Logan (The Kings of Brighton Book 2) Read online

  “You’re a natural pain in my ass,” she mutters while she desperately tries to hang on to the frown she’s plastered all over her face.

  “That is also a thing you love about me.”

  “That might be true, but I could get fired for this, Jane—you know how important this job is to me.”

  Instantly contrite, I slump back in my seat and sigh. “I’m sorry, Mom.”

  The frown on her face smooths away and she gives me a sigh of her own. “It’s okay,” she tells me, bending down to tuck the file back into her work bag. “But you can’t do things like that, okay?” When I don’t answer her, she straightens herself and looks down at me. “Okay, Jane?”

  I nod. “Okay… but did you?”

  “Did I what?” she says, shoving her wet hair out of her face with an exasperated huff.

  “Did you write that—” I tip my chin toward the bag sitting on the floor. “about that boy? That you think he’s crazy?”

  “That is not what that file says, Jane,” she tells me, instantly defensive. “You’re not qualified to—”

  “It says he saw his dad kill his mom and then his dad kidnapped him and took him on some psycho murder spree—”

  “Oh my god…” She drops herself into the kitchen chair across the table from me and stares at me. “I am so effing fired.”

  Undeterred, I keep rambling. “And that he’s messed up because of it and that his therapist won’t diagnose him with some psycho disorder even though you think he has it—”

  “No,” she says, cutting me off with a look that I recognize as her I give up face. “I didn’t write it. I just got his file this morning. His assigned guardian is on maternity leave, and there was an emergent situation that couldn’t wait. Today was the first day I met him and—”

  “You met him?” I lean into her across the table, desperate for details. “What was so emergent about the situation? Did Psycho Dad bust out of prison?”

  The frown comes back in full force. She’s clearly concerned over my obvious obsession with her newest client, but she answers me anyway—probably because she knows that if she doesn’t, I’ll go snooping through her work bag again to find the answers on my own. “Yes, I met him,” she answers my first question, probably in hopes of distracting me from the rest of them.

  “And?”

  “And what?” Frustration layers itself over concern. I have approximately thirty seconds before she sends me to my room.

  “Do you think he has it?” The diagnostic code was 301.7. I remind myself to look it up later. “Whatever weird disorder that other guardian wrote in his file—do you think he has it?”

  The frustration drifts away, leaving something that looks so much like helplessness that it makes me feel uncomfortable. “That’s not my decision to make, Jane.”

  “I’m not asking you to make a decision,” I tell her, my tone harsher than I intend it to be. “I’m asking you to give me your opinion—do you think he’s crazy?”

  She sighs again, swiping a hand over her face. “I hate that word, Jane. You know I hate that word.”

  “Mom.”

  “No.” She drops her hand and glares at me. “I think he’s seen and been the victim of some horrible things and that’s caused some… issues, but he’s not mentally ill.”

  Relief.

  Why do I feel relief?

  “Then you have to help him.” I’m pushing my luck, I know that. I’m literally seconds away from getting grounded. Homecoming is next weekend, and Jacob Donovan asked me to go—he’s a junior and I’m a freshman, so it’s kind of a big deal, but I don’t care.

  “There’s nothing I can do, Jane.” She pushes herself away from the table and stands, signaling she’s finished destroying attorney/client confidentiality laws by discussing her minor client’s case with her equally minor daughter. “What would you like for dinner?” She opens the fridge and peers inside. “I can—”

  “I ate cereal,” I tell her while I slap my textbooks closed, one by one, before stacking them in a haphazard pile.

  “You can’t eat cereal for dinner, Jane,” she says, reaching into the fridge’s belly to pull out a container of leftover spaghetti. “This is still good, right?” She sets it on the counter and reaches back in. “I got out of work too late to stop at the store but—”

  “You’re a liar.” As soon as I say it, I regret it, but I don’t take it back. I don’t say I’m sorry. “And a coward—you’re a liar and a coward.”

