Hey y'all, I'm not dead! I'm alive and well, and have been thinking about this chapter for the whole week. Don't get mad at me, there will be a note at the end explaining things both plot related and update related!
hmm, there's a certain agency that gets completely destroyed here due to a certain commercial that is real.
Not sure when it came out, it disgusts me.
hmm. Guess who?
y'all probably can't guess until like the middle.
Beware this chapter is like 5K words I'm proud of myself.
Here it is, the chapter! Happy reading! Enjoy!
Logan did not want to go to the doctor.
"Honey, it's going to be really quick. I'll drive you back to school right after, that way you won't miss so much."
Logan doesn't want to move. He wants to hold on to the green sandpaper blanket and stay on the couch, and not move.
If he moves, he thinks, and if he thinks, he says.
He says things like: "I killed my mother and it's my fault."
That's what Kendall had told him last night. That's what he remembered. Kendall was at school now.
Logan wanted to be at school.
"Oh, sweetheart," Mrs. Knight murmurs.
There's silence.
He unravels himself from the blanket.
Then, he's stuck in the car.
There's still silence, aside from the radio, which is quietly playing 90s music he's all heard before, and doesn't like.
Girl To My Heart by Boyquake.
Cause you're a girl, girl, girl to my heart, heart, heart.
The lyrics don't even make sense.
No wonder it's only played on the 90s channel. Played at the grocery store.
It's unpopular, the lyrics are stupid, and the lead singer doesn't even have a good voice.
Logan reaches his hand out and flicks the dial all the way to the left.
There's silence until they reach the doctor's office parking lot.
The doctor's office is quiet too, save for Mrs. Knight talking to the receptionist. Logan can see from his spot in the blue waiting room chairs (in the well waiting area, not the sick side, because he isn't sick) that the receptionist hasn't handed over a clipboard with stacks of forms on it yet. She's supposed to do that.
It's been five minutes and the receptionist still hasn't done anything about the lack of a clipboard in Mrs. Knight's currently empty hands.
He does not want to stay here longer than he has to. If they don't get the forms, they can't go to the appointment.
There must be some error with printing the forms, maybe the printer ran out of ink, or paper, or the whole machine is busted. Then they can just go somewhere else. Or, skip the doctor's visit entirely. Logan can go back to school.
Logan really wants to go back to school.
He stands up, coming up behind Mrs. Knight, then next to her. From his position, he can see the forms are nowhere to be found, the receptionist is red in the face, and Mrs. Knight has her hands firmly pressed into the counter, one on top of the other.
"Mrs. Knight," he says quietly. "They're supposed to give you forms."
She doesn't look at him when she talks. "I know that, sweetheart. Just go sit back down."
"If they don't give us forms, we can't get an appointment here."
She nods, still not looking at him. "I know. But we'll get the forms in a minute."
"I'm not sick, Mrs. Knight. I can just—"
"Sit down, Logan."
She says it the way she says things when she's arguing with Kendall.
So he sits back down.
—
"You have work," he says, as she pulls out of the doctor's office parking lot.
She got in an argument with the receptionist that he's trying not to remember as vividly as he does. He remembers how she started getting louder, louder than he had ever heard her, louder than even those arguments with Kendall. Mrs. Knight and Kendall can argue for a lot of stupid reasons.
Loudly, because they're both stubborn, but Kendall is more stubborn.
Kendall's dad must have been stubborn, too.
"That doesn't matter right now."
He thinks it does, because Mrs. Knight has never missed work before, not since he came to stay with them. She's always wearing that blue apron when he leaves in the morning, and only takes it off when she comes home late, hanging it up by the door.
"Your work apron is at home."
It's not his home, it's her home, her house. His home, his house, is empty, because his mother isn't there.
"Where is my mom?"
Mrs. Knight doesn't answer. She doesn't do anything, just stares out at the road ahead of her. There's a truck merging into the wrong lane. She honks the horn.
