Probably my fault;;{{Logan

[Riley Pearson]

I still felt sick.

Completely and utterly sick.

And in all honesty, I do not think that the feeling was going to be leaving me alone any time soon. In fact, it probably won't ever leave me.
I couldn't believe she did this. I know that I couldn't blame myself for all the reasons she did this, but I knew I was at least partially to blame. If I didn't show up at her house and tell her that I was probably going to be going to Azkaban, she wouldn't have gotten the completely idiotic idea to turn herself in, in place of me.

What made me feel even more sick though, was the fact that a very small part of me, was relieved that I wasn't the one who had to be there. I mean, it did make sense that she was there instead of me. I had kids... I help people at my job... but mainly the girls have been through enough. I should be thanking her for doing something like this... but there was no way that was going to happen. Despite what's been telling me that she wanted to be there, the point was that she shouldn't be there... And I didn't want her to be. I told her that I would rather be there than her, but or course she didn't listen to me.

Which is why I got two notes today from her telling me what she did: One for me, and one for Logan. I'm sure she planned this enough in advance to know that she would be there before I had a chance to stop her... and other than the sick feeling that has completely taken me over, I didn't know what to do.
I read my note first... almost having troubles getting through it. I was so furious with her. So furious and yet, still having troubles being mad... if that's even possible.

Riley,
By the time you read this, I hope to be in Azkaban.
Huh. Now there’s a funny statement. Still the truth though.
I’ve turned myself in to the Ministry and told them that I’m the one who killed Travis. If you try to say otherwise, I’ll deny it – I’ve got motive and everything. So you can’t get me out and I hope you won’t try. This is what I want… or at least what I want more than I want for you to wind up here instead.
Anyway. I can’t hardly say this ‘cause it’s so melodramatic, but I love you like a brother and I hope you won’t forget that. I never have tried to write a suicide note and I’m not very good at it at all.

But speaking of that… if you want to do me any favors… I know it’s a lot to ask but could you please tell Logan for me? I tried to write him a note first but I couldn’t… and now I think maybe I will anyway because there’s some things you can’t tell him, but it’s easiest if I just do this… I don’t know. I guess you could say I’m not thinking clearly right now. But I don’t want to leave it in the house because knowing him he’ll find it before I like. So now I’ve disappeared on him and he probably has no idea where I’ve gone, so… if you could, just please give him this.

Thank you,
Arden

I didn't know what to do. What I wanted to do was leave and go see her in Azkaban right now... but she gave me a note to give to Logan.. and I'm sure that if I go see her, that's gonna be one of the first things that she asks me about... once I'm done being furious, that is.

So even though I wasn't sure that I really wanted to, she asked me to do, so I'm going to... which was why I was standing in front of her house right now, both of the notes in hand.
I just hadn't knocked yet... Who knows, maybe he wasn't even here... maybe he didn't even know she was missing yet.
I was scared to talk to him... still completely mad and upset at Arden... and pretty curious as to what his note said. I hadn't read it earlier, but before I knock, I think that I will before I won't have the chance. So I sat down on the steps at the front of her place and opened the letter.

Logan, I love you. And I really want to kiss you goodbye, and maybe I did. I don’t know. Maybe I’ll see you once more between the time I write this and the time I disappear. But whether I do or not, I still love you, and I hope you’ll be okay. You can find some whore to fuck, engage in some torture if you really must… but you’ll be fine. You’re not pathetic. Please be fine. I mean… I know how I’d be if you did something like this, but you’re not like that. People just don’t mean as much to you, not even me. So… you’ll be fine.
I didn’t mean to do that again, though, accuse you of not being human. If anything, I think maybe you’ve been better than me. And I’ve been meaning to apologize for what I said back when you stopped me suffocating myself. That changed a while back but I never set it straight, and I’ve meant to ever since you took me back again, so here it is: I wouldn’t let you die if you were trying to kill yourself. I love you too much and you’ve changed too much, and for all I know you’re not reading this anymore because it’s gotten too ridiculous and you’re furious with me. But, on the off chance you are still reading, or look at it at some point… please don’t kill anyone. That’s all I’m asking. I don’t care what you do, how you cope to try and be happy, just don’t bloody kill anyone. Please. And for the love of all that’s holy, don’t do what I’d do. Not that I expect you to because you’re not pathetic and have a healthy dose of self-preservation, but just in case it crosses your mind – please don’t turn yourself in. And please do not kill Riley, who also is a person but you might just need the more specific warning. I’m sure he’s furious too, so don’t blame him. It was all my decision.
And… I guess that’s it. I don’t know what else to say except I love you, and always will. And… I’m sorry.

