Minnesota Memoir Chapter 19: Sunday, May 1, 2005, a big time rush fanfic

Hey y'all. New chapter!

Dedicated to . because she is quite lovely and nice. She also said the three straight chapters (days) of angst were really good, so we're going with it.

This took three days. Now it's done and I sort of love it.

Happy reading! Enjoy!

Logan was essentially banned from the hospital after he visited once, the one singular time, and made them both cry.

Dr. Brennan advised (read: ordered) that Logan should not visit his mother for a week. After that, she would be discharged.

She was home today. She had been for a week. He was not.

Instead, he was packing.

Supposed to be, anyway, but he couldn't.

He wanted to leave Kendall's house, maybe. But maybe not, because he had been there for over a month. He knew what it was like there, he had a new routine.

One that didn't involve searching for loopy letter cursive notes, empty pill bottles, and a sleeping mother that didn't want to wake up.

And, he liked that. He had started to like it less, because he was a problem. Then again, he had been a problem for his mother too. He was just a problem to everyone.

Which was stupid, because why was he such a problem? He didn't understand it, and not understanding things was terrible.

He was smart, sensible, and responsible.

He was also too sensitive and stupid.

Kendall is watching him pack, standing in the corner of the living room, observing. He's being quiet, which Logan did not expect, but there's not much to say. What is Kendall supposed to say? None of this was supposed to happen.

Kendall always finds something to say. "You can take the blanket if you want."

"What?"

He doesn't even realize he's holding it. He stares down at his left hand, tightly clenched around the green sandpaper blanket like a lifeline. He drops it. This is stupid. He's just being stupid.

"The blanket," Kendall repeats. "You can take it if you want, you're the only one who likes it anyway."

Which is weird, and it was his weirdness and oddness and sensitivity that got him in this position in the first place. He's not supposed to be weird. Weirdness makes terrible things happen.

So, even though he wants to wrap himself up in that lifeline blanket, he does not bend down to pick it up off the floor. He kicks at it, trying to focus on something normal.

Packing. Packing is normal, people pack suitcases all the time.

He snatches up a pair of jeans with trembling hands, folding one pant leg over the other, shoving it in the suitcase.

He can hear Kendall sigh behind him. He doesn't know what he did wrong.

"Do you want help?" he asks.

He doesn't answer, because he's learned over their many years of friendship that Kendall does whatever he wants to do at any given moment. For better or for worse. Right now, it seems like a neutral choice, to join him in the mundane task of folding clothes into a suitcase.

"Are you excited to see your mom again?"

This time, he doesn't answer because he doesn't know what to say. He doesn't think he's particularly excited, he feels almost sick. He doesn't think he's supposed to feel that way.

"Why do I feel sick, Kendall?"

Kendall stops folding.

Logan continues. "I don't think I'm supposed to feel sick like this."

Maybe the symptoms are psychosomatic. He was not sick until he thought about walking into his own house. And seeing her there, and feeling like he had wrecked her life.

The symptoms were psychosomatic. That had to be the only conclusion. No normal person got sick from thinking about their mother.

Then again, it had already been clinically determined and diagnostically proven that he was not normal.

"Never mind," he mutters, because Kendall hasn't said anything. His mouth is open wide, his eyebrows are furrowed together.

Logan needs to learn how to shut up. How to not say everything that comes to mind, because obviously that has become an issue.

He kept reciting that 'speculative data' to his mother. Which made her cry, and the doctors rush in. Kendall rushed in after them and took him out of the room, and he's not sure what exactly happened between then and going back to the Knight household. But—it was all his fault, all because of his own actions—he had gotten banned from visiting the hospital.

He needed to get this issue under control immediately.

"I think you're just nervous," Kendall said, zipping up the suitcase. Had they already finished? It had been quicker than he thought it would be.

Logan knew he wasn't nervous. He got nervous if he had to talk in front of people, he got nervous in English class when he had to read out loud, he got nervous before hockey games.

Nervousness had direct correlation with temporary events.

When he had to talk to people, he had the power of the conversation flow. If he really paid attention, he could make an exchange as short or as long as he would like. If that didn't work, if he couldn't, he just had to wait until Kendall or James or Carlos dragged him away. Or for the other person to get bored and walk off, which happened enough.

In English class, he knew it would end eventually. He couldn't read out loud forever. The bell had to ring. The teacher (Ms. Devins, currently, who very clearly had a vendetta against him, making him participate far too much as a student who just didn't understand what she was talking about half the time) had to stop calling on him eventually.

