There Is A Light That Never Goes Out
"So this is it?" Logan asked. There was sadness in the tightness of his voice.
Kendall sighed and lowered his head, "I don't know what you want me to say."
"You either want to be with me or you don't, Kendall." Logan's grip on the doorknob tightened all but ready to bolt.
"I do," Kendall jerked forward, wanting to close the distance between him and Logan. He stopped himself, struggling to find the words. "Logan, you know I do. I just…I don't know what's wrong with what we have now."
"I need more, Kendall. You know what I need." Logan said, exhausted by the same conversation that seemed to lead nowhere.
To call Logan the nagging girlfriend would have been an insult to the brunette genius but Kendall could not think of a more fitting description at the moment. Lately he'd been feeling nothing but guilt for how he felt. The happy times had been replaced with fights and misery. He blamed Logan. Suddenly something in him broke.
"I can't just fucking marry you, Logan." Kendall snapped, "I can't just get down on one knee and ask you to marry me with a fucking string quartet and some sunset off in the distance. We aren't a heterosexual couple if you haven't noticed. There won't be stupid monogrammed invites or announcement in the Sunday paper or any of that bullshit you amount to romance. Jesus fucking Christ, it's not even legal where we live. Not to mention it's a big fucking commitment that you know what? I'm not sure I even want to make with you."
Logan recoiled as if he had been physically slapped. His jaw hung open completely at a lost for Kendall's word. He had never wanted marriage. He only ever wanted some verbal reassurance of commitment from the boy who was always a little too carefree, a little too easy going with his feelings.
"Logan, I didn't mean that. Please." Kendall panicked, "I'm sorry. I-"
"No, you've made your point clear," Logan swallowed; scraping any shred of dignity he could manage. "I have to get to work. Please, uh, please don't be here when I come to get my things tomorrow. I don't want to see you."
He heard Kendall shout his name when the door slams shut. Logan has to take a breath to stop himself crying right there in the middle of the hallway.
Logan gets in his car and struggles to start it with shaky hands. He speeds down the highway and prays that work will get his mind off the sudden turn of events.
It's a rather busy day in the ER of Cedars-Sinai. For that, Logan is grateful.
"Dr. Mitchell, are you ok?" his nurse whispers. Logan clears his throat and looks back at the chart in his hand. His mind is elsewhere.
"Yeah, I'm fine." Logan forces a smile and walks away from her questioning look.
"Are you sure? You know you can talk to me." She catches up to him. Logan is saved by his pager ringing suddenly.
Logan rushes outside just as the ambulance pulls up.
"Crash victim, severe burns, the car caught fire. He's in bad shape, doc." The EMT rolled the stretcher down to the ground.
"Broken femur, punctured lung, he was choking on his teeth," another one adds, holding a handful of bloody evidence "must have clenched his jaw when the car hit."
"The car rolled over about a dozen times. Took forever to get him out. It was quite a sight." The other EMT shook his head in disapproval. "What?"
Logan cringed at the sight. The man's skin was bubbling with blisters, his arms and torso charred black. His face was swollen and bloody. Shards of glass till impaled in his skin. Despite the many patients he saw come in and out of the ER, Logan could not stomach the sight.
"Dr. Mitchell?" he vaguely hears someone call out.
He looked up to see all eyes waiting for his orders. He falters. Logan's mind cannot comprehend words.
Suddenly everyone is moving and Logan sees that Dr. Davis has swept in and took charge. He mentally berates himself for being so unfocused. His mind briefly blames Kendall. He hurries after the moving stretcher back inside a room.
Everyone is moving so quickly Logan is almost dizzy with the motion. He feels Dr. Davis' eyes on him for a moment but Logan cannot stop looking at the man on the table. The man groans and thrashes about. Logan is amazed that he can still do so in his condition. His face contorts with pain. Logan moves close to examine the damage.
Suddenly the burnt hand reaches forward and grabs painfully onto his arm. Logan jumps. He tries to pry his arm away but the man is relentless.
"Sir, we're going to take care of you. You'll be okay." Logan knows better than to make promises in the hospital but he could not help himself, "I promise. You'll be okay."
"Dr. Mitchell." Dr. Davis warned.
He looked back for a quick moment feeling useless to his coworkers surrounding him. He felt foreign to the machines.
The hand on his arm still grasped firmly. The man mutters incoherently. His eyes shoot open and the world seemed to have stopped spinning in that moment.
Bright green eyes stare back at Logan.
"No." Logan croaked. He had trouble drawing breath. "No. No. No. No. No."