I heard someone before I could finish reading it though and folded it back up, just hoping that if it was Logan who I heard, he wasn't planning on killing me... I know she told him not to, but that didn't really mean much, I don't think.

[Logan Andrews]

Not caring never lasts. Never. Sometimes it drags on for years but lately it barely even stays for hours before it's followed by that oft-excruciatingly intense reminder that I actually do care...about some things at least. The intensity tends to fade in the wake of whatever it was that made me remember and then everything levels out for a while, before I sink back into apathy.

So it's all a matter of riding it out. I'm on the crest of the wave right now, that's all. It's the very intense peak of feeling because I'm worried and then when everything settles down and goes back to normal, that will fade too. I just have to wait it out.

Waiting it out is hard, because it's been going on for far too long. Because I don't know what to do with myself and I can't sit still and I've been wandering from room to room as if I suddenly expect Arden's total absence to make sense, or better yet for her to just appear...or for her to have been here all along and I'm just being indescribably stupid or selectively blind. Unsurprisingly, that's not happening and every time I head into another empty room to confirm that it is indeed still empty...I get a sinking feeling that coincides with another burst of that annoyingly intense concern.

Just because she's not here, because I don't know where she is. That's not unusual. I'm not very good at connecting things up, I don't think, so that even though I know she has a job it never occurs to me that she might be at work. I know that I like to wander for hours on end, but it never occurs to me that she might like the opportunity to do the same.
So it's not that, not that she's out and I don't know where or who with...it's just the duration. It's the length of the absence prompting the somewhat lost drifting around the house and the general discomfort.

I've come up with a dozen different scenario's of course, letting my paranoia really go to work here and fabricating potential reason after potential reason for the fact that I've not seen her in so long. The most harmless of which being that maybe she's still taking her not-dead boyfriend's death hard and wanted space, whereas the most harmful being that she finally decided suicide away from home where someone might find her was probably a smarter way to do it and has managed to top herself. I don't know. I don't want to think. It's been too long. A long enough time to indicate that something is wrong, above and beyond the usual things that are wrong.

So on my perhaps hundredth time of heading towards the window and staring out as hard as possible as if force is going to help persuade things to start going the right way again, I am actually surprised that something has changed. It's not something I want to see, Riley sitting on the steps, but it's something that is different and-...

I lose track of whatever I was going to finish that with and decide to just not bother with thinking things out because that never really works anyway. It's a lot simpler to just head for the front door instead and wrench it open without conscious forethought.
And then decide on a split-second whim that it's better to remain totally silent instead of saying anything. I don't want to be hostile today, as I'm too preoccupied with worrying.

[Riley Pearson]

I turned around to see Logan standing at the door way. I sort of wondered why he wasn't saying anything... like, 'what the hell are you doing here?' or something else telling me to get the fuck away from here... but there was nothing, so I guess he was waiting for me.

I bit my lip for a second before looking back to the letters.
"... Arden's not coming back." I said, deciding to come right out and say it before looking back to him. Of course, now that I've said that, I realise that could be a multitude of things. One being that she's left and another being that she's permanently left, and she's actually dead. So I thought that maybe I should expand some on that answer. ".. She confessed for killing Travis."

