Here We Go Again

by Alison Cochrun

Kristen fucking Stewart.

Not for the first time in her life, Logan flees the Vista Summit Applebee’s in disgrace.

In the name of Shay Mitchell’s Instagram,

Bad things didn’t happen at Applebee’s. Except now she’s being fired at a literal

I don’t want to be so fixated on getting there that I miss this.”

Every misstep is a fuckup, and every fuckup is a sign of a great moral failing. Hale can’t just let herself be a flawed human. She never could.

the liquor store is more like a quaint bar that happens to sell liquor bottles to-go.

a maniacal dog covered in soap is thrashing around a hotel bathroom while a dying man zonked out on oxycodone is snoring—but

Breaking Bad lied to her. Albuquerque, New Mexico, isn’t a shithole. She thinks it’s even prettier than Santa Fe.

“Life is the prickly pear. It’s always going to be a combination of beauty and hurt, no matter how hard you try to protect yourself from the hard parts. There is no way to avoid pain.”

“We’re going to lose him, Rosemary!” Logan screams. “Why would I want to feel that?” “Because!” Rosemary throws her hands toward the sky. “Because some people are worth the hurt!”

She thought Rosemary would kiss like they’re in a Jane Austen novel, but she kisses her like they’re in a Jane Austen movie adaptation.

Logan is sunshine and adventure and freedom and the month of July. Rosemary is September. A new planner and sharpened pencils and outfits laid out on her bed the night before. Raised hands and right answers.

“Gay men aren’t supposed to get old,” Joe mutters.

“What the hell is this place?” Logan asks her. “It looks like your personal nightmare.” “But it looks like your dream.”

“Sometimes, I think I’m still a shitty first draft.” Logan asks probing questions about the story, gives a few suggestions about the beginning, and it feels like they’re girls again, passing a single sheet of paper between them to create new worlds. “I think I might be a shitty first draft too,” Rosemary confesses as they’re falling asleep. Logan scoots closer to her in bed. “I think you’ve been rewriting yourself bit by bit this entire trip.”

“Your brain is an asset. Not a liability.”

She let herself care, and now she cares so much, she’ll never recover, never again be able to hide behind her mask of apathy. But she doesn’t have the faintest idea how to love fiercely or freely.

“My prickly pear, you’re safe with me. You can stop working so hard to protect yourself.”

“I… I don’t know how to love halfway,” she reasons aloud. “I don’t know how to care just a little bit. If I let myself care at all, I’m going to care with every ounce of my being. And if I do that, and I lose them, it will hurt like hell.”

“Your big feelings are one of the most beautiful things about you.”

It should destroy you. If nothing can destroy you, Logan, then what’s the point?”

Remy half climbs into the van to kiss Joe’s dry lips. “I’ll be seeing you soon too, my love.” Joe’s eyes are closed when he responds, “But not too soon.” Remy visibly holds back his tears, for Joe’s sake. “Not too soon. I promise.” He closes the side door.

“Is this hell?” he eventually asks. “No, this is Connecticut.”

This is love. Love is seeing perfection in every flaw. Seeing every flaw as a miracle because it belongs to the person you care about most. Love is saying, yes, still. Even after all these years. Every brush stroke contains awe and reverence, a love letter to a gay man who grew old, and the miracle of Joseph Delgado. Remy painted Joe with wonder.

You only get one life, and it goes by too quickly to spend time waiting for what you want.

“I lived my life trying to avoid hurt and pain, and I ended up with pancreatic cancer at sixty. You could both guard your hearts for another thirty years, and you will still experience all the same hardship. We’re never truly safe. That’s life.”

“I’ve never been in love before, but I’m pretty sure it feels like this. Kisses that feel like waking up. Touches that feel like dreaming. Love is finding someone who helps you rewrite the story of yourself.”

She let this woman’s cruelty control her entire life, but the truth is, Logan’s been in control the entire time. She doesn’t need to understand why her mom left in order to let herself be loved; that’s a choice she can make.

Most people die in beige rooms. But Joe… he dies in technicolor.

Death is a to-do list.

“I saw Mom.” “Yikes. How did that go?” “Fucking awful. But also… good, in a sense. It was never really about me, was it?” “No, Chicken. It was always about her.”

“This isn’t Joe,” Logan says, staring at the ashes swirling around their legs. Rosemary knows she’s crying too. “It isn’t all of Joe,” Rosemary corrects. Because it is part of him. The part of him who wanted to return to this place where he lived with the love of his life. The part of Joe who loved this cottage and these trees. The Joe who loved Rosemary and Logan best of all and wanted them to be as happy here as he was once.