying man—that she’s forcing Joe to console her when he is the one in the hospital—but she can’t quite stop herself. “I’m the worst person to be with you at the end, Joe. I don’t take anything seriously, I avoid all negative feelings, I’m a fuckboy—”

“You’re not a fuckboy.”

“I am! I don’t know how to care about other people, and I don’t know how to let people care about me.”

Joe swipes away her tears with his thumb. “You care about me. So much.”

She laughs. “Yeah, and look where that’s got me. When you die, it’s going to fucking destroy me.”

Joe uses what little strength he has to push her feet off the bed. “Good. It should destroy you. If nothing can destroy you, Logan, then what’s the point?”

She stares at the beeping monitor. A lifeline. Oxygen reduced to a number.

“The detours and the shrimp po’boy and the days I spent laughing with you—that was the beauty I wanted before the pain of dying. I want you by my side when I die because I know you’ll make it as beautiful as possible. You always find joy and wonder in the world. It’s one of the many things I love about you.”

“I love you too, Joe,” she manages through the hurt and tears. She leans in close and props her chin on his shoulder. He winces, and she pulls back. “Does it hurt?”

He presses a hand to his heart. “Dying hurts so much. But I want you close.”

She carefully climbs up onto the bed, tucking herself against him as gently as she can. “Are you scared, Joe? Of dying?”

“I’m only scared of dying in beige.” His eyes are starting to droop and the words come out slowly, without their intended comedic effect. “Yes. Yes. I’m scared.”

“How can I help, Joe?”

The pain meds must be kicking in because his words begin to slur. “Just… please don’t leave me again, okay?”

Logan snuggles her face against his chest so he won’t know she’s crying again. “I won’t, Joe. I promise.”

His eyes slide closed, and Logan takes out her phone and cues the right song, letting the soft sound fill the hospital room.

Have I told you lately that I love you?

Ease my troubles, that’s what you do.

His pain grimace dissolves into a genuine smile. “Apt,” he says.