Kendall and Mrs. Knight are similar, he realizes, because if Kendall doesn't want to give him an answer, he won't. He'll just shrug and tell him he doesn't know. Mrs. Knight doesn't do anything. She just stays silent.
"Did she die? Am I an orphan?"
If his mother died, he would be an orphan. And he could still live with Kendall and Katie and Mrs. Knight, but he would be an orphan. And Mrs. Knight wouldn't be able to afford him, she works the late shift for a reason. Kendall even works.
Kendall works the late shift.
"I want to go—to school."
Really, what he wants to say is he wants to go home. To his house, with his mom.
But if he says home, she won't understand.
Maybe he said it out loud, because she started driving back towards the Knight house.
It's not his house, but it is somebody's house.
The green sandpaper blanket is waiting for him. He curls up in it again.
This is the second night he sleeps on the couch.
—
It's the second morning he wakes up, and Kendall isn't there.
But Mrs. Knight is. She's sitting in a chair to the right of him, a mug of coffee in her hand and a frown on her face. When he sits up to look at her, she takes a sip.
He doesn't say anything. He throws the blanket off, his feet are cold, and he feels exposed. The blanket was nice, and he wants to wrap himself up in it again. But he's standing in the middle of the room with cold, bare feet. He's walking. He's walking, and he closes his hand around the doorknob.
And Mrs. Knight grabs his arm like Kendall does, and makes him sit back down on the couch. She wraps him back up in the green sandpaper blanket.
"Honey, you don't have to say anything if you don't want to. But can I tell you what happened to your mom?"
He nods. He doesn't want to know, but he needs to listen to something.
Something other than his thoughts.
"Your mom is in the hospital right now. She's okay, but she's not allowed to have visitors right now."
You killed your mother and it's your fault.
"When she is allowed to have visitors, we can go."
Mrs. Knight is angry at you, and Kendall is too, because you're messing things up.
"Kendall and Katie are at school right now. And I know you want to go to school too, but—"
You're not even—it doesn't make sense, you're smart—why can't you just walk into a grocery store? Why can Kendall work awful hours there and you can't even make it out mentally sane?
"We're going to see someone else today, and then, we can just relax."
He nods again, he knows he won't be able to relax.
Another doctor.
How are they even going to get in?
—
It's not a doctor's office, because it smells like candles, and doctor's offices don't smell like that. They smell sick and clean and sterile.
"Mrs. Knight—"
The room on one side has colorful, happy, smiling murals, and a bookshelf. There are two heavy armchairs on either side of a small round table. That's where the candles are. The candles smell like Christmas. But it's April. He won't sit there.
There's a couch, there's a low table in front of it. The table has pamphlets.
And across from the armchairs and round table with Christmas candles, there are two doors.
Each door has a name plaque.
The first door says DR. ANNA BRENNAN, Ph.D, CAS, LMHC
The first door opens.
It's the counselor that Kendall doesn't like. It's the counselor that saw him crying in the parking lot. It's the counselor from school.
"Mrs. Knight—" Logan repeats, but is cut off.
"It's okay, Logan," Mrs. Knight says, and leads him into this room with the counselor that he knows he won't talk to.
He knows he's not supposed to, because Kendall doesn't like her. And usually, it makes sense for Logan not to like people Kendall didn't like. And, by extension, not to talk to people Kendall doesn't like.
Usually, Kendall had a good reason for telling him not to talk to people.
In this case, Kendall didn't, because this was the lady with the soft voice in the parking lot.
Dr. Anna Brennan, Ph.D, CAS, LMHC, shuts the door.
"You saw us in the parking lot," Logan blurts, because he remembers how she talked to him.
Her voice was soft, she told him he was okay, and when she did that, he could pretend not to hear Kendall, or the cars, or himself that night
"I did," she confirms, nodding, with a smile.
Logan doesn't see why Kendall doesn't like this lady. She's easy to talk to, easier than Kendall, because she doesn't say anything when he pauses, suddenly unsure of what to say.
She asks him questions to avoid the pauses, which, mostly, he answers.
