I think Logan and I were having dinner when it happened. Somehow the conversation got onto family and he mentioned something about how even having *had* one was better than not being able to remember them at all. I knew he regretted it as soon as it was out of his mouth… mostly because of the look on my face. Sure it wasn’t a direct jab at me and how things had been between my parents and I before... but it did hurt, and everything came rushing back.
“I didn’t mean it that way, it’s just-” He apologized, almost stuttering.
“I know.” I said, trying to reassure him... or myself.
I understood the pain it caused Logan to face a future when he didn’t know what steps he’d already traveled, but there was a part of me that felt the need to set the record straight. That sometimes remembering wasn’t always the more pleasant option.
I told him how things had been months and probably years- who knew?- before I’d manifested. The fights, the anger, the silence that reigned over my parents and the house they shared. And for the first time I thought that maybe, they were the reason- not the blame- but the reason, why I’d changed.
“’The Rocking-Horse Winner’... ever read it?” I asked.
Logan shook his head, “No.”
“It’s about a boy and this wooden rocking-horse he rides obsessively until he can predict the outcomes of these major horse races. He places bets on those horses and makes a fortune. He was only doing it because his family needed the money. Well, they didn’t really, but he could hear it every time he walked into the house, ‘There must be more money, there must be more money!’, even though no one was talking. With my parents, it was like... even though there would be moments of complete silence... through the tension... I could still hear what went unsaid.”
Logan looked thoughtful for a moment before his mask slipped back into place and his expression became unreadable again.
“I mean, I know that’s not what you wanted to hear-”
“Since when have we ever sugar-coated anything?”
“You’re right.”
“Maybe there are some things better left in the past.”
The Wolverine & Rogue Fanfiction Archive
Barely Legal Since 2000
Author's Chapter Notes:
To Gamma... thanks.