And with hockey, he knew he would get into the pace of the game with in a few minutes. His nervousness would be replaced with the good type of adrenaline, the kind that made him speedskate down the rink in time to score.

He knew what he was feeling now wasn't nervousness. This was not a temporary event. It would not end. He lived with his mother. He would love there with her until he went off to college.

College was too far away for this all to be considered temporary.

He felt sick. Not sick with nerves. Just sick.

"It's normal to feel nervous, Logan."

"Not nervous."

Kendall blinked at him, wearing a small smile. It was a smirk, sort of. Logan could recognize it. It was the smirk he gave when Carlos was doing something stupid but entertaining. The smirk he gave when James looked horrendous 'in the name of fashion' but didn't say anything.

"Okay, good."

Kendall lifted the suitcase so it stood vertically upwards. He pulled up the handle, letting it click into place before handing it to Logan.

"Let's go," he prompted. "Mom said she'd drive you over."

Logan gripped the handle of the suitcase, pulling it carefully behind him.

It would be fine.

He just wouldn't talk, wouldn't do anything.

And it would all be fine.

—

It does not feel okay to be in this house.

To stand in the middle of the kitchen, looking at his mother washing the dishes.

It does not feel okay to be in this house.

To stand in the middle of the kitchen, looking at his mother setting the table with two plates.

It does not feel okay to be in this house.

To stand in the middle of the kitchen, looking at his mother, sitting down in her chair, waiting for him.

It does not feel okay to be in this house.

He can hear himself, it's too quiet.

He shouldn't hear himself, he shouldn't be talking, he's supposed to know how to shut up, he's supposed to know how to mask, he's supposed to know how to do so many things, but he doesn't.

He sits down across from his mother. He does not want to look in her eyes. He stares ahead, at her eyebrows,

"Logan, you should eat."

He's so not used to her calling him that. It sounds like syrup on her tongue, like she doesn't really know what she's saying at all.

He picks up his fork and knife. He slices into the chicken carefully, slowly, trying to determine what kind of chicken this is. He feels his knife grate against the bottom of the plate, so he lifts his hand, then places it back down again, cutting the chicken into smaller pieces.

"Honey," his mother repeats. "Your knife is upside down."

He freezes, glancing down at his left hand, holding the knife. He stares at the upside-down knife longer, before blinking, flipping it over, and continuing with his meticulous food cutting process. "Sorry."

"Don't apologize."

"Sorry."

He realizes that that is an apology only until after he says it.

"Are you upset with me?" she asks him.

He nods, because he doesn't want to lie.

"What can I do?"

He shrugs, because he doesn't know.

"I love you."

He knows he's supposed to say I know, because that's what Kendall says to Mrs. Knight, and that's what Logan would've said if she had asked him months ago. But he does not say I know.

"You tried to kill yourself."

She clears her throat, taking a stab at her potatoes. She does not lift her fork to her lips, and lets it lay still. "That doesn't mean that I don't love you."

He can hear her voice shake, he knows she's about to cry, and that he's the reason for it. But nothing, none of the things that are happening make sense. He needs to make sense of it.

"Mrs. Knight never tried to kill herself."

His mother clears her throat again. "Jennifer and I are not the same person."

"I know that Mrs. Knight loves Kendall and Katie because she never tried to kill herself."

"I—"

"And Kendall can actually say that he knows his mom loves him, because she didn't try to kill herself."

"Do you think I don't love you?"

She's crying like at the hospital, and he tenses, because for a minute, it's like the doctors might come back and he'll be forced to leave.

"It doesn't make sense," he whispers quietly. "Because—because—-"

He rests his head down on the table. He wants to go away, he wants to disappear, he doesn't know to have this conversation, he doesn't want to have this conversation.

She inhales, sucking in a deep, shaking breath. She closes her eyes, pushing away from the table, and exhales. She stands up. Her chair scrapes the floor as she fits it back into place. The wood against tile makes Logan flinch, pressing his forehead down harder against the table.

He can feel arms around him, separating his head from the hard surface. He's being pulled into a standing position, arms are wrapping around him again, warm, safe arms, nothing like the cold hand in the hospital.

One of his mother's hands rubs his back, pressing him into her. The other strokes his hair gently. It's rhythmic, it's slow, and safe.

He lets her walk him to his bedroom and sit down on the bed.

He lets her take his shoes off as he cries.

He lets her unpack his Venus pajamas from the suitcase.

He lets her slip off his shirt, replacing it with the pajama top.