This lady, Dr. Anna Brennan, Ph.D, CAS, LMHC, is very nice. She's kinda like Mrs. Knight, just not redheaded and exhausted.
And then Logan figures out why Kendall doesn't like her.
"Is there any reason you call her Mrs. Knight and not—"
She asks questions that are stupid.
"She's not my mom," he says, blinking, as he remembers who his mom is, and where she is, and what she did, and why she did it.
"Logan," Mrs. Knight interjects, because something is happening.
It's this uncomfortable bubbling feeling that he felt at the grocery store that sometimes went away when Kendall squeezed his hands really hard, but then flooded through him as more shopping carts skidded across the tiled floors.
It's this uncomfortable bubbling feeling that he feels sometimes very late at night, when he misses his mom and it's too loud and nothing makes sense.
It's this uncomfortable bubbling feeling that he feels sometimes all the time, but it goes away when he wraps himself in the green sandpaper blanket, or when he reads a book in the dark, or when Kendall holds his hand, applying a steady amount of pressure.
The bubbling feeling was the worst though, by far, at the grocery store, when the carts skidded down the aisle. The wheels squeaked, and it was like he swallowed the sound, rattling his whole body, inside out.
"Logan," Mrs. Knight repeated. "You didn't do anything, honey. You're okay."
Bubbling up like a frozen soda can, the type that explodes in the winter when Carlos tries to open it, even though he shouldn't, because it bursts, all the pressure building up inside. Now all the pressure is gone. And Carlos doesn't have his soda.
It happens every year, Logan tells him every year not to leave soda out in the biting Minnesota cold.
And yet, he does.
The sodas explode, because it's just temperature, the pressure building, building, crushing the can from the inside.
Now he's just exploded, and he's bubbling, fizzing out, but not.
It hurts, this bubbling feeling, it always hurts.
He can hear Mrs. Knight talking to him, and Dr. Anna Brennan, Ph.D, CAS, LMHC, talking to him.
Soft voices.
And a pencil scratching against a notepad.
Soft voices.
He wonders if Dr. Anna Brennan, Ph.D, CAS, LMHC, writes in loopy letter cursive like his mom.
He hasn't thought about his mother's loopy letter cursive in months. She hasn't been writing him notes, he hasn't been home to see them.
She hasn't been home either, she's rotting in a hospital bed.
Because of him, because he knows why she did it.
And the bubbling feeling hurts more, and more, and more.
—
The green sandpaper blanket takes the feeling away. Dark rooms take the feeling away. Quiet takes the feeling away.
Mrs. Knight's snickerdoodles take the feeling away. Those cookies are so good, magic.
Kendall takes the feeling away, too, when he sits down next to him on the couch, taking a snickerdoodle, and stays quiet.
But then he leaves, going into the kitchen to talk with Mrs. Knight.
The feeling isn't back, but something feels wrong.
Logan bites down into another snickerdoodle, sinking into the couch, letting the sandpaper blanket rub his bare arms gently.
It distracts him just enough from the conversation he knows Mrs. Knight and Kendall are having. It's likely to morph into an argument. It's an argument now, not just a conversation.
He doesn't want to hear it, so he focuses on anything but the sound.
The sweet taste of the snickerdoodle cookies, how the crystal sugar grates between his teeth.
The texture of the blanket hugging his skin.
The dark room.
The smell of the house, lingering with snickerdoodle sweetness, not like the sick and sterile doctor's office, or the Christmas candles in Dr. Anna Brennan, Ph.D, CAS, LMHC's office.
It's Fish Stick Friday, he realizes. He can't smell the fish sticks cooking. Mrs. Knight should be making the fish sticks by now.
Kendall got home twenty minutes ago. He sat with Logan for about ten of those minutes, eating snickerdoodles and taking the bubbling feeling away.
The other ten, he's been talking and arguing with Mrs. Knight.
Hockey practice end at seven. That would mean it's seven-twenty.
Dinner was, without fail, at seven-thirty sharp. Dinner was one of Mrs. Knight's important rules. It was always on time, and everyone had to sit at the table. Nobody ate until everyone was sitting down. Nobody left until everyone finished.
