Chapter 7

After getting her wound treated at the hospital, Winona glanced at her phone, which had cracked during the scuffle earlier. She went to the mall and bought a new phone. In the past, she would have opted for a screen replacement and made do with it, but she no longer wanted to scrimp. She splurged over a thousand dollars on the latest model. That was practically one-tenth of the money she had painstakingly saved for a house. When Winona got home, she logged on to her socials to find new activity on her Instagram. She saw the live photos Logan had posted. She hadn't been able to see live photos on her old phone, but with the latest model, she could hear the background noise right after she opened it. "Logan, it's just a confession! You don't have to pull out all the stops!" Winona froze. Naomi had only just told Logan she wanted to break up with Edmund, and he was already preparing to formally confess his feelings for her? It was for the best, Winona supposed. She lifted her gaze to the calendar, where she had circled a date in bright red. She was leaving in a week. For the next few days, Logan used his part-time work as an excuse and did not come home. Winona knew he was busy getting ready for his formal confession, so she did not call his bluff. She had her hands full packing her stuff anyway. Logan finally came home late one night. He was drunk beyond reason, his mind so addled that he clung to Winona and began to mutter incoherently. His eyes were tinged with red as he slurred, "I got you your favorite roses and even custom-made a ring for you. All our friends gave us their blessings. They all want us to be together, but all that means nothing next to his apology, huh? "Why can't you see that I'm right here? I'm the one who stuck by you for over ten years. What's so great about him that you can't forget about him?" As he muttered, his voice thickened with oncoming sobs. Winona regarded Logan's disappointed and heartbroken state with cool indifference, for she knew he had mistaken her for Naomi. His drunken words told her enough about what happened today—he had confessed his feelings for Naomi, and she rejected him once again. After silently hearing him out, Winona left him to his own devices, then switched off the lights and went to bed. Logan woke up the next morning to the frigid air. The air conditioner had run the entire night. He had fallen asleep on the couch without changing out of his clothes. He didn't even have a blanket over him. His head felt like it weighed a ton, and the acid in his stomach roiled. He felt sick, but when he stumbled into the kitchen, he didn't see food anywhere. Normally, Winona would have made chicken noodle soup or some hearty stew to perk him up after he'd had too much to drink. Why didn't she make him anything today? Logan entered the bedroom to ask Winona exactly that, only to find her folding clothes before the closet. A large suitcase had been left open on the floor. Panic suddenly filled him, a feeling so violent that even he was surprised by it. "Why did you take out the suitcase? Are you going somewhere?" Winona neither paused nor looked at him. "The season is about to change. Some of these clothes are due for a wash." Logan was about to press further, but she had already turned and entered the bathroom. In the following days, Naomi posted short clips and photos of her lovey-dovey moments with Edmund. Logan had stopped questioning Winona's odd behavior and begun brooding. He spent his days either spacing out or napping at home. Winona quietly took it all in and went about her business. Three days before she was slated to leave, she went home and told her family about her participation in a top-secret research program. Two days before she left for the program, she got together with her friends and bade them farewell. On the last day, Naomi called her and invited her and Logan to a lake excursion. Winona wasn't quite up for it, but Logan had perked up after getting the call and insisted that they go. They arrived at the lake, but when Logan saw Edmund walking alongside Naomi, his expression darkened. The four of them piled into a rowboat. Winona staked a seat and gazed out at the serene, mist-shrouded lake. Logan was beside her, but his gaze kept darting to Naomi. They had ventured to the middle of the lake when they were met with a torrential downpour. The gusty wind was a violent force that shook and swayed their little wooden rowboat. Thunder rumbled across the sky, the mist above the lake thickening. It didn't take long for the wind and rain to capsize the rowboat, and the four fell into the water without lifejackets. Naomi and Winona couldn't swim, but survival instincts had them gripping onto the side of the boat and struggling for dear life. Meanwhile, Edmund swam for the shore the moment he fell into the water, not at all caring about the others. As for Logan, he only cared about Naomi. He abandoned Winona, who had been bobbing beside him, and swam toward the other end of the boat without a second thought. Naomi was about to go under, but he scooped her into his arms just in time. The icy downpour hit Winona's already-freezing body like bullets, causing her teeth to chatter and her face to go bloodless from the cold. She watched as the trails behind Logan's and Naomi's figures gradually grew farther from her, their voices disappearing into the mist. Her mind was becoming more addled by the second. The rain and wind were relentless, beating down on her weathered body until she could no longer hold on to her final lifeline. Her grip loosened, and she sank straight toward the bottom of the lake.