The City | GirlxGirl

twenty four ➳

On the night Logan died, Skylar hadn't been working. She had been with one of her friends from work, a girl three years older than her. Maria. She used to bring her a box of cigarettes each shift, and they smoked at the back of the bar. That bar was now an abandoned building, and Maria had moved to America with a rich man, twenty years older than her, after they had been dating for one and a half months.

Skylar had received a phone call from the hospital. Logan's parents were notified first, and were already with her. Or they were with her body, Skylar thought. The voice on the phone was a woman, and she sounded sympathetic, but not at all sincere. She sounded robotic, like she had rehearsed her words, and Skylar knew it was because she probably made hundreds of these phone calls each month. She didn't believe the woman's careful words.

And when she got to the hospital, and saw Mack in the waiting room, already discharged, examined, and found to be one hundred percent healthy, she collapsed.

Her brother, two years younger, his always messy hair in his bloodshot eyes. He killed Logan.

A nurse came to help Skylar off the floor, and she pushed her off. It was probably the same insincere nurse. Mack watched, his mouth open, and Skylar wanted to slap him. She wanted to scratch him with her nails, to push him out onto the street so he could feel exactly what Logan had felt.

He apologized profusely to Skylar. He didn't admit he'd been drinking to Logan's parents. He didn't admit he'd been drinking to anyone but Skylar, and when his court date was set, he pleaded not guilty, and he was found not guilty, because he was young and an honours student and it was a mistake.

And it had been dark, and Logan was young, walking the streets alone in Toronto, probably a little drunk herself.

It was an accident to everyone but Skylar. She knew he had gotten into his car, was on his way home after drinking too much as always, and taken Logan from her.

-

Skylar took the long way home. Lloyd had offered to drive her, but she politely declined. She wanted to feel the wind against her raw skin, as she always did after shifts at the bar. She hated it. Shoving her hands into her coat pockets, she decided right then: she hated working there. She hated working at any bar. It was exhausting, both physically and mentally. She didn't like being around drunk people, so why did she surround herself with them, night after night?

Her phone buzzed in her back pocket. She ignored it the first time. But when the person hung up and re-dialled, only a second later, she sighed, stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, and retrieved her phone from her jeans.

"Hey Blair."

"Skylar," she said. One word, and Skylar already knew it was panicked. "You need to meet me at the hospital."

"What?" And now Skylar was panicked, too. Like it was contagious. "Are you alright? Blair, are you okay?"

"I'm fine, Skylar. It's Jude."

Skylar's mind reeled back a few hours, to the empty shot glasses stained with red lipstick.

"Oh, god." And she thought, alcohol poisoning.

What she didn't think was, single-car accident.

"I'm coming," said Skylar, turning and starting to run in the other direction, her blood boiling with fear that history was about to repeat itself, but also with anger that Jude gotten behind the wheel, drunk, just as Mack had. She was pissed because Jude might have killed herself, or someone else.

Blair didn't have to text her the directions. Skylar had been to this hospital four years and two months ago, where she had ran from Maria's house twenty minutes ago. She had seen Blair briefly; she remembered her as the pretty blonde girl, sobbing silently as her body slid down the wall of the hallway where they had tried to shock Logan, or do CPR or something to try to bring her back, but failed.