James and Carlos should be coming over any minute.
The door flies open.
"Hey, Logan," James says first. Carlos is already inhaling the plate of cookies.
"Hey, James."
With one cookie shoved in his mouth, another in each hand, Carlos asks, mouth full, "Where's Kendall?"
"The kitchen, but—"
They both hear the argument better than he can, because they're not trying to not hear it.
So James slides next to Logan on one side, and Carlos remains firmly planted on the carpet next to the cookies.
"You're lucky you didn't come to practice today, Logan. Man, Coach was so mad." Carlos says.
"What did Kendall do?"
"Got mad right back at Coach for being mad." Carlos continued, grabbing a fourth cookie.
He explains as he chews, mouth open. "Coach made us do drills the whole time. We didn't even get to play."
"I'm so sore anyway," James complained, reaching for the whole plate. "Mama Knight makes the best cookies ever."
They were silent, savoring the cookies. Carlos chewed noisily, and James made weird sounds—sounds he attributed to the perfect deliciousness of the delicious cookies, he said—when he ate.
It was okay though, because these sounds were distractions from the louder sound swelling in the kitchen.
Until they weren't.
"I don't know!" Mrs. Knight was yelling.
Kendall yelled right back. "She doesn't know what she's talking about."
"She's a professional."
"She's wrong!"
Logan did not want the bubbling feeling to come back. He stared at the empty plate of cookies.
"Logan?" Carlos whispered, watching his face turn stony.
"They're just fighting," he reassures them, but really himself. "They fight a lot, Kendall doesn't know when to shut up."
James laughs. "You said it."
The three of them go quiet again, listening.
"Mom, what am I supposed to do if I can't do anything!"
"Kendall, why is this an issue?"
"Because that lady is wrong!"
That lady.
Like.
Like the nice lady with the soft voice in the parking lot.
Dr. Anna Brennan, Ph.D, CAS, LMHC.
Ph.D, CAS, LMHC.
"She's not."
Ph.D stood for Doctor of Philosophy, that was easy.
"How—how could she be right?"
CAS—he didn't know what that stood for. He would look on the computer later.
"Kendall, it's not a bad thing. It's just—"
LMHC took him some time to figure out.
Licensed, something.
"Mom, I can't fix it!"
Licensed, mental.
Mental Health.
Licensed Mental Health, something.
"You are not supposed to fix everything!"
C—what did the C stand for?
She was a counselor.
It could stand for counselor.
"Then what am I supposed to do?"
Licensed Mental Health Counselor.
"Just let it be."
Kendall returns to the living room. He sits alone in the armchair, far away from Logan, from all of them.
"Carlos, you didn't eat all the snickerdoodles."
Carlos shook his head.
"You already had some, Kendall. And we're going to eat dinner," Logan adds.
Kendall doesn't respond.
"Boys! Can you come and set the table please?"
Reluctantly, Logan unravels himself from the blanket, Carlos picks himself up off the floor, and James stands from his comfortable seat on the couch.
Kendall doesn't move.
"Coming, Mama Knight!" Carlos called, attempting and failing to pull Kendall from his chair of solitude. Forgetting it, he starts bounding towards the kitchen, James following behind.
"Kendall, get your sister," Mrs. Knight adds, her tone bright, yet firm. Like they hadn't just argued.
Kendall sinks deeper into the chair.
"Kendall," Logan's voice wavers, quiet.
He doesn't want them to have another argument.
"Shut up, Logan."
"Are you stubborn because of your mom? Or your dad?"
Kendall glares at him.
He stands up from his chair, heading in the direction of Katie's room. Logan walks the opposite way, and begins to set out knives and forks.
James and Carlos can barely be trusted putting out plates, but they manage.
The three sit down. Carlos begins to eagerly pound the table.
"Carlos, you're not a caveman," James says.
"It's Fish Stick Friday!"
And with that powerfully convincing point, both of them are pounding the table. Gently enough so it doesn't shake, but loud enough that it makes a dull sound.