  “Excuse me?” She stands up straight and slams the fridge closed before turning around to shoot a glare at me across the kitchen table. I know there are times when she regrets treating me more like her friend than her child. That she was too young when she had me to know any better. Now is one of those times. “What did you just say to me?”

  “You heard me,” I bite back at her, kissing Homecoming with a cute upperclassman goodbye. “You’re a liar. There’s plenty you can do for him—you’re just too chicken to actually do it.”

  “Like what, Jane?” Defensive, she crosses her arms over her chest. “What do you propose I do?”

  Jerking my backpack across the table, I start feeding my books into it. “Get him out of that place, for starters?”

  “What? I can’t do that,” she shouts at me, throwing her arms up in an explosion of frustration. “He’s fifteen, Jane—he’s still a minor. He can’t just—”

  “You were fifteen when you had me,” I remind her. “And you did just fine.”

  “That’s debatable,” she tells me. “And completely beside the point.”

  Undeterred, I shake my head. “He wants to be emancipated and that D-bag on maternity leave keeps blocking him. Won’t help him file the paperwork.”

  “Jesus—” She lifts a hand and presses it to her forehead. “how much of that file did you read?”

  “Enough to know he needs your help.” Books loaded, I zip up my backpack. “That’s your job, right? To help him. You’re his Guardian ad Litem, aren’t you? Helping him is literally what you get paid to do.”

  “I’m not his guardian,” she says, dropping her hand away from her to face to shake her head at me. “His D-bag guardian is on maternity leave, remember? I’m just the low-man on the totem pole who was handed his file—a warm body in the chair. Nothing I say is going to matter—”

  “You’re his guardian until they tell you you’re not,” I remind her, shouldering my backpack before gathering my notebooks off the table. Hugging them to my chest, I look at her. “He needs you.” When she doesn’t answer me, I sigh. “Isn’t that why you took this job in the first place? To help kids who need it? To do for them what nobody would do for you?”

  “That’s not fair, Jane.” She gives me a sigh, her shoulders slumped in defeat. She was raised in foster care. Fell through the cracks. Pregnant with me and written off as worthless by the time she was fifteen. I’ve heard the stories. Have felt the ripples of her childhood in my own for as long as I can remember. When all I do is stare at her, she gives up completely. “Where would he even go? Brighton isn’t great, but at least he’s relatively safe. He has a roof over his head and gets fed. If he were on his own, where would he go? Who would take care of him?”

  “He has a brother—” I tell her. Fishing for a name, I come up empty. “A rich one. He mentions him in the file.”

  “He doesn’t have a brother. He’s an only child,” she tells me. “His mother is dead. His father is in prison. There’s a grandfather but…” Her voice cracks a little under the weight of her own memories. That’s how I know I have her. “There’s no one willing to take him. He’s alone.”

  “No, he isn’t—he has someone. Someone willing to take him.” I feel bad for pushing her. Don’t even really understand why I’m doing it. All I know is that this is important. Maybe the most important thing I’ve ever done. “Just talk to him, okay? Promise me you’ll talk to him about it.”

  For a second, I think she’s going to throw up another roadblock. Give me anot
her excuse as to why this isn’t her fight. Can’t help him, but she doesn’t.

  “Okay—I promise.”

  Relief again—this time so strong I feel my knees wobble a little under its weight, because I know she’ll do it. My mother’s never broken a promise to me in my life, and I trust she’ll keep this one too. I drop my notebooks on the table and let my backpack slide to the floor. “Thank you,” I tell her, hugging her. “Thank you.”

  “You can’t tell anyone you read that file—you know that, right? And we can never talk about this again. You can’t ask me about the outcome, and I can’t tell you.” She pulls back to look at me, her grayish-green eyes a mirror image of my own. “You get that, right? I’ll lose my job and—”

  “I won’t—” I shake my head, agreeing to her terms even though I know that not knowing will kill me. “I promise I won’t.”

