John Denver was pretty generous when he was describing West Virginia in Take Me Home, Country Roads. The scenery was gorgeous, of course, but it couldn't possibly be almost heaven when there were no whales around.

Everywhere I went was automatically a little better with Logan, though.

"Hey," I said. "Thanks for coming with me. I know this is practically a village compared to where you're from, but I left a lot here, and it'll be nice to revisit it with you."

It had been about four years since I left home and refused to come back without proof that it was all worth it, but with Logan and a spot on Dr. McCann's team to do my whale thing, as my dad put it, it finally felt like I had something worth being proud of.

"I figured this would be a good opportunity to find out why you are the way you are. There are a lot of mysteries to be solved here," he said. "Now where the hell am I supposed to go?"

"Still a few miles down this road, and then where you'd think there should be a stop sign or light or something, turn left there."

Explaining directions to him was definitely easier than cleaning vomit out of my car, so I handed him the keys back in Maine at two in the morning, and a little over seventeen hours later, I was ready to return to an old life I left behind.

My dad seemed excited to hear all about what I had been doing, and even if he was just trying to encourage me, that was perfectly fine with me. I knew my decisions were tough for him. No matter what I tried to pretend, while they were easy for me to make, they were much more difficult to live with.

I had grown up in a small town called Oldham in West Virginia, and unlike Paradise City, there was, in fact, grass that was green, and when it rained, it was especially fresh and pretty. The house was just big enough for my parents, my three brothers, and me, and there was plenty of land for us to run around, play basketball, and dream of being somewhere else. But nobody came, and nobody ever left, especially for an expensive college in Maine to pursue marine biology while she had the perfectly logical and viable option to stay close by and play basketball.

New flowers decorated the area right in front of the porch of the house, but the rocking chair that used to be there was gone. There were no cars in the driveway either, even though we told them that we'd be there at around seven.

Oh.

"I'm pretty sure we passed more horses than people in this entire state. That's one mystery solved," Logan said.

I smiled and shook my head. "That doesn't explain anything about me. Correlation and causation aren't the same thing."

"Shut up, nerd. I'm sciencing."

"You're not doing a very good job."

"I'm doing a fantastic job."

There was no sense in arguing with him. He knew who was really right.

The two of us walked up to the door, and with no one home, I went through my keys to find the right one. If I remembered correctly, the key to the front door was the most silver in color, but before I could try it, Logan let out a sigh next to me.

"It's been a while since I unlocked this door, Logan. I think this is the right key, but I can't remember for sure," I said.

"That wasn't at you. It was just in general."

"Yeah, it's been a long day. Do you want to see my room?" I asked as I swung the front door open. So I did remember. I kept my smile to myself.

He smiled. "I would enjoy that very much. It'll be a nice addition to my collection of data on why you're like this."

How long was he going to continue with that?

The inside of the house looked almost exactly the way I remembered it with a run-down kitchen that looked like it was stuck in the seventies, the head of a deer that my dad hunted (and traumatized me forever) on the wall above the television in the living room, but there was an extra chair at the dining room table for Logan.

They probably put two there earlier in the day, but I never saw it that way. I didn't want to, really. The memory was perfect with my chair there.

"We should probably check out my room before my family gets back," I said.

He nodded. "Where the fuck are they? It's not like there's anything to do in this town."

Did he miss what I was trying to say? There was no way he did.  "There's this cute fried chicken place, so I bet they're there. My brothers love it and my mom can't cook, so it's a good combination."

He smiled and followed me up the stairs, which creaked with each step we took. Good. He got the real idea. The hall to the bedrooms was a little narrow, and the first one was always mine. The door was shut, and when I opened it, it wasn't anything like what I left four years ago.

"What the hell?" I muttered.

Over the years, I had posters from every interest I ever had, from the WNBA to my favorite books that were turned into movies to puppies. The one interest that wasn't represented somewhere was the ocean, and that was only because I took all of that stuff with me. But all that remained in the room that was once mine was a giant mess on the floor of trash and clothes.

Austin.

"I have a lot of questions," Logan said.

"Yeah, so do I." I crossed my arms. "Who let Austin take my room? That's not fair."

"Well, if you're not here, why can't it be your brother's?"

I shook my head. "Because it's mine, Logan. It's almost like they moved on like I was never even there."

"You mean like—you know what? Never mind."

I looked over at him. He looked at the ground.

He wasn't wrong, unfortunately.

"I was kind of looking forward to seeing all my old stuff again, but who knows where it is now? Do you think they threw it out?" I asked.

He shrugged. "You know your family better than I do."

