Chapter 11
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Sensing something, Mr. Hudson asked gently, “Do you recognize her?”
Logan’s voice rose urgently.
“What’s her name?”
“She said her name was Emily.”
In that moment, it felt as if someone had struck the back of his head. His mind buzzed.
Logan staggered, gripping the wall for support, his eyes reddening as he looked at Mr. Hudson.
“What did you say? Emily? She’s dead? That can’t be true.”
“Yes, it was her,” Mr. Hudson confirmed quietly. “She told me she had no family and asked me to take care of her affairs.”
Logan still couldn’t believe it. Wasn’t he the one who had staged his death?
Wasn’t I supposed to be safe?
How could I be gone?
Was I playing some twisted version of dead man’s escape?
Mr. Hudson pointed to the room in the back.
“She told me she had terminal stomach cancer. She stayed in that room during her final days.”
“She was kind. She cleaned up after me every day without complaint.”
Mr. Hudson retrieved a small box and held it out.
“These are the belongings she left behind, aside from the things she asked me to place at her gravesite.”
“I asked what I should do if anyone from her past ever came looking for her.”
“She said no one would. But if anyone did, it would be just one person. She told me to give these to that person.”
“I suppose that person might be you. So I’m giving these to
Logan opened the box with a trembling hand.
you now.”
Inside were a few simple items: a worn hair tie, a nearly empty lipstick, some bank cards with barely any balance and a soda can ring.
His eyes filled with emotion.
That soda ring–he remembered the night clearly.
We had curled up together in the old rental house, watching television. The male lead in the show had proposed.
Logan had pulled the tab off a soda can, slipped it on her finger and joked that he’d buy her a real diamond ring someday.
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I had laughed and playfully pushed him, pretending not to believe it.
He never imagined I’d kept that little ring.
Logan didn’t remember how he got back to the car.
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His mind was full of memories–my shrinking figure, the pale tint of my skin, the way I vomited every time I moved.
At the time, he had assumed it was because of him.
He never thought I had been sick.
While he had been busy perfecting his fake illness to escape me, I had truly been dying.
Now that I was gone for real, it felt like something had been carved out of him.
His chest tightened and he could hardly breathe.
The Maybach pulled up at the cemetery once more.
His legs moved on their own, unsteady and slow, until he reached the plot he had chosen long ago.
Three words were carved into the stone.
Emily Walker.
There was no photo. No inscription.
Only a clear box enshrined a few rolled–up journals.
Logan stood motionless, then reached for the last one.
It was the diary he had once started for me.
He remembered how he had asked me to keep writing in it. I had laughed and said I’d start from the last page and forbidden him to read it.
His fingers trembled as he turned to the final entry.
Tucked inside was a crumpled diagnostic report.
Stage Four Stomach Cancer.
My handwriting was careful and clean.
“Logan’s cancer was fake. I suppose I’m a little grateful. But mine is real. And I really am dying.
Grace said I wasn’t good enough for him. I know she’s right. They’re perfect for each other.
I saw Logan smile at Grace with my own eyes and in that moment, I realized maybe he never loved me.
I’m not actually foolish or clueless. I just didn’t want to know the truth. I wanted to believe he still loved me.
Logan is afraid I might be pregnant with his child. But even if I am, I can’t bring a life into this world like this.”
Chapter 11
