Hey y'all! New chapter. I'm excited, this is going to be fun. It's Logan's tenth birthday, and some stuff happens. I'm sorry, this was supposed to be up days ago, and it was supposed to be up earlier today, but it's up now. And, for your information, over 3k words. My longest chapter yet.
Happy reading! Enjoy!
James had been the first to have a tenth birthday. They spent the afternoon at the hockey rink (making sure to steer clear of figure-skating Camarelli siblings, who always acted like they dominated the rink, even though they didn't), then hung out in his basement. They begged his mom to make hot chocolate, and she did, but only because it was his birthday. Logan didn't remember James having a cake.
For Kendall's birthday, they went to the rink too. Afterwards, they hung out on his couch. Mrs. Knight had made him a cake, which they devoured. Kendall tore through his presents. Logan had gotten him new hockey laces using the money his grandmother had given him for his ninth birthday last year. Maybe that seemed counterproductive, spending his birthday money on someone else's birthday gift, but it's not like he wasted all of it. The laces cost ten dollars. His grandma had mailed him a birthday card with fifteen dollars tucked inside. Kendall really liked the new laces. It wouldn't have mattered if he spent it all.
And now it was Logan's birthday. He had gotten up early out of excitement, though he had no reason to be excited. Unless, by some miracle, his mother was awake, they wouldn't be doing anything.
He waited five minutes for this miracle to occur. He even debated going into his mom's bedroom. It was his birthday after all. So he did.
She was still asleep. But he must have been loud enough because her head lifted from her pillow the minute he walked in.
She murmured something, sitting up. She blinked, yawning.
He waited for this miracle. She was technically awake. Maybe he could push his luck a little farther. "Good morning, Mom."
She yawned again, massaging her face. Her mascara was smudged. "Hortense."
"Logan," he whispered, before he could stop himself.
Her smile disappeared. He didn't know what to do. He watched her, slowly. Maybe he shouldn't have woken her up. She sleeps away the whole week, and the next, she barely closes her eyes. It used to feel like months. He had been wrong, it was weeks.
The good weeks, the ones where she wasn't shut up in her room, or away from the house the whole day, working, were few. This was not a good week. This wasn't a good day.
It was his fault then. Just by saying his name.
She just started crying, right there in bed, in front of him. He stared, wanting to look away. He could hear her mumbling about things, not anything he could understand.
"I'm sorry," he said. "Mom, I'm sorry, I didn't—"
What was he going to say? He didn't know what to say, he just said his name.
He didn't need to say anything. She cried harder, over any words he would have spoken. She was yelling through her tears, panicked and insistent. She had never yelled at him before.
He exited the room quietly. He didn't mean to make her cry, he didn't mean to do anything. He could still hear her crying through the door. Then, distracting him, the landline rang.
He held the receiver to his ear, wincing. He tried to ignore his mother in her bedroom, but he couldn't. He couldn't even speak.
Mrs. Knight was on the other side of the phone call, her voice soft and gentle, as always. Even over Logan's three friends in the background, screaming about something. Just being loud. "Hello? Joanna?"
"She's crying."
It was more of a delayed observation than it was something to be spoken out loud.
"Crying?"
"Yes."
He could hear Kendall in the background: Is that Logan?
James, too: It better be.
And finally, Carlos: Guys, we have to wish him a happy birthday. Mama Knight, can you tell him happy birthday? HAPPY BIRTHDAY LOGAN!
"Why is she crying?" Mrs. Knight asked. "Is everything okay? Could you get her on the phone?"
Three questions. He knew the answer to all of them: she's crying because of him because he said his name, everything is not okay, and he could not get her on the phone.
Once again, this was not something he wanted to say out loud, but he said it.
"Oh, honey." Mrs. Knight pauses, silent. He knows she's still on the line because his friends are still yelling, with the exception of Carlos, who was…singing? Yeah, he was singing the happy birthday song. James and Kendall were trying to shut him up.
"Logan, we're going to pick you up. I'm going to talk to your mommy for a little bit, and then we'll go to the rink, alright?"
Just like on Easter, he thought. Easter was fun last year, even if his mom wasn't there. But this wasn't Easter, this was his birthday. "Are you–-will my mom come too?"
Mrs. Knight paused again. "We'll see."