  Her face relaxes and she gives me a rueful smile. “You know you’re grounded, right? Like, you can kiss Homecoming and Jacob Donovan goodbye kind of grounded.”

  “Yeah, I know.” I give her a grin of my own and nod. “Totally worth it.”

  Three

  Logan

  June, 1st Boston, Massachusetts

  May 20th, 2019

  Dear Matthew ~

  It’s been a long time. Longer than I’d like, but you continue to insist on making my attempts at communication difficult. I fail to understand where all this anger and resentment is coming from. Haven’t I done what a father should do and lead by example? I’ve forgiven you for your part in my predicament—why do you insist on clinging to old, useless sentiment? When are you going to accept that you can’t run from who you really are? When are you going to come to terms with the fact that you can change your name a hundred times, but it will never change the fact that I’m your father, Matthew? I’m in your blood. I always will be. You can’t hide from who you are—what you are—any more than you can hide from me.

  I speak from experience when I tell you that the sooner you stop fighting it and accept—

  That’s as far as I get before I give in. Allow myself to crumple the piece of familiar lined, yellow paper that passes as stationary in prison in my fist before chucking it across the room.

  He found me.

  I knew he would.

  He always does.

  No matter where I go or how far I run, he always finds me—which is why I finally gave up on running.

  Why I finally came home.

  We’re the same, Matthew—you and me. We’re the same. When are you going to accept that? When are you going to admit that you like the way they scream? Like watching me hurt them. That you want to hurt them too. When are you going to accept that you’re my son and all this fighting and denying it is useless?

  I can still hear him say it. Still feel him standing over me, a dark silhouette splotched against the dull glow of the lone, bare bulb suspended from the ceiling above my head, black anger and bitter disappointment rolling off of him in waves so deep and powerful, they’ll sweep me away if I let them. Carry me to the dark place.

  Exactly where he wants me to be.

  We’re the same, Matthew—you and me. We’re the same. When’re you going to accept that?

  Opening the flood gates, I let the river of rage I usually keep dammed up in my gut, flow freely through my veins.

  I think about blood.

  About killing.

  About what it would be like to take a life.

  About how much I want to.

  I give myself to the count of ten to be who I really am. Ten seconds of admission to the horror show that plays on a near-constant loop inside my head before I close the curtain. Rein in the torrent of poison that swirls through my blood. Threatens to pollute me.

  Ten seconds is all I get because any more than that is dangerous. Any longer and I might not be able to keep myself from giving in. I run the risk of becoming the thing I hate the most.

  Sitting back, I make use of the small arsenal of coping tools and techniques I’ve learned over the years to force myself to relax. Pull myself back from the edge. Flip on the lights and shake out the cobwebs. Kick over every rock and dig every dark, brutal thought out of my head and kill them before they can take root and grow like a cancer.

  I’m nothing like him.

  I am not my father.

  I’m not.

  I’ve got too much going on to lose my shit now.

  Too much to lose to give into that shit, even for a second.

  I have a family.

  People counting on me.

  People who love me.

  Need me to be Logan Bright.

  When are you going to accept that you can’t run from who you really are?

  Never.

  I’ll never accept it.

  Not fucking ever.

  It takes me a while to get myself put back together. Longer than I’m comfortable with, but by the time I get there, I feel good.

  Centered.

  I feel like me.

  The me I want to be.

  The me I made myself into.

  The knock on the door surprises me, even though it shouldn’t. I knew he was coming. When he texted me earlier to tell me he was heading over to the hospital to see Silver and the new baby, I told him to come get me. That was nearly an hour ago, and even though I should ignore him because I have no business going anywhere near my brother’s girlfriend or their new daughter, I push myself off the couch and lurch my way across the room.

  “You look like shit,” Jase says when I open the door, the insult passing as his standard greeting. I wish I could say the same, but as usual, even in jeans and a casual collared shirt, Jase looks perfect—from his impeccably styled hair to his impossibly blue eyes, my brother looks like he just stepped off the pages of an Abercrombie catalog.

