"Logan."
"Aaron."
"I'm still your dad. Please."
"No."
"I didn't kill your mother."
"Yes you did."
"What could I possibly have to gain by lying to you now?"
"Who knows why you do the things you do, Dad?"
"I know who killed her. They wanted me so they went after her. They would have gone after you too if I didn't agree to their terms."
"Your bullshit just never stops, does it?"
"Fuck you, Logan. I'm telling you the truth."
"Don't you wish you could smack the smirk right off my face?"
"You have no idea…"
"Oh, I have some idea. I lived with you for almost seventeen years."
"You think you lived some hard life? Then you really have no idea."
"Just because there are people out there who have had it worse doesn't change the fact that you were an asshole, you're still an asshole, and you'll always be an asshole."
"And you are a spoiled rotten brat who deserved every hit you got and a few more you didn't."
"Nice. Well, until next time I guess…"
"Son, just listen to me. I am telling you the truth."
"About what, Pop?"
"You know what I'm fucking talking about. Don't act even stupider than you are."
"Stop trying to sweet talk me onto your side."
"You're so tough now, huh? Ever since that day in the hospital room? I tell you, kid. We ever meet face to face again, on the outside, and you will be pleading for your life before I'm through with you."
"Are you really threatening me over a prison telephone?"
"Logan, you are my last hope. Someone has to believe me."
"There's a reason nobody believes you, Aaron. Because you're you. So if I'm your last hope then you are well and truly fucked."
"Fine. I tried. If you don't want to keep your mother's real killer behind bars, then there's nothing I can do with you."
"Where's her body, Aaron? What did you do with the rest of her?"
"ARE YOU NOT PAYING ATTENTION TO A FUCKING WORD THAT I AM SAYING?"
"Go to hell."
"I'll see you there."
"No, I won't visit you there either old man."
In lieu of smashing Logan's brains in, Aaron slammed the black phone onto the wall again and again until the guards made him stop. Logan hung up and laughed mirthlessly to himself. What a fucking life.
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One day, and not for the first time either, Veronica suggested that her boyfriend might benefit from some therapy. Logan reiterated that he didn't have insurance, that therapists were for rich people who liked to listen to themselves speak, and that he didn't need to talk to anybody anyway. Veronica argued against that last point to the death. She told Logan that she understood it was hard for him to talk to her about what he was going through, but that he had to talk to somebody. After Veronica finally insinuated that if Logan didn't get help she would move out, Logan googled psychologists in the Neptune area and picked the first one with a cool last name.
Logan met up with Frank Livingood after school one balmy Thursday. Frank dispensed therapy from a small first floor office located in the house he shared with his wife and three kids. Frank was cheap.
"Hi. You must be Logan. Nice to meet you. I'm Frank." Logan shook Frank's hand warily and followed him into the den/office/closet where therapy would commence.
"Hey." Logan sat down on the brown leather couch. It was nice but looked used, kind of like Frank himself.
"What are your concerns, Logan? What brings you here today?"
"I'm afraid my girlfriend is going to leave me because I'm so fucked up."
"And why do you think that?" Logan's f-bomb didn't seem to register with Frank, which was good because for Logan swearing was akin to breathing.
"It was implied. She wanted me to see someone. She's the best thing in my life, so I finally said ok."
"So you're here for her?"
"Pretty much."
"Is there even a little part of you that's here for you?"
Logan sighed. "I guess."
"Full disclosure, Logan. I've read about your family in the paper. I know that you've been through a lot."
Logan sighed again. Fuck. Everybody in Neptune probably knew everything about him. "Great."
"I'm not saying I'm pre-judging you. I just thought you should know."
"Ok."
"So, anything in particular you really need to get off your chest? Something it's hard for you to talk to your girlfriend about?"
"If I'm honest… I feel like I haven't really grieved for my mom. You know, I spent a year thinking she had just left me and then… Even now, they never found her body. It's just hard. There's no closure."
Frank just nodded so Logan continued. It felt sort of good to talk to someone he didn't have to be friends with or ever see again. It made the humiliation so much less. "My girlfriend, Veronica—her mom died too. So we talk about our memories sometimes and it helps but I need more…"
"What do you feel when you think about your mother, Logan?"
"I feel bad for her. She got married young and got shackled to this asshole. Her parents didn't like him, her friends didn't like him. But I guess she fell in love."
"Is that all you feel? Just bad for her?" Guy was a damned mind reader.
"I mean, I don't know. If I tell you something, you can never tell anybody else, right?"
"Of course."
"Sometimes I get pissed at her and then I get mad at myself for getting angry with her. She didn't do anything to help me or help herself, ever. It's like she was broken and it made me feel like I had no way out either. Like, I couldn't leave him because then I'd leave her so then I just put up with it for way too long. But maybe she wasn't leaving because of me… I mean, he'd have wanted to keep me."
"You put up with what, Logan?"
"What? Oh, my dad and his bullshit."
