Hey y'all, new chapter! Notice the time difference is one day? Things are about to get pretty gosh darn angsty. Enjoy! Happy reading!
It took two hours to get home.
Kendall had managed to drag Logan to this childcare center, but there was no point in staying. Katie was half-asleep, and Logan was still crying and shaking and screaming. They needed to leave completely.
It's difficult, but he also manages to carry their three backpacks. Katie is wearing hers, she's latched on to his neck. Her head rolls to his shoulder, she's way tired. Kendall shifts her onto his back, and makes sure her hands are tightly secured around his neck.
He's holding Logan close to his side, closing him in a one armed hug. Logan is still thrashing, but Kendall is trying his best with him. As long as Logan doesn't sink to the floor again, they can get out.
He hears the boss yelling for him to finish his shift. This yelling causes Logan to make more distressed sounds. It causes Katie to murmur in her sleep, and her hands to fall away from his neck. Kendall reaches up to secure them once more.
He continues walking.
The sliding doors open too slowly, but they do open.
They're out.
Now, they have to face the parking lot. They have to pass through it in order to get to the sidewalk, then they can walk home.
Kendall grabs Logan's hand, praying that not a single car moves in the two minutes it will take for them to cross.
The answer to his prayer comes in the form of some drunk, at least they seem drunk, who pulls out, and doesn't see them. They're backing up, and Kendall can't move, because a car on the other side of the lot pulls out, and another is pulling in from the roundabout near the sidewalk, and yet another is pulling in from behind them.
He's trapped, and this drunk is driving, and he's about to hit Logan.
And he does.
Kendall grabs him, and Katie wakes up. She falls, Logan's on the ground, and Kendall does not have the self control not to attack this driver.
The driver speeds off.
Katie's crying because she hurt her head and her back in the fall. Logan's crying because of everything going on around them. They're both on the ground for a moment, the difference is that Katie gets up, and Logan stays.
Katie wraps her arms around Kendall's torso, talking through her tears.
Logan wraps his arms around himself, and resumes rocking back and forth.
They are going to get hit by a car again.
All these other cars have more sense, avoiding the chaos in the middle of the parking lot. They pull in, walking to the store, and maybe stare. Others pull out, rolling their windows down, just ever so slightly, for the same purpose.
One of them pulls into a parking spot hastily, rushing out to the three of them.
Kendall can't deal with this.
It's the counselor.
It's the nice, but purposefully stupid counselor, that watched him have a breakdown as he told her everything.
"Kendall?" she asks.
"Yeah," he whispers, not sure if he's trying to hide Logan from her view, or let her see him.
He doesn't know what to do, but he doesn't want to admit that.
He's supposed to know what to do.
He tries to pull Logan up, but it's unsuccessful.
This counselor lady is by his side, staring down at Logan. Her eyes glisten. "Do you need help? What are you all even doing here so late?"
He wants her to go away, because hasn't he explained everything to her already? "I work here," he mutters.
"I didn't know they hired thirteen year olds."
They don't. He lied and said he was eighteen, because then he wouldn't have to fill out working papers.
"Yeah, well."
Kendall lifts up Katie, holding her close to his chest. This way, she's stable and won't fall. He just won't be able to get Logan off the ground.
This is what the counselor is doing. She is kneeling down next to Logan, speaking quietly to him.
"Kendall, do you need me to drive you home?" she asked, still sitting by Logan.
She wasn't a stranger, there wasn't anything dangerous about getting in the car with her.
Katie stirs, murmuring in her sleep. He can't carry her all the way home, and worry about Logan on top of that.
Plus, she seems to be handling Logan fine.
Better than he was. Does she know what's wrong with him?
He nods at her. "Sure."
—
He assures the counselor that they'll be fine getting into the house on their own.
Katie is completely passed out, and Logan retreats to the couch. He reaches for a blanket, the green blanket that feels like sandpaper, and curls into it.
"Logan, it's fine," Kendall says, because mostly whatever this was has passed.
Logan shakes his head.
"You didn't do anything wrong, it was my fault, you know that, right?"
He shakes his head again. He doesn't know, maybe he doesn't understand.
"Logan—"
"I don't care, go away."
Kendall knows that he doesn't mean it, he's just repeating things he heard him say last time they had a stupid fight. Logan's voice is weak and quiet, and he keeps staring ahead.
"I'm going to put Katie to bed, maybe you should go to bed, too?"
His mistake is phrasing it like a question, a suggestion. Neither of them respond well to those.
"Go away, Kendall."
"I'm going to get Katie in bed, then you, if I have to."
Logan tenses, pulling the blanket closer. "Go away."
It's not the best combination: Kendall's ravaging, ever-present stubbornness when it came to his friends, and Logan's obvious, ebb-and-flow despondency.
"You should go to bed soon."
Logan doesn't respond, doesn't move. He keeps his eyes fixated on the wall. When Kendall crosses in front of him to exit the living room, he shuts them.
Katie is clinging tightly to his neck, pulling him down with her. He shakes her gently, her eyes fluttering open.
"Is Logan okay?" she asks through a yawn. "He was crying."
Kendall cannot have Katie think about this.
"Yeah," he responds, mostly dismissive of the question.
He removes her hands from his neck, dropping her down on her mattress. She bounces back up, squealing with tired laughter. He pulls the covers over her, kissing her forehead.
"Love you, baby sister."
She grins at him, exhaustion letting the corners of her mouth fall. "Love you, big brother."
Katie is asleep within seconds. Kendall moves back into the living room, where Logan is sleeping. His hands are clenching the blanket, even as he sleeps.
Kendall settles himself down in the armchair. He's tired, but he's not going to sleep until his mother gets home.
—
The opening of the door, the jangling of house keys, causes Kendall to bolt upright, blinking away sleep deprivation.
