T w e n t y S i d e d

Where we left off, our family was in quarantine, just like the rest of the world.

People are making sour dough starts, and the BookNook is quiet. Logan throws himself into making their store a proper website, and runs a Facebook page for updates.

His school is online, and his professors don’t know how to use Zoom. He does the homework he can, and emails his professors about the rest. He starts taking online orders for books, and delivers them to peoples’ front doors. When they’re done with the book or board game, he gets the rentals back in exactly the same way.

During all this, he barely speaks to his parents. He’ll say hello or goodbye, and let them know where he’s going, but other than that he doesn’t interact with them. Kelly and Michael are blindsided and confused. When Logan had been a preteen and teenager, he’d been one of those odd eggs who still liked his parents. Now, though, they suddenly feel stonewalled. On one hand, they understand that a national emergency is likely taking a toll. But on the other, they’re used to Logan bringing things to them.

Logan takes the money he’s made from delivering books and buys himself a VR headset. When he’s not working or doing school work, he’s playing VR. Kelly and Michael decide to give him space, and hope he’ll bring it to them when he’s ready.

Something feels off to them, though. Logan seems not just distant, but upset. He’s lashing out in strange moments, at things that seem juvenile in comparison to his reaction to them. Their coffee maker malfunctions one morning and begins spilling coffee right onto the counter without the pitcher in place to catch it. Rather than a simple curse, or just moving to place the within reach pitcher to catch it, Logan gets immediately overwhelmed with frustration and jams a washcloth against the pouring spout of the machine to catch the hot coffee. The action only makes the coffee spill faster, because rather than just being broken, it also pushed into the position as though the pitcher was in place. Logan’s hand gets scalded with hot coffee as it quickly seeps through the cloth. Logan’s parents watch in bewilderment as Logan curses, puts the pitcher in place with force that cracks the side of it, and immediately storms to his room to lick his wounds.

The entire scene was out of character for Logan. He was usually calm in a crisis, and even sometimes charming in a way that could get him in trouble for not reading the room. This cursing, coffee-pot-breaking, hand-burning incident…it was nothing they’d ever seen from him.

Kelly cleans up the mess with a furrowed brow, and Michael goes to try and talk to Logan. He knocks to no answer, and as he’s calling out in case Logan didn’t hear, the lock clicks on the door in front of him. Michael stands, almost stunned for a moment, before slowly retreating. He didn’t know what to do, but forcing it seems like a bad idea.

Several hours later, Kelly and Michael are having a hushed conversation at the kitchen table. They’re afraid, they don’t know what’s happening in their son’s life, and don’t even have the power of an educated guess or speculation. The completely out of character behavior has them reeling and imaginations running wild. Things they would never ever expect from their son are crossing their minds because…they wouldn’t expect him to act like this, either.

Clearly he has some sort of secret, or something he’s not telling them, but he’d always been such an easy kid they can’t even guess. Should they be worrying about drugs? His mental health? A girl? What could be so bad he wouldn’t tell them? Was it something one of them did? They like to think of themselves as good parents, but when they went off to college they had realized their respective parents had been less than ideal. Maybe they needed to evaluate, be prepared to apologize for…something? They couldn’t think of anything, but there were so many things that had seemed normal when they were growing up, that they had to fix for their son, maybe they missed something.

Finally, Logan slinks out of his room, he’s listening in the stairwell to their conversation for a long moment, just quiet, not letting them know he’s there, not trying to entirely eavesdrop.

He clears his throat as his mom is helplessly suggesting they should have been putting together a therapy fund alongside his college fund. “You know, if college goes well, I should be able to afford my own therapy.” He jokes halfheartedly, scooching the rest of the way down the stairs on his hands and butt. Despite his joking, he moves to sit at the table as though trying to shrink out of the room.

“Sorry about the coffee maker…” He mumbles, pulling up a chair, eying the cup of tea in front of his mom. Kelly never drank tea.  “I can buy a new one.”  He offers, sitting slumped down in his chair so he looks shorter than usual.

“No it’s…” Kelly shakes her head. “Forget about the coffee maker.”

Michael bites his tongue, he doesn’t like the idea of letting go of the offer, Logan is trying to make it right. “You know, I’d take a new coffee maker.”

Kelly shoots her husband a look, but Logan gives his dad a bit of a smile, relieved. He knows his mom wants to put the coffee maker to the side because he’s going through a hard time, but that just makes Logan feel in a spotlight for his feelings, and yucky to not be given a chance to do the right thing. The leaking spout was something they could have dealt with, the cracked pot is not. “You got it, dad. You know, the lobby of my dorms have a Keurig, it’s kind of awesome. You could have your vanilla roast and mom could have her Colombian, no rock-paper-scissors on grocery day.”

Michael brightens and Kelly rolls her eyes. “You know, I’ve been looking at those and-” Michael is interrupted by Kelly putting up her arms in exasperation. “Not the point, dear.” She snaps. The ‘dear’ is in no way an insult, or a put-down, she and Michael just haven’t actually used each others’ first names in years. ‘Michael’ would have sounded much, much harsher.

“We can talk coffee later.” She affirms.  “…Logan.” She turns to her son. “What on earth is going on?”

Bay Jubilee Oldest child of Shamus Young. They/Them