My Sister Got Two Pink Princess Rooms. I Got A Trash Bag Chapter 06
The next afternoon, Logan showed up anyway.
He was standing outside my dorm with that black suitcase.
Inside were the few clothes I’d left in the Long Island closet, that old photo album with the pages falling out, and whatever else he’d managed to salvage from the trash.
He’d even taken the enrollment forms William had dumped in the garbage—pressed them flat, one by one, and put them in a new clear folder.
“I packed everything for you.”
He said it with bloodshot eyes and a shadow of stubble on his jaw. Like he hadn’t slept all night.
In the past, seeing him like that would’ve made me fold.
But this time, I just took the folder. Left the suitcase.
Logan held onto the handle.
“Nora, come back with me.”
“I already talked to your parents. Your dad’s going to turn the attic back into your room. Your mom’s clearing out the study.”
“Both locks will have your fingerprint. You can come and go whenever you want.”
I looked at him.
“Why does it have to be ‘turned back’?”
He blinked.
“If those rooms were always mine, why does William have to move out? Why does my stepdad?”
“Because they didn’t think it through when they renovated—”
“It’s not that they didn’t think.” I cut him off. “It’s that all of you only thought about Claire.”
Mom and Dad set up two bedrooms for her.
William installed the star lights himself. Logan spent two weeks mattress shopping with her.
Everyone was so busy. So nobody remembered there was still a Nora.
Logan’s face went pale. He said quietly: “I thought you were going to a local school. You’re so independent—I figured you’d handle housing on your own.”
“What’s my major?”
He opened his mouth. Nothing came out.
“What’s the name of my school?”
Silence.
“What time did I have to check in on September third?”
Logan’s grip on the suitcase handle tightened until his knuckles went white. All he could get out was: “I’m sorry.”
He didn’t know where I went. Didn’t know what I was studying.
Even after promising to take me to check-in, he still thought I was just going to some community college down the road.
But Claire? He knew exactly how soft her mattress was. What temperature her lamp should be. Which pillow belonged in which house.
I pulled a thin silver chain out of my pocket.
He’d given it to me for my eighteenth birthday.
Said he had something important to tell me when I started college.
We’d never said it out loud, but everyone just assumed we’d end up together. I used to believe that too.
I set the chain on top of the suitcase. “Don’t come pick me up anymore.”
Logan’s eyes finally showed panic. “Nora, I just didn’t see the messages. I never meant to leave you behind.”
“But Logan”—I looked at him, slow and clear—”what’s the difference between being forgotten over and over and being abandoned?”
He reached for my wrist. I stepped back.
“You promised you’d help both sides move. Not a single thing left behind. And you kept that promise.”
“Claire moved from Dad’s to Mom’s. Not one lamp missing. Not one pillow. Not one star ornament.”
“The only thing you left behind was me. In that storage closet on Long Island.”
Logan stood there, his eyes going red.
Those same eyes had looked at me at senior prom and said, “Nora, I’ll always be there for you.”
Now they were red—and I didn’t want to figure out what that meant anymore.
I grabbed the suitcase and turned toward the dorm. He followed for two steps, and then the glass door slid shut in his face.
He pressed his palm against it. The security system flashed red and beeped.
The front desk lady leaned out the window. “You know him?”
I paused.
“Used to.”
Then I swiped my card and the glass door closed again.
This time, nobody could open it for him.