Bridge: a shade short story Read Online Free Page B

you move on? Why not your parents or Siobhan?
     
    Logan: I did actually talk to them. I mentioned in Shift that I was planning to do that, but it was never shown since Aura wasn’t there. Sorry, not every moment of my “life” makes it into print.
     
    Mickey: That’s hard to believe.
     
    Logan: I know, right? I’m an oversharing kind of guy.
     
    K&K: This question is for both of you. Since music is such a part of your lives, which songs would you choose to describe your state of mind at the beginning of “Bridge” versus the end?
     
    Logan and Mickey: “The Cave.”
     
    Logan (laughs): Glad we agree on something. I think that Mumford & Sons tune describes both of us, both at the beginning and the end. Remember how I said I love songs that evolve like a story? “The Cave” does, but it’s not from Point A to Point B like “Forever.” It’s Point A to Point Q to Point M. Because they’re a lot more brilliant than I am.
     
    Mickey: I also think it’s told from more than one point-of-view. So it’s a conversation. It might be a conversation the singer is having with himself, but it’s still a dialogue, not a monologue. And it refers to Homer’s Odyssey , so, points for that.
     
    K&K: Speaking of conversations, Mickey, why weren’t you able share your feelings with your family or your girlfriend, Megan? They all lost Logan as well. Was it easier to finally let it all out to a stranger, Krista?
     
    Mickey: I think it was because they lost Logan that I had trouble talking to them. I didn’t want to be all, “poor me, my grief is so special” when they were hurting too.
     
    It’s just easier to close yourself off. It’s not right, but it’s less painful. Talking about Logan with my friends and family is like looking into a mirror—not a regular mirror, but one of those magnifying mirrors that girls use to put on makeup. What are they called?
     
    Logan: Dunno. Makeup mirrors?
     
    Mickey: Whatever. It’s like every bit of sadness and anger gets blown up and distorted. I just can’t take it.
     
    It’s also hard to be “weak” around people you know. I think instinctively we pretend we’re stronger than we really are. At least guys do. But with a stranger there are no long-term consequences. You don’t have to worry that the next day they’ll treat you differently or tiptoe around you or ask embarrassing questions like, “How are you feeling ?” It’s like when you’re in the hospital and the nurse comes in every two hours or whatever to check your temperature and blood pressure. You feel like you’re being examined and judged, and when you say you’re okay, there’s this relief on their faces, and you want to keep seeing that look, you want to make them happy, so you keep saying you’re okay.
     
    Logan: And you’re not okay. Is that what you’re saying?
     
    Mickey: That’s right. I’m sorry. But I’m starting to suspect that some things hurt forever.
     
    K&K: That’s quite a declaration.
     
    Mickey: Yeah. I once read a book by Joe Hill, Heart-Shaped Box . It’s about an ex-rock star who’s haunted by the ghost of one of his ex-girlfriends’ fathers, a girl who he thinks killed herself because he broke up with her.
     
    Anyway, there’s a line that’s kind of a refrain: “The dead pull the living down.” At first it creeped me out—I pictured a corpse literally reaching out of the ground and dragging live humans down into the grave.
     
    But when the line was repeated, I realized it’s metaphorical, too. The dead pull the living down. They keep us from moving forward. They keep the living from living.
     
    And Logan, please don’t think I’m saying that to guilt you into passing on. Whether you’re here or…beyond, it doesn’t matter.
     
    Like I said, some things hurt forever. There are some voids that can never be filled, because there’s no one who can fill them, no one who fits that slot. I mean that as a compliment, not a