Logan turned in his chair towards Mrs. Knight, who was just taking the fish sticks out of the oven. She sets the pan down, taking off her oven mitts. She uses one to swat Carlos's hand away, and the other to repeat the action with James.
Kendall and Katie take their seats. Well, not their seats. Kendall always sits either next to or across from Logan. Today, he's taken Katie's usual spot next to Mrs. Knight.
They pretend they haven't argued, and do not look at or speak to each other.
Kendall doesn't speak to anyone, and when Carlos and James ask if they can sleep over, which they ask at least once every Friday, he frowns.
"Sure," Mrs. Knight says. She's smiling. Kendall frowns deeper.
"I think I have some pudding cups in the fridge for dessert, boys."
With the promise of more food, James and Carlos grin at each other and take off towards the fridge.
They must be out of earshot, and Mrs. Knight must have forgotten Logan and Katie are in the room, because she starts to talk again, but Kendall runs off after James.
Kendall can't even be in the same room as his mom.
No.
Kendall can't be in the same room as him.
The feeling, the bubbling, painful feeling, rises up again.
He doesn't want it, he wished he could shove it back down.
CAS.
That distracts him.
What does CAS mean?
He'll figure it out. Mrs. Knight's computer is right there in the living room.
He cracks the thing open, his fingers flying across the keyboard, too fast, much too frantically for three words, one of which is an acronym.
CAS.
Therapy.
Certification.
He presses ENTER.
—
"Kendall, if I guess why you're mad at Logan, will you tell me?" Carlos begs, wide brown eyes staring up at him, his lip sticking out like a puppy.
Kendall rolls his eyes.
"Did he get a better grade than you?"
No, even if he did, even if that was the case, he knew not to be too precious about comparing his grades to Logan's.
Logan's grades were always marginally better.
"Did he get a date with a girl you like?"
Kendall laughs. He hears James laugh behind him.
"A higher video game score?"
Kendall smirks, like that's possible.
"Did he do something bad and not tell you?"
Kendall smacks Carlos's helmet. "I'm not mad at Logan."
"But you're mad. And you're not talking to Logan."
He was not mad at Logan, he might be mad for him.
Mostly, his anger was caused by the same reasons he yelled at his mom.
Something's been off about Logan, always, ever since they were little. And Kendall ignored it. Maybe that wasn't smart, because whatever was off about Logan turned into something wrong.
And Kendall knew what it was.
And he knew he couldn't fix it.
And he just wanted to fix it.
But he couldn't, so he sat on the couch with James and Carlos. They were watching the Pussycat Dolls. James was practically drooling over Nicole Scherzinger, as usual. Carlos was equally entranced with the other members.
And Kendall was distracted when Logan sat down on the far end of the couch, quiet.
"Logan?" James asks. "Are you watching this? Are you watching Nicole?"
"What were you arguing about in the kitchen?" Logan says, ignoring Nicole and James's undying love for her.
Obviously, the question was for Kendall. But he pretended it wasn't by not answering.
"Kendall."
If he focused solely on Nicole Scherzinger, if he kept his gaze there, Logan would stop.
"Kendall."
He would stop. Carlos would do something stupid or dangerous or both, and Logan's attention would be on him.
Carlos was open-mouthed at Melody Thornton, completely captivated.
"Kendall," Logan repeats, for the third time.
He won't stop.
"What?"
Kendall won't look at Logan, he can't.
"What were you arguing about in the kitchen with your mom?"
He has half a mind to shrug and say nothing, but Logan won't accept that answer.
"Just—something."
It's not much better, but it isn't a lie, so Kendall can live with it.
"Because," Logan says. "Because I went and saw that counselor, the one you don't like."
Oh no.
Weren't counselors bound to confidentiality? Wasn't she not allowed to tell Logan anything?
"She has a lot of certifications."
Kendall nodded. Maybe this was just one of those urgent tangents of Logan's, the ones that didn't really matter, but he talked like they did.