That should be enough information... maybe, at least. I stand up and hand him the letter that she gave to me to give him and leaned against the porch.

[[ ah short ]]

[Logan Andrews]

I was sort of idly planning on saying something in return when he stated his purpose in being here, but needless to say that deals the sort of blow where silence is inevitable...at least for a little while.

No, I killed Travis.
Oh, well of course I did but who even cares anymore? It's over and done. Should be over and done, anyway. And if everything had gone the way that I half-hoped it would, Riley would be the one in hot water right now. I guess the ministry are idiots though and missed that one...and instead believe any perfectly innocent person who comes to confess to any given crime.

It takes me a further second or two to connect confessing with what happens after a confession. Azkaban happens after a confession. Azkaban for life happens after a murder confession.
And that's just plain ridiculous, because no one deserves that place, but particularly not an innocent woman. She won't last five minutes. Or maybe she will...maybe a couple of days, week at most.

Then again, maybe that is the plan...not lasting long. More masochism and self-destructive tendencies coming into play - very clever.
Except that then does raise the question of why she would confess to a murder she didn't commit and what purpose that could possibly serve...

I pause a moment after taking the paper from him, then elect to try and read it later on my own rather than with someone expendable in close proximity. I'm fairly sure of what it is without glancing at it properly, so I'm fairly sure that reading it would just serve to antagonise me and I don't need more incentive to get too annoyed.

"And why would she do that?" I say finally, pulling the door closed behind me as I step out onto the porch.
I don't know why he'd have the answer to that, but he's clearly not just saying she's confessed and giving me a note and then leaving, or he'd be leaving already...so he obviously knows something else.

I don't think it's quite sunk in yet, beyond the incredulous half-sick sort of feeling that settled about the time I thought of her in Azkaban. When it does sink in, I'm sure there'll be anger and whatever else...but not right this second.

[Riley Pearson]

He didn't read the letter, which at the moment, definitely made me a bit more nervous to be standing here. I should have left and then maybe this wouldn't be an issue. I wanted to go see her anyway... well, no, not exactly want to see her... what I want, is for her not to have gone and done something like this.
He shut the door to the house and asked me a question that I honestly didn't really know the answer to. I had an idea.. but it was no more than that.
I shrugged, shaking my head faintly, "I don't know why. It's not like she told me anything before she went and fucking turned herself in." I said, pushing some hair from my eyes.
I paused for a moment, "I don't know.. I was talking to her a few days ago about how I was accused of killing Travis and she goes and does this."
He didn't really seem... too upset about this... not yet at least.

[Logan Andrews]

Another pause while I figure that one out. It's somewhat satisfying at least, that he did get accused if nothing else. Except that evaporates rapidly because...it sort of sounds like he's just said that she turned herself in because he was accused of killing Travis.
In which case that's all my fault.
And that's nothing really new, but it feels somehow new. A new level of awful, because this is directly my fault. All my fault.
But I never once considered that this would happen just from killing the fucking insignificant not-dead boyfriend.

And I don't know what else to say. What else is there to say?
"Right." I mutter eventually, glancing down at the note for something to do. Still waiting for this to hit properly or for a solution to present itself...

And no, there is no solution. Azkaban is as good as dead, and even if by some miracle it's not necessarily 'the end'...that place changes people, you don't come out the same as you go in. So she might as well be dead.
So even though it's my fault...she didn't have to go and do that. Didn't have to put herself there and fuck everything up. There was no need and it's not fucking fair-...

Ah, there we go. There's that anger then. It's just unfortunate that there's no outlet for it, apart an involuntary muttered, "Fuck," which doesn't help any.

[Riley Pearson]

I was also surprised by how he wasn't killing me yet.. or at least hurting me. Not that I was complaining though. I'd much rather he didn't.
I sighed and shook my head, "If I didn't talk to her about it, I would've just went. She's not supposed to be there." I said, mostly to myself than anything. That's not really something that Logan probably wants to hear... or well, not something I would like him to hear.
I looked over seeing that he hadn't read the letter yet. "Are you gonna read that?" I asked looking over to him again.

