Long May You Run
She runs into him in a seedy old bar near the Mexican border, smoke heavy in the air and a scratchy bluegrass melody playing on the jukebox. It shouldn't surprise her, really. Logan has always sought comfort in oblivion, and oblivion is always easier to come by south of the border.
He's nursing a rum and Coke, his fingers trailing absently along the dirty bar. She orders a shot of tequila, and waits.
"Hey." There's only a slight hitch in her voice, a reminder that she loved him, once. The past always hits her hard, and Logan's that phantom pain, the one that remains long after the injury has faded into memory.
"Hey," he says back, tone soft but his eyes hard. "How'd a girl like you end up in a place like this?" The past has always hit him hard, too.
It's been years, but she never forgot how to read him. The roll of his shoulder, the downturn of his lips. The slow burning anger in his eyes.
If she knew herself half as well as she knows Logan, maybe she would have an answer for him. As it stands, she doesn't know.
She settles for a shrug, and clambers up onto the barstool next to him. The jukebox has switched from bluegrass to an old country ballad, heartache and love gone wrong.
They never write songs about the ones that come easy.
Veronica pretends to watch the bartender hit on a girl half his age as Logan finishes his drink. She finds herself captivated by the touch of his lips against the smooth rim of his glass.
He leaves with a glance and a nod, regret written in every line of his face.
When she returns to New York, photos that will be the end of a marriage tucked securely in her bag, she thinks back to that bar in Mexico, and tries to ignore the ache settling in her chest at the thought of Logan, hung-over and alone.
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