"One of them was CAS. I looked it up."
Kendall did not know what CAS was.
"Okay."
"It stands for Certified Autism Specialist."
He didn't know that, and it didn't click in at first.
"Okay."
"Is that why you've been fighting with your mom?"
Logan has autism spectrum disorder. What he has is specifically called Asperger's Syndrome. We already knew his brain worked differently, we just have a name for it now, honey.
But the name is wrong.
Dr. Brennan is very skilled. She's a specialist.
But this specialist was wrong.
It doesn't change anything, Kendall.
No, it didn't, because it wasn't true. Logan wasn't like those weird hand-flapping kids he saw in the special education hallway.
He knows he shouldn't be thinking those things about those kids, it's not to be mean, most of them are nice anyway.
But Logan is not one of those kids.
It doesn't matter how nice the kids are, or how actually smart the kids are, they are not anything near what Logan is.
And Logan is nowhere near them.
It's a spectrum, it doesn't have one definition.
Logan was not included in this definition. He was not, it didn't matter how wide the spectrum was.
Logan was not anywhere on it.
"Kendall?"
At this point, he can't hear the Pussycat Dolls in the background. He turns. The television is off. James and Carlos are watching. Then, they spring to their feet, actively joining the conversation.
Except, Kendall does not want this to be a conversation.
It's all a lie, if he can convince himself.
Then all of this will be over and done with.
"Yeah," he says.
"Are you—mad at me?"
Logan doesn't understand, he won't, and can't.
Because he has Asperger's, honey. It makes it harder for him to understand other people's emotions sometimes.
Kendall cannot hear his mother's voice in his head right now. His mother is wrong, for once. She had to be.
What was this total bullshit about Logan not understanding emotions? He most definitely did. He did.
But he doesn't understand anger. Not healthy ways to express it. Your anger especially. He's terrified of you when you're angry.
No, this was not his fault. He was not making Logan's life any harder simply by not being angry at him.
"I'm not mad at you, why would I be mad?"
Logan shuffled his feet nervously. "You haven't been talking to me, and you're yelling at your mom."
"I'm not mad at you."
Kendall can see James shoot him a confused glance, but Kendall just waves his hand dismissively. James ignores it and comes in closer.
"Logan, what's going on?" he asks, keeping his eyes on Kendall.
His eyes are glued to the floor. "I have autism spectrum disorder, specifically Asperger's syndrome, which is what Kendall and Mrs. Knight were arguing about in the kitchen. That's why he's mad at me."
"I'm not—"
"What does that mean?" Carlos asks. "It sounds weird. Like asparagus."
James hits him in the shoulder with a sharp whisper of his name to shut him up.
"It's the name of the condition I have. Signs include—"
"No, Logan, shut up, sit down," Kendall orders.
If Logan says anything, it means he's been researching, and convinced himself he does have this Asperger's, which he does not.
Logan does not do what Kendall says, and continues standing, staring downwards.
"Signs include avoidance of eye contact," he laughs, despite himself, and continues to stare at the floor. "Persistent preference for solitude, difficulty understanding other people's feelings, delayed language development, persistent repetition of words or phrases, which is echolalia, resistance to minor changes in routine or surround—"
"Where did you learn all that? Did you memorize it?" Carlos gasps.
He's totally in awe.
It all makes sense, and the counselor that he hates was probably right all along.
That sucks.
It all just sucks.
"I just read it online."
Logan is talking about the website he used, but then his eyes widen. He forgot to close the tab on Mrs. Knight's computer.
So, naturally, Kendall grabs his mother's computer off the table before Logan can.
And Logan covers his mouth with his fist.
All it is is that list of symptoms Logan repeated to them. Some other tabs are open, too.
Most of them are probably his mother's.
He catches one though, from YouTube.
He knows for a fact his mother does not know how to operate YouTube.
"Logan, what is this?"
He clicks the video.
It plays.
James and Carlos crowd around him, and Logan stands still. His body is stiff, and he presses his fist further into his mouth, practically biting it.
He's shaking as it plays.
