Brandy and Logan

I left early Wednesday morning to drive to the city where I was going to spend the night with Logan, Brandy and their two little girls, Kiki and Tisha. It had been about a year since I last saw them because they didn’t leave the city much and I didn’t really get there as often as I would’ve liked too.

Brandy was probably my closest female friend; in fact she was probably on of the few female friends that I had who hung out with me because of me, not because she was dating a guy friend of mine.

I went to visit them partly because I missed them but mainly because 5 years ago, they went through some thing similar to what I’m going through with Josh right now. It wasn’t exactly the same thing, Brandy had been dating Logan for about six months when she found out about the other woman who he had been screwing around with behind her back; the other woman was Kiki’s mom.

At 18, Brandy wasn’t about to forgive Logan for cheating on her but in a tragic twist of events, Logan found himself holding a tiny baby girl as her mom fought for her life and lost. The same night that Kiki’s mom left this earth, Brandy and I were in her bathroom at her parents house, totally unaware of what was happening beyond those four walls as we stared at the pregnancy test that sat on the counter.

Brandy spent the night lying on the floor as she flip flopped back and forth between crying for her baby and hating Logan for cheating. It wasn’t until noon the next day when her mother came home from the hospital (she was a nurse in the maternity ward) that Brandy found out what had happened. “I have to go,” she told me and her mom. “He needs me.” We tried to talk her out of it but she refused to listen, she told us that we wouldn’t understand.

Six months later, I stood beside Brandy as she promised to love, honor and cherish Logan all the days of her life and cried along with her as Logan spilt his heart to her and the packed church in words he wrote to say to her besides the traditional vows they had planned on reciting.

Three months after the wedding, I was trying to calm a scared little girl as we all waited to hear if she had a sister or a brother.

A year after the birth of Tisha, I cried along with Brandy as Logan packed the rest of their meager possessions into the trailer they rented. “I promise to take good care of her Anna,” Logan gave me a hug. “You can visit us anytime; there will always be room for you.”

For the first year or so, we talked all the time on the phone but in the last couple years there seemed to be more and more excuses until we were barely talking at all.

When Josh came back into my life, Brandy was one of the first people I told. I called her up and the first thing I said to her was, “I found him!” She knew immediately what I meant and she asked me for all the details.

“He sounds so wonderful Anna,” she was so happy for me and she started to ‘plan’ our wedding. “I can’t wait,’ she told me. “I’ll have a really good reason to come home for a couple weeks and the girl will get to see that there are actually people out there who play in front of their own homes without worrying about cars running them over!”

She was in my corner when Jordan was acting crazy and she cried with me when I screwed up and Josh told me that he didn’t want to see me again. “It can’t be over!” She sobbed. “He is your dream guy, the man that you’ve been waiting for your whole life!”

When I ran into Josh at the restaurant, she was just as excited as I was that he wanted to see me. “And he kissed you!” She squealed, which must have scared Logan because I heard his voice in the background, asking what was wrong.

So when I called her to tell her that Josh pretty much wanted to start over again, she told me I was coming to visit her. “It’s time we did some serious planning to get that man back in your arms!”

It was almost ten by the time I pulled up in front of their townhouse that morning. I was so excited to be there that I tried shutting off my car without putting it in park first! When I finally figured out what I was doing and corrected it, Brandy was yanking my door open.

“ANNA!” She squealed as I hopped from the car. “It’s about time you got here!” She threw her arms around me and gave me a big hug. “Come on,” she tugged me away from my car. “We have so much to talk about!”

“But my bag,” I pointed to the car.

“No time,” she said as she pulled me towards the front door where Logan stood with the girls, watching us with an amused expression on his face. “Logan will get it, won’t you baby?”

Brandy didn’t wait for him to answer; she took my keys from me and tossed them at him. “Love you baby!” She called over her shoulder as she pushed me into the house.

While Logan was getting my bag from the car, Brandy led me into the living room where she told the girls to keep me entertained while she ran down stairs to throw the laundry into the dryer.

Once alone with the girls, I asked them how they were doing but they seemed to be a little shy. “You don’t remember me?” Kiki shook her head while Tisha just stood there looking at the floor. “Oh,” I glanced around the room and then back at them. “Well I’m one of your mommy’s best friends, I still live where your mommy grew up. Did she tell you about that place?”

Kiki nodded, “Mommy said there is lots of play space!” She seemed to be asking me if mommy was right.

“And cows,” Tisha piped up. “Mommy said there were cows.”

I laughed, “Yes there are cows and lots of space where I live.”

“Wow,” the both said in unison.

When Logan came back inside from getting my bag, Tisha ran up to him. “Daddy there are cows there! Lots of them!” Tisha pointed at me. “She said so!”

“Yes I know Tisha, I lived there too.” Logan told them to go get dressed and pick up their toys. When the girls left the room, he sat down in the air chair across from me. “So did Brandy ask you to come here to try and convince me that moving back would be good for the girls?” I frowned. “I know she wants them to grow up like we did but I don’t want to go back there Anna, being there reminds me of all the stupid things I did and how I almost lost Brandy because of them.”

“Logan, Brandy never once mentioned wanting to move back to me.”

“She didn’t?” He seemed surprised. “But I heard her talking to you about going back a couple months ago.”

“No, you didn’t.” Brandy’s voice came from the hallway. “Is that why you’ve been acting so weird about Anna coming here? Because you think I want to move back there?”

“I heard you tell her that you would have to try to convince me to go back there! I wasn’t hearing things!”

“You idiot!” Brandy rolled her eyes. “You’ve been acting snarly for the past couple weeks because of something you thought you heard! I don’t want to go back there! Sure I would love to see everyone again but I don’t want to live there! I’m happy with the life we have here!” Brandy glanced at me. “Are you even sure you want to get involved with Josh again; men can be more trouble than they are worth some times!”