[Logan Andrews]

Oh, well fuck then.
I didn't particularly want to hear that, because it didn't help, so I scowl at him briefly. I'd have liked it if he could have stayed the hell away, not talked to her about it and just gone himself. But no, she's not supposed to be there. It's not right. It was stupid of her to do it, needless. They'd have figured it out eventually, that it wasn't Riley who killed him...if she'd just left it alone and not been melodramatic and stupid and turned herself in.
Which is the total reverse to how I normally place the blame, as usually she tends to become innocent in my mind and he's the one I hate all the more...but this time I couldn't care less about him and I'm pretty fucking furious with her. Go figure.
"Of course she's not fucking supposed to be there." I reply irritably...but then actually have to think about the response to that question, which turns out to be a shrug and, "Maybe."
It's probably not important, not helpful...and most likely is just going to make me feel worse...so no, I'm not going to read it, especially not just yet.

[Riley Pearson]

"Maybe?" I asked back to him, just ignoring what he's said first. Really there wasn't any reason to ask that. He said maybe, so he was maybe going to read it. It really shouldn't be any of my business. Needless to say though, it was bothering me that he didn't read it right away.
"... You don't have any desire to read it at all?"

[Logan Andrews]

"And that's your business, is it?"
Why does a fucking note fucking matter when Arden's in fucking Azkaban? Why the hell is that important enough to discuss when she's gone and done this?
But what else? What else is there to do now?
I can't do anything, can't go anywhere near Azkaban or risk getting shut up again myself and I don't know if that's a risk I'm willing to take for anyone. So she might as well be dead and I don't want to read a suicide note.

[Riley Pearson]

"Sorry, it's not." I said, shaking my head a little bit.
I paused for a moment. "I'm going to go see her today.. so if there's anything you want to tell her..?" I asked, trailing off at the end of the sentance.
I feel like I was too calm for what was happening, but I didn't know how I should be acting.

[Logan Andrews]

"No...no, nothing." I mutter after a pause.
There's plenty I'd like to say to her, but nothing I'm going to send in a message with him. So he can go and enjoy his freedom to go and see her and I'll lament the fact that I absolutely can't and how unfair that is.
But it's my own fault, so maybe I shouldn't have gone and killed Travis in the first place and this wouldn't even be an issue.

[Riley Pearson]

I raised my eyebrows for a second and just pushed off the side of railing where I was leaning so I could leave. "Whatever." I said quietly. I walked down the stairs before stopping and turning around. "You know, she may have done something completely stupid, but you could at least for once be somewhat decent. You really never deserved her."

[Logan Andrews]

I'm not sure if that was a direct invitation to get annoyed with him instead...if he's deliberately trying to provoke a reaction with that or what, but I'm not angry with him and he's not going to prompt it. So I just raise an eyebrow slightly at that, "And how does one go about being somewhat decent in this situation?"
And who cares if I really never deserved her? It's irrelevant now.

[Riley Pearson]

"I don't know, saying something. Telling her that you love her.." I said with a small shrug. "Just something. I'm gonna go see her, and I can bet that the first thing she's gonna ask about is that letter."

[Logan Andrews]

"I don't need you to pass on a message." I mutter.
I don't want him to pass on a message more like. It's not right, a breach of privacy. If I'm going to tell her that I love her, then I'll do it myself. Except...I can't, so that's a bit redundant, but it's the principal of it.
"If she asks about the letter, then you can tell her you gave it to me."
Anything beyond that is not his business. And I will read it. But that's not his business either.

[Riley Pearson]

"Fine." I said, shaking my head again, resisting the urge to ask him if he was planning on going there himself, because I knew that he couldn't and I didn't exactly want to push my luck. I shook my head and turned around to leave again, putting my own letter back into my pocket.