It's forty seconds long.
The video description says it's from some autism group. It says something else too, a long paragraph he's too tired to read.
There's this tired looking blonde woman, in a dimly lit room, her kid is running around behind her. Her kid has a pink sweater on. This lady has a yellow shirt on. Or, some ugly combination of yellow-green.
That's what James mutters behind him.
None of them are paying attention to what this blonde lady is actually saying at first. James is making comments about the yellow-green sweater, Carlos is asking why the lady is obviously ignoring her child, and Kendall stares at Logan.
The lady is talking about school districts.
There's nothing important, nothing to pay attention to.
But Kendall forced himself to pay attention and to listen to this lady in the painfully ugly yellow-green sweater.
Actually contemplated
This lady has somewhat of a sad smile on her face, but that's because her face is red. It doesn't really look sad at all.
Putting Jodi
That's the little girl in the background, right, probably? Her kid, and her kid has autism? That would make sense, the video is from some autism organization.
But this girl is not like Logan.
Why is this video bothering Logan so much, then?
In the car
Logan is shaking. James stands up, placing an arm around his shoulders.
"We don't have to finish it, Logan."
"Yes, we do," Kendall protested.
He didn't know why this lady was breaking Logan the way she was, but he wanted to find out.
He takes Logan's desperate nod as an invitation to continue.
The lady is sitting there, mid-sentence.
And driving.
Kendall pauses it, glancing up at Logan.
Logan is not looking at him, his eyes are shut.
Kendall hits play. He resolves that he'll finish the clip. He won't pause it again.
Off.
Carlos pulls his helmet strap tighter. He walks over to Logan and James. His eyes are shut too.
Carlos knows what this is, and Kendall thinks he does, and obviously Logan does.
The George Washington bridge.
Kendall glances at Logan again. He won't pause it, he said he wouldn't, at least he said it to himself.
But rewinding isn't pausing.
Actually contemplated putting Jodi in the car and driving off the George Washington bridge.
He shuts the computer.
"Is that why—my mom wanted to—"
Logan leans back against James, who reacts quick enough.
"No," Kendall says. "Logan, nobody—we love you. I love you, we all love—and there's nothing—"
You could do or say to make me love you any less, is what his mother's voice is telling him to say.
And that's true, but that's not what he says.
"Wrong with you. There's nothing wrong with you."
Kendall's hand is shaking.
He hates this.
"No, Logan, of course not."
Logan wasn't like that girl, and Logan's mother wasn't like that lady.
Still, that lady was obviously insane.
Wasn't Joanna Mitchell some type of insane?
"But—she tried—"
"I know."
Kendall doesn't know anything.
And that's the long, long angst chapter I'm leaving y'all with while I disappear again for another week.
Concerns, if you have any?
Logan Mitchell is autistic, I will bet money on this, I've thought this since BT Audition.
Like, wait, let's address the fact that Logan was rocking back and forth out of fear and anxiety after Gustavo yelled at him.
Let's address the fact that this was mostly done for laughs and you know for a fact that if I myself was writing BTR the television show, that would've been expanded upon and turned into a fun little angst party.
LETS ADDRESS THE REAL AND TRUE CANON MRS. KNIGHT AND LOGAN MITCHELL
-gosh I just love their relationship in the show just oh my gosh-
Oh, Kendall! Yes, his attitude is concerning, I hope you all know he's acting this way because Logan having autism is not something he can control or fix.
Nor should it be.
I need to make it abundantly clear right now, I am writing from other people's perspectives. My thoughts are not theirs. Their thoughts are not mine.
and yes, I am aware that Asperger's is no longer a diagnostic term in the DSM-5 however it was in 2007.
Okay, hmm, oh yes, the organization,
Autism Speaks.
The video is real.
I pray for that little girl.
Have a lovely day.
I'll be gone for another week thinking up another chapter because I used up all my ideas accumulated through the week on this.
Well, not all of them, but I'm not in the mood to start my new Lomille story yet…
Love you all! Hope you enjoyed.