Logan grew quiet, but it didn’t matter. For some reason, the words were coming to me now, and I didn’t want to stop them.
“My mom died last year, and since then, I’ve forgotten about things. I forgot about views like this.” I pointed to the hospital. It was the tallest building, set on the outskirts of town. “She died there.”
Bang! Bang!
I flinched, my hand closing again around the bar in front of me. I could hear the shots again. “I was coming home for the holidays. I finished my finals a week earlier. I got lucky somehow. Eric, my boyfriend, wasn’t done. He wanted to stay and study all weekend, but I talked him into going home with me. I promised I’d help him study, so he agreed. I knew my mom was working a double—she was a nurse—so I talked him into stopping at the hospital on the way into town…” I faltered, remembering the day once again.
Going inside the hospital.
Going past the front desk.
Turning down the hallway to the nurses’ station—then the first gunshot.
“My mom was in the ER that night. She loved working there. She loved the adrenaline, the excitement, but that night...” My chest felt like it was shrinking. I was moving backward even though I sat still. “I was told later that a man came in with a gunshot wound. He was still alive.”
Feeling panic, I started to run down the hallway—boom.
“In the chaos, another man walked back there and shot him. He wanted to finish what he’d started. After the first gunshot, it was quiet. Eric and I were walking down the hallway to the nurses’ station, but everyone stopped. Then the second gunshot sounded, and everyone started running. A big guy turned and slammed into me. Apparently, I still wasn’t out of his way enough because he kicked me then, and I fell to the floor. It was funny because I couldn’t feel any pain, but I knew it must’ve hurt because I couldn’t walk.”
Bang!
“The gunman turned the gun on my mom. He shot her twice, and he killed the doctor in there, too. Then he started shooting everyone in the hallway.”
“Taylor, come on!” Eric grabbed my hand and started to pull.
“Eric tried to drag me backward.”
“No. My mom.”
“Taylor, come on!”
“No.” I looked back to the nurses’ station. No one was there. “She’s back there. I have to find her.”
“He wanted to run, but I could only think about my mom. She was back there somewhere.”
“Taylor,” Logan said.
I shook my head. I heard the sympathy in his voice, and I knew he was going to say all the right things: I didn’t have to talk. I didn’t have to share. I didn’t have to fill-in-the-blank. He was wrong. I did have to. I had to get it out now or I never would.
“It didn’t matter anyway,” I continued. “Even if Eric had tried to drag me out, I couldn’t move. The big guy had fucked my knee up bad. And then…” The fourth gunshot. It had sounded right around the corner. “The gunman was coming toward us. We could hear him.”
I heard the screams again.
“Eric left me there.” I flinched. “There were bathrooms across from us; we could’ve gone in there. It didn’t matter, though. Eric left. He ran while I was pleading for him to help me.”
“What happened to the gunman?”
“A cop got him. They’re always called when there’s a GSW. They just didn’t get there in time. They came in through the emergency entrance, so they were behind him. He was leaving, you see. He had just come around the corner to the hallway where I was when they shot him.”
“This happened at Cain Memorial?”
I nodded. “The whole thing was kept quiet by the cops. The gunman was involved in another shooting so there wasn’t any media coverage. The media respected their wishes.”
“I had no idea that happened last year.”
“A lot of people still don’t know all the details, and now the hospital has better security. I think they have metal detectors.”
“Taylor.”
Logan’s voice was so soft. “I’m not telling you for sympathy,” I explained. “I’m telling you for thanks.” My chest lifted, and I drew in a deep breath. “Thank you for bringing me up here. Thank you for showing me this.”
The corner of Logan’s mouth lifted in an adorable half-grin. He ran his hand over his hair and laughed softly. “If we’re being completely honest, I was hoping to check something off my bucket list.”
“What’s that?”
“Getting laid on a roller coaster.”
There was no pity in his eyes. There was no awkwardness, like he had no idea what to say. It was just—sex on a roller coaster. And the absurdity of it made me laugh.
The half-grin was still there. It was more of a half-smirk now. “So, does that mean there’s a chance?”
I shook my head, still laughing. “Not a chance.”
“I figured it was the best time to ask.” He winked at me. “Because you gotta be feeling close to me, right?”
That spurred another round of laughing, and I wiped tears from my eyes, but the happy kind of tears. Logan kept teasing me. I kept grinning like an idiot, and before I knew it, the evening slipped into nighttime. The lights of the city shone full, bright, and strong. They were breathtaking, and after a moment of comfortable silence descended on us, I snuck a look at him from the corner of my eye. He was staring out over the town, his jaw clenched.