—-
Logan sat in the car while Mrs. Knight talked with his mom. He suffered through Carlos's many loud, loud, versions of the happy birthday song. He didn't dare sing the regular one, but instead, insisted that James, Kendall and Katie join him for his performance of Alien Happy Birthday, even though this alien spoke a fake language that no one except Carlos understood.
Mrs. Knight returned, buckling herself into the driver's seat. Logan turned to see if his mother was following. She was not. Mrs. Knight sighed and started the car.
"Why isn't Mom coming?" he asked, still looking towards the house.
She was going to step out of the front door any minute. She had to.
Logan noticed that the driveway was unshoveled from the last snowstorm, even though he remembered his mom being out shoveling for four hours that night. Nothing was making sense anymore.
"Why isn't Mom coming?" he repeated. Maybe Mrs. Knight couldn't hear him. He could barely hear himself over Carlos's singing. He couldn't hear anything else.
Mrs. Knight shook her head. She started to drive away.
For the third time, he repeats himself. "Why isn't—"
But he's interrupted by Mrs. Knight: "Logan, sweetheart, your mommy isn't feeling well."
"She's not sick!"
He knows something is wrong. That's not the same as being sick. She doesn't have any symptoms of a cold, or the flu, or even the stomach bug. She's not sick. And it was his birthday, his tenth birthday, so shouldn't she be coming? James and Kendall's mothers didn't ignore them or yell at them on their tenth birthday, they were the ones planning the whole thing. And his mom didn't even have to plan it, she just had to come with them in the car. It was so easy, such a simple solution.
Mrs. Knight's mouth dropped open. Speechless.
"She's not sick!" he yelled again. Because she wasn't sick. If she was sick, really sick, like cancer or something, she would die, But she wasn't dying. He couldn't have her die. "She's not!"
"Okay!" Mrs. Knight exclaimed, over Logan, who was still screaming the same words over and over. They weren't understanding. If his mom was sick, she would die. And she wasn't sick, so why did they keep saying that?
"We're all playing the quiet game," Mrs. Knight continued, her words sharp. She sighed, speaking quieter, gentler, like usual. "Logan, sweetie, we're playing the quiet game. Starting now."
It was difficult to play the quiet game when Logan was evidently not being quiet. But when he did quiet down, though his crying probably wasn't very quiet at all, that's when everyone else started talking again.
"Aw, man," Carlos complained. "I hate the quiet game. I always lose."
"You just lost again," James pointed out, smiling smugly
"No, I didn't, James. You did. You talked."
"So did you!"
"No, I didn't!"
"Yes, you obviously did, can't you hear yourself?"
"Can't you hear yourself?"
"Mom said the quiet game," Katie whispered. "Not the arguing game."
It was funny, because everyone was getting into their own little silent arguments until they got to the hockey rink.
—
Logan wouldn't look at Mrs. Knight for the whole three hours they were there. He couldn't. So, there he was, sitting on the bench, practically pulling his (Kendall's) crusty old skate laces out of their holes. He couldn't even tie them, his hands were shaking. He pulled at them again.
He wanted to go home, but, see, he wouldn't look at Mrs. Knight. So he couldn't do that.
He pulled on his laces one more time, giving up. He just couldn't. He knew what to do, he could see it in his head, the way Kendall had explained it to him. He could remember how it felt tying the laces, and how it looked, but he just could not tie them.
James looked over at him from his spot on the bench. "Are you okay now?"
"I don't know," he kicked the bench with his skate-clad feet. The skate laces dangled, untied still.
"Are you gonna tie your skates?"
"I don't know."
"What do you mean you don't know? You know a lot of stuff, Logan. I think you'd know if you were going to tie your skates."
He groaned, rolling his eyes up into his head.
James stood in front of him then, eyeing his sullen face and the skates on his feet. "Do you want help?"
But Logan didn't really answer, so James tied up the skates anyway and took him to the ice. James skated with him to Kendall, who Logan nearly fell on top of, stumbling. Kendall caught him quickly, but shared a confused look with James.
"I think he's upset about his mom," James said. "I was really sad when my dad left, too."
"But Logan's mom didn't leave him. Logan's mom just doesn't like him," Kendall suggested. Then, he realized that Logan was in his arms, right there, listening. "I mean—she probably does like him, but she makes him upset."
"Yeah." James nodded. He spotted Carlos skating around with his stick nearby. Carlos almost flew past all three of them, but James caught his elbow at the last minute, stopping him.