Would they get rid of all my stuff? Probably not. It was probably in the basement in a cardboard box labeled with my name.

"Rea, you know they still love you. You don't need to get worked up over something as small as this. We have plenty of stuff back home," Logan said.

I really couldn't ask for much more than him, Blue, and Racecar (and visits from Brett now that he definitively knew where we lived), and Reagan from West Virginia wasn't the same person as Rea from Paradise City.

But it would be nice to see my stuffed animals again.

"You're right. I'm glad they're getting some use out of the room. It would be impractical to keep it the way it was," I said.

Before Logan could ask if I was still mad or if I was serious, the front door squeaked as it opened once again, and a group of familiar people came inside.

I gasped. "They're here."

"At their own home? Who the fuck would have thought that would happen?"

"Reagan?" my dad called from downstairs.

I grabbed Logan's wrist and brought him along with me down the stairs and to the dining room. Everyone always told me that I looked just like my dad, and with the red hair and slightly crooked teeth that weren't bad enough to justify spending a bunch of money to fix, it was difficult to argue with that. My mother, on the other hand, had her good pearls around her neck, even though my dad always told her that her blonde hair was far prettier than anything he could ever give her.

My three brothers Austin, Christopher, and Jonah looked more like a combination of the two than I did, but they had all gotten taller since the last time I saw them. Austin was three years younger than me, but over the years, he had caught up to me in height and passed me without me knowing.

He also took my room without me knowing.

Christopher was on his phone texting someone, and the chances were that it was a friend that I had never met. And Jonah had braces.

So much had changed since I left, yet all of it reminded me of the days I had no direction.

"I'm sorry we weren't here when y'all arrived. You would not believe the traffic, Reagan," Mom said.

I took a glance over at Logan, who muttered, "You're right. She doesn't."

I turned back to her and smiled anyway. "Why are you wearing your good pearls? It's just Logan and me."

"Oh, you know there's nowhere to wear these. I'll take any excuse at this point." She laughed.

"Logan, this is my family. You met my dad, and that's my mother, and these are my brothers Austin, Chris, and Jonah. Everyone, this is my fiance Logan. Don't be mean to him, and you know I'm talking about you, Austin," I said.

"So you're the one who hurt her so bad that she finally called," Austin said. When did his voice get so deep?

Logan didn't miss a beat. "Yep, that's me. You're welcome."

I smiled. "That was a misunderstanding, and it was probably all my fault. But that counts as being mean."

My dad cleared his throat. "Well, we got Oldham Chicken. I'm sure you missed it, Reagan."

I nodded. "I did. Being at Paradise City and having Brett cook for us was nice, but the rest of the time, it's been a lot of ramen and coffee for every meal."

"Hey," Logan whispered before we took a seat at the table. "I figured there'd be some tearful reunion with lots of hugging."

I hesitated. "Why would you think that?"

"You're right. Chalk it up as another reason why you are the way you are."

I smiled and sat down.

"So let's see the ring," my mom said.

"Oh, we didn't get a ring. Logan picked out this necklace of a whale's fluke made of a real piece of bone from one. Look." I held it up for her. "Isn't that the sweetest thing ever?"

Her mouth smiled as she looked at Logan, but it didn't reach her eyes. "Well, bless your heart."

That wasn't the compliment it should have been.

As the dinner went on, I didn't mention my room and how it was defiled by Austin, and instead, I told them about the life they didn't know. On the surface, Paradise City looked like a rock in the middle of the Atlantic with a house filled with college students, but it was more than that. It was a seal hangout, a place to put together the big picture of the whales in the surrounding waters, and target practice for gulls flying overhead.

And when the late night finally came around, Logan and I curled up on the couch like we used to at Paradise City when we would watch documentaries and hope no one would see. Out of all my past lives, that was probably the one I missed the most.

"Pretty much everything about you makes sense now, but there's one thing I can't figure out. How'd you end up at Paradise City when it's so different and far from here?" Logan asked.

There was no room for materialism back at Paradise City, but that was more than fine with me. What was important was the relationships with the people and the whales.

"That's exactly it. It was different, and it seemed much more like a place that was made for me than anywhere else in the world. And I was one hundred percent right," I said.

"Like always, right?" He chuckled.

I let myself smile. "Exactly like always."

That wasn't true at all, and he and I both knew it. But I didn't mind that lie from him.

"I love you," I said before kissing him on the cheek. "And thanks again for coming here with me."

"It was for science, Rea. Not for you."

"Of course."

But the way he kissed me told me what I already knew (like always, right?), that everything he said along those lines was a lie. Even if he wanted to believe where I came from turned me into the person I became over time, it wasn't. It was him and Paradise City.