"Kendall?" his mom asked. "Oh, honey, you didn't wait up for me, did you?"
He presses a finger to his lips, shooting a glance at Logan, who has been sleeping peacefully with few disturbances for about three hours.
"Why is he sleeping on the couch?" his mother whispers.
In the dim light, he can see her untie her blue apron, hanging it up by the door. She unties her ponytail, letting her hair descend down, curling around her shoulders.
"The late shift was rough," he says, knowing she'll understand. Hoping she doesn't press.
She's his mother, of course she knows when he's not telling the truth, of course she'll press.
"Did you take Logan to your shift?"
"And Katie."
His mother places her hands on her hips, jaw set, chin lowered, voice deeper. It's her classic I'm angry, explain right now pose. "You took your seven year old sister to your shift? Your eleven o'clock shift? Kendall—"
Her voice raises, and so does his.
"Mom! What was I supposed to do? Logan can't watch a seven year old child, he can't even watch himself. I had to take them both!"
She stares at him, silent. He's messed up, he just yelled back at his mother.
"Katie wasn't even the problem," he murmurs.
He's not going to tell her about the fruit selling, only because Katie isn't supposed to get into business-type scams. Being the scammer, that is. Katie was too smart to ever get scammed herself.
"What?"
She is back to whispering. Not even angry whispers. Concerned whispers.
"Logan—freaked out. At the store, I was trying to get him out, but he just fell apart."
"What?" she repeats.
"He just backed up against one of the shelves and started rocking back and forth, crying and screaming, everyone in the whole store heard him, and I was trying to get him out, but i couldn't."
"Oh, honey."
"And then some idiot drunk driver hits him in the parking lot, and it happens all over again, and it just—-"
There's an uneasy pause. He looks at Logan, his mom looks too.
"I think you should call his mom," he says, finally tearing his gaze away.
She shakes her head. "Honey—"
Her voice cracks. Her voice cracks. Sure, he's seen his mom cry before, but this seems worse. This is not a normal thing.
She's just tired from her shift, he convinces himself. All of us are tired, everyone is tired, and messed up in the head, and nobody can even function anymore, least of all his mother, how is she expected to raise basically three children all on her own, it's not—
"Joanna tried to—"
"What?"
No. No.
Kendall cannot live with Logan anymore, his mom has to be better. His mom needed to be better, because Logan needed his mom.
"Joanna," his mother inhaled sharply. "Joanna tried to kill herself."
Logan trembles. The blanket loosens in his grasp, falling off completely.
He's having a nightmare, please, he did not wake up and hear that, he did not, there's no way.
"What?" Logan asks, sitting up, shaking. His voice is barely audible, quiet and broken.
"Logan, sweetheart—"
But even Jennifer Knight can't hold it together. She covers her mouth with her hand. Tears threaten to spill from her eyes.
"What happened—to Mom?" Logan asks again, his big brown eyes staring up at Kendall for the answer.
He shakes his head. Logan did not hear anything.
He takes Logan's wrist, placing his other hand to support his back. "We're going to go to bed, school is early tomorrow."
Logan turns back to Mrs. Knight, Kendall catching him.
Logan stares at Mrs. Knight's necklace, slowly making his way up to the bridge of her nose, then her eyes. "Is my mom okay?"
"Honey, you're just going to stay with us for a week or two, just like you have been."
Week or two really means another month or two, in Kendall's mind, but Logan doesn't need to know that.
"I want to go home," he whispers. "Please."
"You'll go home soon, I promise."
Kendall can see the smile waver.
"Please!" Logan insists. He's crying again.
"I just want to go home, I just—"
Kendall holds him closer, turning Logan back towards him. He nods at his mother's wide-eyed stare.
"Let's go to bed, come on."
But Logan protests, not moving.
"I want to go home, please, please, please."
He stops.
Then, a new thought invades his head, passing through, there's no filter between his brain adn lips anymore.
"My mom killed herself," he begins to whisper-chant, the whispers getting louder. "My mom killed herself, it's—it's my fault, my fault—-my mom killed herslef, it's—"
"No, she didn't," Kendall whispers back. He refuses to believe that he is panicking. "She didn't, and nothing is your fault, nothing is your fault, you didn't do anything."
Logan keeps repeating to himself.
It's just like the grocery store.
It's happening again.
—
The lunch table feels empty without Logan in his usual spot next to Kendall. It feels too quiet, too boring, without Logan's occasional bursts of excited chatter, mostly about doctors or medicine, but sometimes it's about math, or Phoebe Nachee, or physics.
And sometimes it's about completely normal things, like video games and hockey.
Kendall doesn't care, he just wishes Logan was here to talk about something.
Anything.
He would even relive that awful week when all Logan talked about, nothing else, was fartology.
Now, he was a boy. Farts were farts.
But hearing the science behind farts kinda ruined the whole point.
Farts were farts. Farts were funny because they were farts. Not because of methane whatevver whatever whatever.
"Where's Logie?" Carlos asked. "I haven't seen him all day."
James shrugged. "I haven't seen him. Kendall?"
Kendall knows the answer.
The answer is:
I'm taking Logan to the doctor in the morning, honey, so he'lll miss some school work. Make sure you talk to his teachers. But he's fine, if there's anything wrong with him that I think you should know about, I'll tell you. Don't forget to go to counseling, and pick up Katie after school. I talked to your boss, you're stuck with the weekend shifts, he knows about hockey practice. Sorry. Everything is fine, Kendall, don't worry.
He wasn't the type to worry, but it was very impossible not to worry.
"Kendall?" James asks. "Do you know where Logan is?"
He's not going to tell them. That just makes the problem bigger, more real.
The problem is already too real.
He shakes his head. "No."