Carlos glanced around quickly, eyes widening when he saw Logan. "He's having a bad birthday. How are we going to fix that?"
James shrugged. "I don't know."
But James remembered that, when his dad left, that ended up being all he wanted. Even after he saw with his own two eyes, that his father got married to another woman that was not his mother, but instead some random blonde lady fifteen years younger, all James wanted was his dad. He just wanted to see him again, to hug him and laugh with him and complain to him about some new diet Mom had put him on. Or complain about how he wasn't yet a pop star, and the only way he might ever be famous if this didn't pull through, was by being the Midwestern Estee Lauder's son. That was not A-list celebrity material. That was like, the B list, but for the old grandmas who bought his mom's products. He had no desire to be a B lister, which he would tell his dad often.
His dad's voice. Just listening to him talk would've made him feel better.
"I think Logan needs to go home," James said, taking one of his arms. Kendall had the other. Carlos was carrying their gear. He was bound to trip and fall at some point. He did, right as they glided off the ice.
Kendall was in the process of taking off Logan's skates, which were still technically his. Kendall nodded. "Yeah. Let me go talk to my mom."
—-
Jennifer Knight was crowded around the landline, just like earlier that day. "Boys, go sit down."
They didn't. She dialed the Mitchell's home number anyway, waiting.
"Hello?" came Joanna Mitchell's tired reply. It was unlike herself, usually so, what? So—put together. So successful. So tightly wound sometimes, just like her son, operating on a rigid schedule, rarely saving any time for leisure. She hadn't seen much of Joanna the past few weeks, Jennifer mused. Neither had Brooke and Sylvia.
"Joanna—"
Logan interrupted her. "I want to—no," he stopped himself, biting down on his lip. It started to bleed. "No, nevermind."
The boys glanced at each other, then at Logan's lip. Just as quickly as they surrounded her, they left. Jennifer could hear the water running from the bathroom, opening cabinets, closing cabinets. She hesitated, holding the phone to her chest. The boys would be fine for a minute. She picked the phone back up, continuing.
"Joanna, it's Jennifer."
"Jennifer? What's going on? I can't—I haven't seen Hortense since this morning. Do you know where he is?"
Hortense really was a terrible name.
"Yeah, he's over with me. I picked him up from your house, don't you remember?"
There was a pause, and for a minute, she thought Joanna had hung up. Her reply came minutes later. Minutes. "Oh. Yes, I remember."
"Logan—"
"Hortense."
"Okay, well, he's here, do you—"
"Mom! Mom!" Kendall was yelling, crashing into her. He looked up at her, taking a breath. "We need to go to the hospital, Logan's lip is bleeding a lot more, he wouldn't stop."
'The hospital?" Joanna sounded alarmed on the other end. "The hospital?"
"Meet us there," Jennifer suggested. "I'll see you then."
"I'll see you."
Joanna hung up. She was starting to sound more like herself, Jennifer noted. Nothing really like what she had seen that morning, a crying, shaking, unresponsive mess. It was good that she was coming out of this now.
Hopefully Logan didn't need too much emergency medical attention. Sure, he would know all about it, exactly what the doctors were doing and why they were doing it. But, poor kid.
So far, his birthday was nothing short of a disaster.
—
Logan needed ten stitches in his lip. That was the least of his problems. The bigger problem turned out to be the fight between his mom and the doctor in the waiting room, right before he went in for the stitches.
The doctor didn't know how to do his job. Logan was the one that needed medical attention, he was the patient, not his mom. Why did the doctor say she needed new medication? She wasn't on any medication, she wasn't sick.
Of course, once he saw Logan, his lip bleeding out onto the ground, right before his very eyes, the doctor apologized quickly. That didn't stop Logan from asking questions, even with his lip problem. His lip would be fine. He wasn't scared of stitches or minor surgery like this. Everyone else seemed to be, though. His only problem was that the blood felt all sticky and gross, drying on his chin.
"What medication?" he asked, as clearly as he could. He was feeling a little light headed from the blood loss. "M-mom doesn't take medication."
The doctor did not answer him. Not at all. Not even with a shrug, which sometimes James and Carlos did. Sometimes Kendall did it too, and then he would look away from Logan until he stopped talking. He didn't like when Kendall shrugged at him like that, but it was better than not being answered at all.
