Page 65 of Paint Eater
“I know you don’t want me here. I know that you don’t…approve. And that you want the best for Logan, butso do I. I…I would support him in anything. Everything. Wherever he wants to go, whatever he wants to be. I would never get in the way of that.”
Logan’s mom just stared at him coldly. Logan couldn’t see Jay’s expression, but he could hear his determination as he went on.
“I know tattooing isn’t something you approve of, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have ambition. I want to be the best at what I do and…I’m talented. I can do it. And I’d never get in the way of Logan’s success to do it. Mrs. Williams…your son is so, so amazing. Smart and sharp and kind. I can’t get in the way of that, even if I wanted to.”
Logan stared at his mom over Jay’s shoulder. She seemed to give nothing away, but he knew the nuances of her expression and behaviour, and the fact that she hadn’t interrupted Jay was telling.
“You should go home now,” Logan’s mom said. Jay took a step away, closer to Logan, but his mom looked at him now. “We’ll talk about this later. Your friend needs to leave.”
Logan took a trembling breath before tugging at Jay’s shirt where he’d been clinging all this time. Jay looked at him, eyes hard, ready for battle, but Logan shook his head.
“Go. I’ll…I’ll text you tomorrow. I promise.”
Jay’s lips parted as he shook his head, but Logan grabbed his hand and squeezed it. “It’s okay. Go.”
Jay stood there for a long moment, staring at Logan as if he’d find an answer there. Eventually, he nodded slowly.
“Okay, but I’m coming back if you don’t text me tomorrow.”
“Okay.”
With another long look, Jay let go of Logan, walking around Logan’s mom carefully. He stared at Logan until the elevator arrived and, after another moment of hesitation, got in and disappeared.
“Inside,” his mom said, voice calm and flat. Logan stepped back, walking into the living room, the nape of his neck prickling.
When he turned around, his mom was staring at him with an impenetrable expression.
“I think you should go to your room. We’ll talk tomorrow morning.”
All Logan could do was nod and do as she asked.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
LOGAN
The next day dawned fuzzily, the world swimming drunkenly as Logan woke up. He got ready for the day slowly, grateful that it was Saturday and he had nowhere to be.
He went to the kitchen mindlessly, turning the light on and staring blankly at the counter, startling out of his thoughts as his mom’s voice called his name from her office.
He closed his eyes, feeling nothing much, and went.
Her office was bright, the sun streaming through the windows. Logan stopped a couple of feet from her desk, not wanting to sit down like he was a child being called into the principal’s office.
They stared at each other for a long time, Logan refusing to be the first to speak.
His mom sat back in her chair. “You were such a mama’s boy when you were little, you know,” his mom said, sounding almost wistful. “When I had you, I remember thinking, ‘I’m going to give him the world’.”
She shook her head, and Logan squeezed his hands into fists before releasing them. He’d barely seen anything of the world, every experience filtered through her.
“Everything I’ve done, I’ve done for you. You might not see that now, but I’ve pushed you so thatyoucan have the best life I can give you. I didn’t know you would break.”
Logan just barely avoided flinching. She didn’t say it as an accusation, but it felt like one.
“Logan, you’re only twenty. I know you think you’re in love, but you’ll see in a few years that—”
“I can’t do this anymore.”
The interruption surprised both of them, but now that he’d started, he couldn’t stop.