"Dr. Mitchell."
Those green eyes close on their own accord. The hand on his arm falls limply to the table.
"No, Kendall, fuck. No." His body is wrecked with sobs, unable to move, frozen still.
"Dr. Mitchell. Do you know him?"
"Kendall?" A nurse chimes in. "Is this your boyfriend Dr. Mitchell?"
"Someone get him out of here." Dr. Davis says.
Logan can't comprehend what is happening only that he's being dragged out. Logan wants to fight. He wants to scream. But he cannot do anything but move to where he's pulled.
Outside the room he watches through the window as the doctors work. His palms are pressed against the glass. Logan cannot breath. He feels as helpless as Kendall on the hospital table. Logan could do not more than just watch. His entire body felt numb. His feet were frozen in place.
Everyone in the room stills when Logan sees it. The monitor flat lines. Kendall is crashing.
"No!" Logan screams. He barges into the room trying desperately to get to Kendall.
"Someone get him out of here!" Dr. Davis shouts again.
"No! Kendall! No!" This time he's fighting back. Shoving one intern away from him and punching another. He makes it no closer to Kendall than he was before. Too many hands are on him, dragging him out of there.
The last thing he sees is the crash cart pulled next to Kendall. The door closes on Logan. This time he's not allowed to stand outside. He's dragged into his office. He's kicking and crying. Why can't they see that he can help? Kendall needs him. Kendall can't die.
He's shoved into his chair. A few charts and folders on his desk fall to the ground. He tries to get up only to be shoved back down.
"Dr. Mitchell. We need you to stay here. Dr. Davis will do his best."
Logan has worked in the hospital long enough to know that "doing your best" is often times meaningless. So many things are out of your control. He needs to be there. He wonders how many seconds before Kendall crashes would they call his time of death. Logan needs to be there. He is the only one who would not give up.
"You have to let me- please. Please." He begs.
"Look, we need you to stay here. I will tell you everything that is happening. I promise." The intern leaves, telling a figure outside his door before doing so, "Make sure Dr. Mitchell stays in here. Do not let him leave. Call security if you have to."
Logan crumbles into his seat. His brain cannot comprehend how any of this had happened. He had just seen Kendall this morning right before work. The memory rushes back to him. He thinks of the last thing he said to Kendall. The bile crept up his throat in a rush. He's vomiting in the trash receptacle sick at the turn of events.
If anything happened to Kendall, Logan doesn't know if he'll survive. Relationships should not end this way. Not with one person teetering on the edge of life or death.
There's a knock at his door.
"The patient's family is here. They're in the waiting room, asking for you." The intern tells him.
Logan walks out of his office thankful to not be held back trapped in there alone.
"Logan?" Mrs. Knight had tears in her eyes, "Thank god. Logan, what happened? Where's Kendall? Is he okay?"
Katie was sobbing behind her.
"He um," Logan choked; he didn't know what to say. "I really don't know."
Logan had been so out of it when Kendall was brought in. All he remembers was a handful of bloody teeth and severe burns. Shards of glass spewed about his body.
"Dr. Mitchell?" Another doctor approaches them.
"What's going on? Is he okay?" Mrs. Knight frantically asks, pulling on the man's arms.
"This is Kendall's mom." Logan explains, "What's going on?"
"He's being rolled into surgery as we speak. He's in good hands. I'll let you know when we have more details."
He's gone before Logan can ask more questions. He feels angry being on this end of the waiting room. He wants so badly to march in there and demand questions. He knows he'll only be pulled back out.
"The police said he was going 80 down the highway." Mrs. Knight sobs, "He-he swerved into the other lane and hit a truck head on. His car flipped so many times, Logan. How did this happen? He's always been so careful."
Katie cries louder behind them, curled up on herself on the plastic waiting chair.
Logan thinks of the morning. Kendall couldn't have possibly been upset about their break up could he? He's the one that didn't want Logan. He nearly admitted that much. Logan felt wrecked with guilt. If only he had stayed to talk it through.
Logan closed his eyes, the picture of Kendall lying bloody and battered haunting him. God, Logan was upset on his drive to work this morning. He'd been driving just as recklessly. He'd give anything to trade places with Kendall at this moment.
He sat next to Katie and held her hand, patting her head as she cried onto his shoulder. Mrs. Knight continued pacing back and forth.
"Logan?" James and Carlos rounded the corner at the same time.
"What happened?" Carlos cried.
"Car accident." Logan managed.
"How did this happen?"
