Snippet 9-12-07 'The What Ifs of Logan Cale' Response
As Logan absentmindedly stared at the few lights scattered over the city at this time of night, he couldn't help but wonder what would have been if…
No, no, he wouldn't go there not again.
Max.
He had to stop wondering about the what ifs. It was over. It was done and it was for the best.
If she had stayed for dinner…
If he had kissed her on the beach…
If he hadn't told her to answer the phone…
No matter what, legs or no legs and other vital areas, he wanted more for her. A life, a family, a future…
This was already more for him, if not for her than he would have been dead six months ago and the maybe ifs were starting to drive him insane this particularly slow night and they needed to stop.
And as his mother always said, 'you're exactly where you're supposed to be,' though he often wondered if she would have stood by that statement if she had known where she was going to be on June 1st 2009 at 12:05pm. If she had known she would lay dying for hours as the world swirled around her in chaos, watching as the vows she had taken twenty four years earlier came true and her husband died next to her.
People didn't know that though, no one new at least. Sometimes it was mentioned in passing with vague details as it had been to Valerie, but with most he shared the day just as he had with Max, with a charming smile and a cocky tone.
They didn't known that by the time he finally made his way back home, he was greeted only by his uncle and youngest cousin, two rifles pointed at him instead of his mother's arms, which he hadn't even realized he'd been desperately longing for and hadn't been fulfilled by the housekeeper, who came rushing out throwing her arms around him in relief.
There was an apology about the yacht buried amongst the panic as he found out his parents hadn't returned to the house. His uncle tried to play it off, that they had taken shelter elsewhere, the apartment CI kept downtown, a friend's house, the office…
They were his parents though…
So his uncle tried suggesting they had gone looking for him at the marina, he wasn't particularly successful.
He often wondered about something else as well, if his uncle had let him leave the house that day. Maybe he could have found her, saved her…
Logically he knew it wasn't possible, but he still wished they let him try.
Hell, there was still the twenty year old in him that wished to take that day back entirely. Leave his life complete, instead of in tatters.
He would have stopped fighting with his father, would have never made his mother worry ever again. His degree, his job would have been forgotten. No more plans for scouring the globe in search of injustices…He would have put on the suit and tie and died a little every day just to keep them from doing so.
He would have married a sweet girl in his late twenties just as his father had. He would have had a baby a few years later. Settled into a house nearby his parents', ostentatiously large that he wouldn't have been able to afford even with the over-inflated salary his name guaranteed.
He would have lunch at the club every weekend. Think it was normal to have a spot reserved at a pre-school before the student was even conceived. He would golf with his father, go to the opera with his mother and drink way too much to survive every full family dinner he would be subjected to.
He would do it all.
That was why he didn't tell people. They would know. His entire life demolished twice within one day. They would understand the need to fix things. They would understand how it was so entwined.
The loss of his parents…The loss of freedom, of power, of control, of safety….
If he could fix the world then…
If he could make it all go back to how it was…
Logically he knew…
Yet he knew how his psyche worked. Knew the conscious connection it had made between that world and this one. They had never existed in this world, not to him. If he could just find his way back to that world…