  “Fuck you, very much,” I mutter, opening the door wide enough for him to pass through. “Come in, just let me throw on a hoodie and then we’ll—”

  “Throw on a hoodie? What the fuck is wrong with you?” Jase gripes at me as he pushes his way into my apartment. “We’re going to the hospital to see our brother’s wife—who’s just had a baby—the least you can do is take a goddamned shower.”

  “She’s not his wife.” It’s a dumb thing to say, but it’s all I’ve got because he’s right—I should at least shower before I show my face.

  “Yeah, well she should be,” he shoots back, head on a swivel while he does a quick scan of the place. It’s an old habit of his—Jase is a back to the wall kinda guy. We all are. That’s what spending your formative years in a place like Brighton—and your pre-formative years in places decidedly worse—does to you. Makes you measure every person you see for potential threats. Scope out your exits. Cover your blind spots. Finally swinging his attention back in my direction, he gives me an irritated sigh. “Come on, man—” Dropping himself onto the futon I just vacated, he makes a shooing motion with his hand. “At least change your shirt—you look homeless.” Letting his hand fall, it hits the cushion next to him. Looking down, he lifts the empty envelop I left on the couch. Because things like privacy and tact have never mattered much to Jase, he flips it over in his fingers and reads the front of it. “Who’s Matthew?”

  Resisting the urge to lunge at him and rip the envelope from his hand, I manage a haphazard shrug. “Fuck if I know,” I tell him. “It was stuffed under my door when I picked my head up this morning.” That much is true. I came home from a double shift at Gilroy’s, and even though I was beat to shit, I plugged into my computer and didn’t stop until I caught the text from Jase telling me that Silver had the baby. I found the letter on the floor next to the front door on my way to the bathroom.

  “What was in it?” He flips it over again like he’s Sherlock Holmes or some shit.

  “Nuclear launch codes,” I tell him, bending down as casually as I can to pick up the wad of yellow paper I tossed at the wall earlier. Stuffing it into the front pocket of my jeans, Jase’s slightly narrowed ga
ze follows its trajectory. I’m an excellent liar—always have been—and doing it doesn’t bother me but lying to my brothers is different. I hate it. Makes me feel like shit. Which sucks because I end up doing it every time I talk to them, in one way or another. “I’m gonna go take a shower,” I mumble, turning toward the bathroom, so I don’t have to look at him anymore.

  “Good,” Jase calls after me. “Hurry up—and I swear to Christ, if you come out of that prison cell you call a bedroom wearing anything with a cartoon cat on it, I’m going to throw you out the fucking window.”

  Four

  Jane

  “I know I shouldn’t, because your answer will probably make me want to gouge my eyes out, but I really have to ask—do you know how long an hour is?” I shoot Delilah an irritated look before bending over to tuck the emergency paperback I carry with me back into my bag. “I only ask because one hour equals sixty minutes, and I have been down here, waiting for you for…” I lift my wrist and look at my watch. “Ninety-seven minutes.”

  “What’s a minute?”

  Yup. Wanna gouge my eyes out.

  “You know what? You can kiss my—” Picking up my head, I feel the dirty look plastered all over my face slip away into something that feels more like horrified confusion. “What the hell are you wearing?”

  “Clothes.” She looks down at herself like she doesn’t understand the question. “Obvi.”

  “You look like one of the Golden Girls.” Baggy mom jeans. Pink checkered camp shirt. Pale blonde hair tucked up into a white canvas bucket hat. Angel blue eyes hid from view by a pair of hideous counterfeit Oakley Razors.

  “I wish—the Golden Girls were actually cool.” Delilah sighs, dodging the question completely. “And I could say the same thing about—is that a watch?” Distracted, she leans in and cocks her head, tilting her chin to get a better look at my wrist. Straightening herself, she shakes her head at me. “Jesus, it’s not even a smartwatch—you’re like a grandma.”