The rest of the family did not seem too happy about her decision. While most of them were simply worried about her wellbeing, I now realized that this had played a big part in Aaron’s suddenly heightened resentment towards me. His own wife was refusing him pleasure, and he held me responsible for that. When his daughter then denied him bareback sex shortly after, it made him snap and try to forcefully take back his women. As that failed so spectacularly, he held me responsible for that as well, since Ava only demanded the use of condoms because of me.
Most insightful were the newest messages, though. None of them went into details, but something happened between Mom and Logan shortly after they had all gathered in John’s house, and none of the family members ever got to even take their clothes off. There were multiple messages from John and the grandparents, asking if Mom was alright. Danny, however, had sent her multiple messages telling Mom that she was ‘doing the right thing’ and comforting her. That was quite interesting. In any case, John’s message about me being right was suddenly put into a new light.
I had shut everything off, when I noticed Ava standing in my doorway.
“Tim...” she started, looking forlorn as she fidgeted around with her hands.
I understood what she wanted without her having to explain, got up from my chair, and gave her a quick peck on her cheek as I passed her on my way to their bedroom.
Mom was still in their bed, above the covers, positioned in something that was halfway towards a fetal position. I watched her for a moment, her chest slowly moving as she breathed, it almost looked like she had fallen asleep. But then Ava probably wouldn’t ask me to check on her. So, I sat on the edge of the bed, causing her to stir a little.
“Sweetheart” I heard her small voice. “I told you I’m fine. You don’t have to worry about me.”
I lay down behind her and, as I slid my left arm underneath her head and wrapped my right arm around her torso, heard her gasp when she realized that I was not Ava.
“I find that a little hard to believe, Mom.” I said softly, pulling her closer into me and feeling her hand affectionately grasp the arm I had wrapped around her. “We can talk about it, or we can just lie here for a while.”
I worried about overstepping. Whatever was bothering her, she obviously didn’t want to talk about it, so maybe me forcing my company onto her was the wrong move.
Those worries were quickly eliminated when I felt her hand squeeze my arm, and push herself even closer into me. We silently lay like this for a few minutes, before she took a deep breath.
“I don’t know if I should tell you.” she suddenly said.
“Why not?”
“I don’t want to undo the progress we made so far. I’m scared of losing you again, Honey.” she whispered, and I could actually feel her lightly tremble. I believed her claim about being scared.
“I take it this is about Logan and Aaron?” I asked, and felt her grip on my arm tighten.
“Just Logan.” she sighed. “I’m ... trying to reach out to him.”
As soon as she finished that statement, her body tensed up significantly, and it felt like she was even holding her breath.
“Isn’t that a good thing?” I asked, feeling her body twitch in surprise. She turned her head to look at me astonished.
“Aren’t you mad?” Her voice was a perfect fit to her expression.
“Mom ... I never wanted you to simply cut ties with the rest of the family. I had to tell Ava the same thing today, so it’s probably my fault you thought that was what I wanted.”
Now she turned her whole body towards me. Though, her eyes told me that she wanted me to elaborate. So, I did.
“I didn’t say those things in John’s house so you’d abandon Logan. He is your son. You should care for him. We both know from experience, if he’s left to his own devices, he’ll fuck up his life in a matter of months. He needs your help.” I said with every ounce of conviction I could muster. “I wanted you to realize that, if he doesn’t get a wake-up call and pulls his head out of his ass, he will pull you down with him. That’s what I meant back then.”
Within a mere second, her whole body relaxed, her eyes glistened, and she threw her arms around my neck.
“Oh, Honey, thank you! I was so worried you’d think I went behind your back!” she cried out, albeit quietly.
“Well, I’m not gonna lie. When John told me about your plans for tonight, I got pissed as all hell.” I continued, and felt my words restore the tenseness in her body. “I just couldn’t understand how, after everything we went through, and after everything he did, you people would still fuck him.”
Instantly, her elation evaporated again as she pushed herself off me so her face was about a foot away from mine. Then she looked at me with a shocked expression, before she spoke in a hurried and pleading voice.
“Honey, I swear to you that is not what happened, and not what we had planned! Danny and I had come up with a gameplan. Logan needs to learn to respect us. So, when he arrived, we all sat down to talk. That’s all we wanted. Just talk a little to learn what he was doing this whole time and why he basically left his sister and me behind. The plan was to make sure he understood that he could no longer simply expect us to do anything for him. But ... Just as you said in John’s house ... He just wanted us to get out of our clothes instead.”
“Sounds like him, alright.” I said in a dry voice, causing Mom to sigh.
“Well, Danny said that we must not give in. Not that it was very hard at that moment, because the more he pushed back, the more frustrated we got. So, finally, we told him that, if he wanted us to treat him as a member of this family, he must first treat us the same. Then he got angry.”
That did somewhat surprise me.
“What do you mean by ‘angry’?” I asked.
Before she answered, she buried her face back into my chest, so her voice was a little muffled now.
“He said that we made him feel like the black sheep of the family by ganging up on him like that. But when I tried to assure him that I do love him, he just said that if I actually loved him, I wouldn’t take this away from him. Then Danny tried to explain that nobody is trying to take something away, but that we need him to understand that this is a two-way street. So, he suddenly called her selfish.” I felt my shirt getting wet where her face was buried in it. “Then ... he got up, walked to the door, and said ‘I thought I could count on you all, but I guess I was wrong’, and left.”
I was stunned. Feeling like the black sheep of the family, because they were ganging up on him. Feeling unloved because they excluded him. Calling Danny selfish, because she went along with it all to get something out of it for herself. And, finally, leaving the family behind after realizing he wouldn’t get any support from them. Did that little fucker seriously just fast-track through the past five years of my life, simply because they refused to drop to their knees and suck his cock as soon as he arrived!? While all they wanted was to have a talk with the guy? How fucking self absorbed could someone be!?
But then I realized something else. He wasn’t self absorbed. I just hoped the rest of the family finally saw the guy for who he really was.
Hearing her hiccups pulled my attention back to her.
“You know he’s just used to being able to manipulate you all? And now that his usual tactics no longer worked, he didn’t know what else to do and fled.” I asked softly, trying to reassure her, and felt her nod her head.