Logan knows he's been given anesthesia. He's about to fall asleep, knocked out completely, his question unanswered. Maybe he wouldn't remember it when he woke up, and then he'd never get the answer. He needed to remember the question.
He held onto the thought tightly, repeating it mentally, over and over, until he blacked out.
What medication?
—
That was the first thing he asked when he found himself slowly being lowered into a wheelchair. His mother was behind him, pushing it out of the hospital. Mrs. Knight, Kendall, and Katie were walking around him. Maybe James and Carlos went home? Was it still his birthday? Maybe he had been under anesthesia for a whole day.
Logan asked his question, which he became increasingly more impressed with remembering, since maybe he remembered it for a full day longer. Mrs. Knight and his mother stopped talking.
"What do you mean, sweetie?" Mrs. Knight asked.
His mother had stopped the wheelchair.
"Mom, can we keep going?"
His mother started again.
Logan decided to clarify his question for Mrs. Knight then. "The doctor said Mom needed new medication. She's not on any medication, so I asked him which one, but he didn't answer. He didn't even do that thing that Kendall does, where he shrugs and then doesn't look at me."
Kendall looked up at the mention of his name.
"I don't do that." he muttered, once he saw his mother looking at him like he was about to be grounded for eternity.
"Yes, you do," Logan insisted. "You did it when I was telling you about Hippocrates and Hipparchus, you thought they were the same person, but they aren't! Hippocrates—"
"Well, maybe I did," Kendall agreed. "Because no one cares about old guys whose names both start with Hippo, by the way. How smart can they be?"
"They were Greek! Hippo in Greek for horse, and horses are really smart. They can recognize patterns, interpret non-verbal cues—"
"You can't! Does that mean horses are smarter than you?" Kendall gasped, his shock completely fake. It was amusing though, to imagine a horse in a doctor's white coat, a stethoscope around its neck, instead of Logan. Logan was jumping hurdles in this alternate universe. He laughed. That was really, really, stupid.
"Kendall." Mrs. Knight warned.
"What? Maybe the horses really are smarter than him."
"Horses are not smarter than me! And I can recognize patterns!" Logan cried out, glaring at his friend. Logan was good at patterns, especially numbers.
"No," Kendall continued. "The other thing. The–"
But Mrs. Knight glared at him harder, and Logan's mom coughed. Logan turned around in his wheelchair to assess his mother's condition. She looked fine, better than she had all week, actually. Kendall shut up.
Everyone was quiet, even Katie, who probably didn't like being quiet for a full day, since she was only four. Logan was better at playing the quiet game now that his mother was here. His mom was pretty good at playing, too.
—
It was still his birthday when he got home. The house was messier than it had been that morning, especially in his mother's bedroom. The bathroom, too. There was a whole new collection of pill bottles lined up in the medicine cabinet, ones he had never seen before. The practically fluorescent orange plastic bottles gleamed full of green and white pills.
Logan reached up, barely tall enough to knock one (tightly, safely secured) bottle off the shelf and into his hands. He read the label. His mother's name, JOANNA MITCHELL, was printed across the top. What were the pills called?
Fluoxetine. 40mg.
"Hortense!"
The bottle fell from his hands. His mother scooped it up before he did, placing it back on the shelf. She shut the cabinet, sliding the lock in place.
"Don't ever take bottles from here, do you understand?"
He nodded.
Fluoxetine. 40mg.
"Logan! Open the door, we know you're there!" Carlos was yelling from outside the door.
"I'm coming!" he yelled back. "Why are they here?"
And for the first time, in possibly months? His mother smiled at him. "Open the door and find out."
He does just that, running to the door, running, and he never runs to the door. He probably shouldn't be running to the door, especially with a newly-stitched up lip, but he does. There's a cake, and presents, and his mom is still smiling in the corner.
He couldn't really eat his cake, his lip was still feeling weird, numb, and he was afraid of ripping out the stitches. He did, however, get to taste it, when Carlos pulled the age-old prank (he shouldn't have fallen for it) of asking Logan to smell his cake. And the proceeded to push his head down into the chocolatey mess.
It was still one of the best birthdays he'd ever had, despite the quiet game, despite his inability to tie his skates, despite the hospital visit.
Despite everything, because right now, everything else was perfect.
Haha, yay, happy ending! I wasn't planning on it, but it just appeared. Have a lovely day!