Of Loss & Betrayal (Madison & Logan 2)

Logan: I’m okay. There’s no need to come.

L.A. number: I’ll just come as a friend. You know I care about you. Madison doesn’t have to know. You shouldn’t be alone right now.

Logan: I’ll probably be asleep by the time you get here. It’s unnecessary.

L.A. number: Fine. Then I’ll watch you sleep. I just have to see with my own eyes that you’re okay. Please. It’s for my own sake, so I don’t go crazy imagining the worst. You know how car accidents affect me ever since my dad.

Logan: Okay, you can come but just for a little bit.

I closed my eyes, wanting to blot the damning words from my mind. If only I could stop these texts from existing by sheer force of will. I didn’t have to think hard to realize who was texting Logan. It had to be Kristina. Who else would care so much about his well-being over there?

I opened my eyes and realized my hand holding the phone was shaking. I put the phone down as if it was scorching hot. As much as I wanted to erase what I had just read from my mind, I knew they would be forever burned into my memory as evidence of Logan’s betrayal. It was bad enough that he had communicated with her, but he had let her come see him. She had gone to him in his time of need, when it should have been me.

My mind was in overdrive as it feverishly tried to figure everything out. I wondered if he had lied to me and had been communicating with her all along. Her phone number was no longer programmed into his phone and there had been no other text history, but maybe he had hidden her under a different name.

I quickly picked his phone back up and went through all of his texts, but didn’t see anything else suspicious. Searching his texts inevitably lead to searching his emails. I was desperate for some clue as to whether or not he had been in contact with her this entire time.

After an hour of reading texts and emails that led to nothing, I told myself that Logan was too smart to communicate with Kristina through his regular phone or email account. He could have a burner phone just for her, or a secret email account that he used to communicate with her.

I covered my face with my hands, wanting to scream. How had I gotten here? Just moments ago, I had been thinking about how lucky and happy I was, and now I was frantically trying to think of how Logan could have duped me with Kristina.

I heard a noise in the bedroom and quickly put Logan’s phone down, grabbing my coffee cup and standing up. I walked swiftly to the kitchen and as far away from his phone as possible. Whatever was going on, I wasn’t ready to confront Logan about it. I felt too fragile to demand answers from him. Despite being hurt and angry, I was scared to shatter our happiness that had seemed so perfect. I also didn’t want to give him a chance to cover his tracks if he really was screwing around on me before I got a chance to investigate further.

Despite my decision to keep quiet about what I had found out, when Logan walked into the kitchen and smiled at me, I wanted to throw my cup at him and scream. I felt shattered, and my heart felt like it was broken into a million pieces. Even if he hadn’t been cheating with Kristina this entire time, he must still have feelings for her if he had let her come visit him in the hospital, knowing how upset that would make me. I couldn’t help wondering if I was being selfish, if he had needed someone familiar in a cold, lonely hospital. But why did it have to be her? And who the hell was this Marcus that had been mentioned in the texts? Maybe he was the key to finding out more.

“How long have you been up?” Logan asked, as he dropped a light kiss on my mouth before heading over to the coffeemaker, having no clue of my inner turmoil.

“Not that long,” I replied, trying to sound normal but I couldn’t keep the quaver from my voice.

Logan glanced back at me before returning his attention to the coffeemaker. “Did you get enough sleep? You sound tired.”

I watched silently as he made his cup of coffee, having no idea how I would continue the farce that everything was okay when I felt like I was dying inside. Logan turned to me with a frown when I didn’t answer.

“You okay, babe?” He put his cup of coffee down and reached for me, grabbing my hand and pulling me against him. His eyes looked down at me with concern, and I couldn’t help wondering if he looked at Kristina the same way he looked at me. I was going to be sick.

“I’m fine,” I said, plastering a smile on my face. I just had to get through this morning before Logan went to work, and then I would figure out what the hell I was going to do. “I must be tired from the workout you gave me last night.”

Logan grinned, obviously accepting my claim that everything was okay. I was relieved, but it also upset me. How could he not know that my whole world was caving in, and that I was just pretending? I had thought he knew me better than that.

I gave myself a mental shake. I was wasting energy on useless thoughts. I just needed to concentrate on getting through the next hour or so before Logan left.

“Are you going to stay here or go back to your apartment? I need to know whether I should pack some stuff to sleep at your place tonight.”

Logan naturally assumed that we would spend tonight together, whether it was at his place or mine, because that was the pattern we had settled into. I used to think it was because he never wanted to be apart from me, but now I had to contend with the idea of another woman. And not just another woman, but one he cared about. Or even loved.

I stopped that train of thought before I got physically ill. “I’ll stay here. I brought my laptop so I don’t need to go back to my place.” It would also give me a chance to snoop around and do some digging.

“Good. I need to jump in the shower and get ready for work.” Logan leaned down to drop a kiss on my neck before walking out of the kitchen. I wanted to grab him and demand for him to tell me the truth. I wanted to beg him to give me a plausible explanation for his contact with Kristina that wouldn’t make me feel like my heart was being shredded into a million pieces. But I kept silent as I watched his retreating back.

I somehow kept up the charade until Logan left, but the moment the door closed behind him, I collapsed onto the couch, feeling exhausted from the strain of having to pretend my world wasn’t crumbling right before my eyes. I lay on the couch for a while as I mentally prepared myself for the task at hand. I needed to take emotion out of this and be methodical. I could be hysterical later, when I actually had all the facts before me. Right now, I needed to snoop.

I started with his laptop, which was easy enough because he always left it on. I opened his browser and typed in the webpage for his email, hoping that it would automatically log him in, but I was rewarded with a blank login page. I hadn’t gotten a chance to look at his emails as in depth as I wanted to earlier on his phone, and now I cursed myself for not having taken more time to do so. I tried a few possible passwords, but stopped before the account got locked. I decided to just look through his computer and clicked on every file I could find.

Two hours later, I had found nothing. I wasn’t sure whether I was frustrated or relieved. I had one more folder to go through, and the instant I clicked it open, my heart stopped. Dozens of thumbnail pictures popped up and, as small as they were, I could still tell who was in the pictures. Despite it all, I still held onto desperate hope that I was wrong, but that vanished once I clicked open the first picture. Then the second. And third. And so on, and so on.

They were all pictures of Kristina. Some were by herself, others with people who I assumed were friends back in California. The worst ones were the pictures of Logan and Kristina together. The one word that kept pounding into my head was happy. They looked happy. Happy, happy, happy. A godawful happy couple who loved each other. I was pretty sure these pictures were old, since Logan’s hair was lighter in them, and his golden locks had darkened again since being back in Chicago, but that didn’t make it sting any less. Sure, this wasn’t evidence that Logan was cheating on me, but why the hell did he still have them on his computer?

I took a deep breath, trying to clear my head. The one good thing about these pictures was maybe I could figure out who Marcus was.