Chương 12
I pulled out my phone.
“Show me every message.”
Logan hesitated.
“Now.”
This time he obeyed.
We stood around the workbench while he opened the conversation.
The account name was meaningless.
A nickname with numbers.
The profile picture was some animated character.
The messages were not.
At first, months earlier, they had been friendly.
Advice about streaming.
Encouragement.
Questions about equipment.
Then came the offer.
“I can front you what you need.”
Logan had resisted twice.
The account kept pushing.
“You’re leaving money on the table with that setup.”
Eventually Logan accepted.
The payments came in several transfers.
Five hundred.
Seven hundred.
Three hundred.
Another six.
More after that.
The repayment language changed gradually.
Thirty percent became minimum weekly payments.
Minimum payments became penalties.
Penalties became threats.
One message said, “Don’t make me embarrass you in front of your little audience.”
Another included our street name.
A later one mentioned Dad’s motorcycle.
The motorcycle was gone now.
Which meant the person had either seen it before or had been watching long enough to notice.
Dad leaned closer.
“When was that sent?”
“Tuesday.”
He looked at me.
I knew what he was thinking.
The bike had been sold weeks earlier.
Whoever this was had old information.
Maybe scraped from Logan’s posts.
Maybe obtained from public records.
Maybe something more.
We did not know.
That uncertainty mattered.
“Do not answer him right now,” I said.
Dad looked at me.
“You think police?”
“I think documentation first.”
Mom nodded quickly.
“Yes.”
Logan looked alarmed.
“No police.”
Dad snapped.
“You don’t get to vote.”
“He’ll post everything.”
“What exactly is everything?”
Logan would not look at me.
I scrolled farther.
There were attachments.
Screenshots of Logan insulting viewers.
Messages where he mocked friends.
A conversation where he called Mom controlling.
Another where he called Dad broke.
Then I found my name.
There were dozens.
Some were petty.
Some were ugly.
I was apparently a “garage goblin” who thought turning wrenches made him superior to everyone.
I was a loser who stayed at home because no woman wanted me.
I was jealous of Logan’s potential.
I was cheap.
I was bitter.
Then there were messages about money.
“He makes bank and still complains about helping.”
“My parents basically have to guilt him into acting normal.”
“He keeps thousands in savings while acting like paying bills is killing him.”
I stopped scrolling.
Logan’s voice was quiet.
“I was venting.”
I handed the phone back.
“Okay.”
He frowned.
“That’s it?”
“What do you want me to say?”
“I don’t know.”
“You thought those things.”
“I was mad.”
“You said them repeatedly.”
“I didn’t mean all of it.”
I looked at him.
The old version of me would have needed an apology immediately.
He would have argued until Logan admitted each sentence was unfair.
I was too tired for that now.
“Whether you meant it is between you and yourself.”
His face tightened.
Dad looked at me strangely.
Mom whispered, “Evan.”
I ignored her.
“What matters right now is the threat.”
Dad nodded.
“Exactly.”
I pointed toward Logan’s phone.
“Screenshot everything.”
“He can delete messages,” Logan said.
“Then save them before he does.”
We spent the next forty minutes doing something our family was historically terrible at.
We documented reality before arguing about it.
Logan exported what he could.
I photographed his screen with my phone as backup.
Dad wrote down dates and transfer amounts on the back of an old shipping invoice because nobody could find a clean sheet of paper.
Mom made coffee nobody drank.
At one point she asked whether everyone wanted sandwiches.
No one answered.
She made them anyway.
It was such a normal thing for her to do that I almost laughed.
Halfway through, Dad’s phone rang.
He looked at the screen and stepped away.
I heard him say, “Yeah, I know.”
Then, “I said Friday.”
His voice dropped.
“No, I can’t do that.”
He walked into the house.
I looked toward Mom.
She avoided my eyes.
“What was that?”
“Nothing.”
“Mom.”
She folded a paper towel into smaller and smaller squares.
“Credit card.”
I waited.
She kept folding.
“How bad?”
“We’re managing.”
“That isn’t a number.”
She looked tired.
“About twelve.”
“Twelve hundred?”
Her eyes dropped.
“Twelve thousand.”
I stared at her.
Logan stopped tapping his phone.
Even he looked surprised.
Dad returned and immediately saw the change in the room.
“What?”
Mom said, “I told him.”
Dad closed his eyes.
“Marlene.”
“He asked.”
Dad looked at me.
“This isn’t your problem.”
It was the first thing he had said all day that sounded remotely healthy.
“Good.”
He blinked.
I almost felt bad for him.
Almost.
“I’m serious,” I said.
“You’re right.”
His jaw tightened, but he nodded.
“Good.”
Then he sat on the workbench stool as if his knees had suddenly become unreliable.
Mom handed him one of the untouched sandwiches.
He held it without eating.
I looked around the garage.
The sold motorcycle.
The damaged Civic.
My stolen tool chest.
The cardboard box of equipment labeled for sale.
Logan’s threatened messages.
Twelve thousand dollars in credit card debt.
The mortgage they had nearly missed.
For years, I had seen each expense separately because that was how my parents presented them.
Electric bill.
Groceries.
Water heater.
Tires.
Internet.
Dental work.
Rent.
Always one thing at a time.
Never the whole shape.
“How long have you been carrying that balance?”
Dad stared at the sandwich.
“Couple years.”
“Growing?”
He nodded.
“Why?”
Mom answered.
“Some of it was emergencies.”
“Some?”
Dad looked irritated.
“We don’t need an audit.”
“No.”
I pointed at my chest.
“But I need to understand whether you knew Logan was taking my things because you expected me to absorb it.”
Dad’s head came up.
“No.”
“You told him I wouldn’t care.”
“I thought he was borrowing some hand tools.”
“You drove him to my job.”
“Yes.”
“And that seemed normal?”
Dad rubbed his forehead.
“No.”
That answer surprised me.
May you like
He looked directly at me.
“It seemed normal because I was used to you fixing things.”
