“I asked her this morning about the chances of the two of them reconciling, and she wasn’t certain. She needs time to think about it, and I understand that. I also told her that Aaron and Logan are dead to me, and that I want nothing to do with them ever again. But I do understand that Mom spent half her life happily married to the guy, and that Logan is her son, so I could never blame her for wanting to work on those relationships. There’s a real possibility that your whole family would still be happy if I hadn’t rattled the cage with Ava.”
“You rattled the cage!? Is that how you see it?” Danny asked in a concerned voice.
“Danny, you all were happy as long as I wasn’t around! No matter what you’re telling me now, you were! Up until her parents pressured her into fixing our relationship, and I made Ava demand the use of condoms, none of you ever saw an issue with anything that happened here. That’s not an accusation, that’s just me stating a fact. Mom needs to make up her mind. If she chooses to go back to her happy family life, with her parents, her husband, and two of her children, we can all go our separate ways and chase our own happiness.”
“But I don’t want to abandon you again!” Claire protested in tears.
“BUT!” I raised my hand to signal her to wait until I finished. “If you choose to try and possibly fix our relationship, that will cost you your husband, your first born son, and possibly your parents. You can not work on our relationship without acknowledging what they did and act accordingly.”
“Tim!” Danny called out in shock, and I looked at her annoyed.
“What, you don’t agree? Let’s look at this logically. Remember what I told you all the day after Ava’s birthday. ‘A change like that doesn’t just fall out of the fucking sky’. It took them watching me getting stabbed in an attempt to protect you, for you to finally think that I may be worth their attention. Don’t even try to deny it, Danielle!” I quickly said, seeing her opening her mouth. “You made an effort long before that, I’m not claiming you didn’t. But you know damn well that it was THAT day things started to change for them.”
“Fine. I admit you are right.” she begrudgingly mumbled.
“Thank you. Now, it was Ava who made me the laughing stock at school, but after she witnessed me getting stabbed, she’s already started to stand up to her friends, defending me and working to correct the damage she caused. But what did Logan do? When I was then trying to protect all of us from his bookie, he stole the evidence I gathered and screwed it up because he couldn’t stand seeing you care for me. Your reaction to his behavior was to reward him for it with a foursome. And where is he now? He left you as soon as he realized that he wouldn’t get any more pussy from you. His school doesn’t start for another week or so, he has no goddamn reason to move back into his dorm and leave Mom with this shit alone!”
Claire looked at me in shock, but I could see the wheels turning in her head as she went over what happened during the past seven weeks. This is exactly what I didn’t want to do. I wanted Claire to make up her own damn mind, without me having to point all this shit out to her! At this point, Danielle just pissed me off for forcing this situation. But now I had to continue to make them stop pulling shit like this.
“And where’s Aaron?” I pressed on. “He saw everything you saw, he heard everything you heard, but did he ever do anything to fix our relationship? No, instead he now blames me for taking his daughter away from him. Think about it. He resents me so much for making his daughter demand the use of condoms, he wouldn’t even tell you that I was shot and in the ICU! Why wouldn’t he want anyone to know that I was in the hospital? What would’ve happened after you heard about my hospitalization, that he could possibly have a problem with?”
I sat there looking at them, but especially at Claire, who was now visibly pale.
“I ... would’ve run to the hospital ... and Ava would’ve as well.” she whispered, barely loud enough for any of us to hear. I nodded.
“He would’ve rather let me die alone, than risk you running to me.” I confirmed in a grave voice. “Now comes the hard part. If, after everything that happened to me, and after everything I did for you all, he’s still so against me being part of this family, what do you think you’d have to do if you wanted him back?”
It wasn’t just Claire’s, but all three pairs of eyes locked on to me, that grew wide as they realized what all that meant. So, I pressed on.
“Same thing for Logan. He claimed things would change when you all sat right next to him, but what did he then actually do? Now that he left to get his rocks off elsewhere despite knowing full well how much you could need his support at the moment, what would you need to do if you wanted him to stay?”