"Do you want to be more specific?"
"He used to just beat the hell out of me, sometimes for no reason at all. And I mean, we're not talking like one or two beatings. And we're not talking normal stuff like spankings and slaps across the face. This was an all the time thing. Every second I was around him there was the threat of it. He broke my nose a bunch of times. He put cigarettes out on me until he quit smoking when I was like twelve. And that's the most I've ever told anyone before, even my best friend Duncan only knows the basics. I got hit. The sick part is Aaron still thinks he did nothing wrong. He's not one of those people who denies it though. Those people are fucked up. He'll admit to it but he thinks it's ok. I mean, his dad was worse to him so maybe he thinks it's progress or something. Or discipline. I don't know. The belts maybe but cigarettes? He's a weird guy, Aaron. He's a total psychopath and yet he cares about me in a totally fucked up way. He refused to let me go. Sorry, I don't usually talk this much. Or I do but not about this stuff."
"That's what I'm here for, Logan."
"Right."
"So your father… You have conflicting feelings about him still?"
"Mostly I hate him obviously but… He called me on the phone yesterday and I accepted it for the first time in a while. You know how when you get a call from prison, they ask if you want to take it? Well, anyway, he was trying to convince me that he didn't kill my mom but he knew who did and part of me wanted to believe him. How sick is that? Only I didn't let him know that I wanted to believe him. I was a total asshole the whole conversation and he told me I was only able to stand up to him now because I don't have to see him and you know what? He's right."
"How long has it been since you've seen him?"
"Shit… Two and a half, three years? I don't know. I was still in high school. I didn't even go to his trial. Veronica went and told me about it."
"So who's to say you couldn't stand up to him if you saw him now?"
"Yeah but, I feel like I'll always be some stupid kid around him no matter how much I don't want to be, you know? I could be an asshole to him sometimes even when I was living with him. I'd be sarcastic just for the hell of it. 'Cause I felt like it was all I had. Damn the consequences. But I could never stand up to him physically. I never even really hit him back once. He's my dad, you know? You're not supposed to hit them back even when they deserve it. Fuck it. I don't know. Maybe if I saw him right now I would just deck him in the face."
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"Do you think it's possible that Aaron didn't kill my mom?"
Duncan and Veronica exchanged a quick glance across Logan before Duncan shook his head lightly and Veronica simply replied, "No."
Upon seeing Logan's sad face, Veronica elaborated. "I know it's hard to think of your dad doing something so awful to your mom but I was at that trial. So was Duncan. He did it."
"He said—"
"You talked to him?" Duncan was genuinely surprised. He thought that chapter of Logan's life was closed. The three of them were sitting at an outdoor restaurant drinking lemonade, Logan desperately trying to mask any and all emotion. He was failing.
Logan shrugged. "He calls pretty much every week, Duncan. Or he used to. He's pissed off at me right now. I didn't really used to take his calls but I finally did and look where it got me…"
Veronica and Duncan said nothing. Logan stared at the condensation on his glass and wished he were drinking something stronger. "So anyway, what he said was… He knows who did it. That's how he had the hand and all that. But I'm guessing he couldn't say who really did it—even at the trial—because these guys will kill him. Probably the Fitzpatricks—I mean, right? He said they threatened her and me. And now he thinks they're going to kill him anyway, on account of the tapes or whatever, so he figures what the hell? Turn on them and get out of prison early or something."
Lilly had come back from the bathroom just in time. She took a sip of her Long Island and laughed at Logan. "It's a lovely story. And Aaron can be a charming bastard. But are you really going to believe his shit just because you want to?" If possible, Lilly had become blunter while away at college.
"He's not charming. Maybe to you but not to me. He was being a total asshole. It's just—what if we're all wrong?" Lilly slid her drink across the table to Logan while she pondered this. Logan took the alcohol with no intention of giving it back. He needed to get a new fake ID. The last one had been confiscated and Veronica had tried and failed to get it back for him.
Duncan was quiet as usual. Veronica looked like she was afraid to open her mouth in fear of what might come out. Lilly had no such qualms. "Well, ok, say some random Irish crime guy kills your mom to get at your dad. And for what? What's so great about Aaron? Why not just kill him? Sure, he has no morals and he's good at beating people up but that's a dime a dozen." Lilly continued to mainly have this conversation with herself, while Logan's stare burned holes into her skin and Veronica and Duncan looked most uncomfortable.
"So, go talk to him and ask him that. Ask him why. What did he have that they wanted? It wasn't the tapes since they didn't know about them yet. But, just so you know, there's a 99% chance that he's bullshitting you. He just needs you on his side to have any shot of ever getting out of there."
"He never outright told me he did it, Lilly. He never even outright told you. He hinted at it, right? Why has he never admitted it to anyone, ever?"
"I can't answer that, Logan. But I have to say, whether he has murdered your mother or not, your father is a piece of shit you don't need in your life."
"Believe me, you have no idea."