Logan wanted to explain their fight. He wanted to tell them that he didn't even know if he deserved to be here. It was all his fault. Nothing came out.
Logan's mind frantically searches for a memory of Kendall. One in which his face isn't marred with burns and cuts and bruises. Everything he sees is of the unrecognizable man laid out before him. Those green eyes piercing into his own.
He wants to be brave. He wants to march back in into surgery and offer his help. Logan has a habit of folding under pressure. The only one who's been able to make Logan brave enough is lying on an operating table needing his help. Something Logan cannot offer.
The guilt was unbearable.
He thinks of all the romance novels he used to read in bed on Sunday afternoons. Kendall always close by touching him in some way whether they laid with Logan's head in Kendall's lap while Kendall flipped the channel or just pressed next to each other under sheets and blankets.
He thinks of his bookshelf at home. He thinks of characters falling apart at the loss of a lover in the stories he used to read. He recalls all the great romances. What will become of him if Kendall ceased to be?
Kendall is so full of light and love. He is not a character in a tragedy. His spirit was seemingly endless. People like Kendall Knight died at old age surrounded by loved ones. People like Kendall do not die by the hands of warped metal. The shards of glass on Kendall's arm came as a reminder of the fragility of the human body.
Kendall had never been fragile. If anything, between the two of them, Logan was the one too fragile to love. He bruised easily and Kendall had always been so gentle, so loving.
The guilt came back full force. If Kendall had never met him, if Kendall had never been brought down by Logan's constant misery, always asking so much more than Kendall had been willing to give…maybe none of this would happen.
The doctor came back staring at the ground.
Logan knew.
He worked here long enough to know before the guy even said a word. He closed his eyes and braced himself for the impact.
Katie screamed. Mrs. Knight collapsed to the ground. Carlos and James fell down to hold her.
Logan took a breath.
The world exploded.
And then it was dark.
One Week Later
For the first time, it seemed, Logan opened his eyes and took in his surrounding. He was in bed. The same bed he and Kendall shared. He reaches lazily for the Ambien on his bedside table only to find it not there.
"You need to get up."
James is standing at his door, coffee in hand.
Logan turned over and crawled back beneath the blanket. He feels the bed sink down on one side.
"Logan," James sighs, "Kendall would not have wanted you to be like this."
Logan silently scoffs. James would not have known what Kendall would have wanted. Given their last exchange Logan is sure Kendall would want Logan to suffer forever. It is what he deserved.
Logan had cheated Kendall of a lifetime of happiness.
Logan's happiness died along with Kendall.
He sat in the back of the church at the funeral, his mind numb in a haze of Ambien and Xanax. He bolted out of there when it was over. He couldn't bring himself to see the love his life buried with everything still so unclear between them.
There was a soft knock at the door.
"Logan?" Carlos asked.
He can hear James sigh, an unspoken exchange between.
There's a crumble of a bag thrown onto his bed.
"Mrs. Knight wanted me to give this to you. It's – It's Kendall's stuff the day he-um," Carlos begins to sniffle.
Logan wanted them all to leave him alone. Logan hadn't cried since the day it happened. The spectacles people were making of themselves annoyed him. He'd long ran out of tears.
He sat up to examine the bag at his foot. His body was sore with stiffness. He lifts up the clear see through zip lock holding Kendall's black leather jacket. Logan had bought him that jacket.
He takes the jacket out of the bag. Parts of it is burnt, parts torn, drenched in dry blood. He presses it close to his nose. There are no more traces of Kendall. Logan holds the jacket tight against himself desperate for another Ambien to let sleep consume him.
A hard object in the jacket presses against his chest. He hesitantly opens the pocket to pull out a small bag wrapped around itself, a figure of a small box beneath the plastic.
"What is that?" He heard James asked.
Logan unravels the bag and pulls out the box. His hand begins to shake.
"Is that-?" Carlos starts.
"Logan?" James asked.
He looks between the two of them, ragged breaths making him tremble.
He opens up the small velvet box, a shiny gold wedding band staring back at him, undamaged by the crash, safely protected in Kendall's left pocket, so near to his heart.
Logan takes out the ring, examines it between his fingers, the box drops to the ground. He slips it onto his finger in a rush. The perfect fit.
Logan fell back to his bed, hand drawn to his face, never taking his eyes off the ring.
James pulled Logan flush against himself holding Logan tight.
That's when he began to cry.
There is a cruel, bitter irony in getting what you want. Sometimes you don't realize what it is you have to lose.
This was it.