It's ironic he thinks, that it took her best friend's death to bring out this side of her. He knows now what it was that attracted Lilly to her (the girl was like a moth to the most dangerous flames). Beneath the bubble gum pink sweetness of Veronica Mars there'd been a kickass, tough as nails, downright bitch hiding out and he just knows that Lilly would be so proud that she finally broke free, and it pisses him off all the more.
He often thinks back on homecoming, one of his fondest memories despite the beating that followed and smiles to himself but now the memory is warped, tainted with his own lack of perceptiveness, of the things he didn't know about a girl — the girl, he'd once considered one of his closest friends. Veronica had been in fluffy pastel pink, a shade or two lighter than her permanent rosy blush; certainly nothing like the tinkerbell sized, taser carrying pixie he knows now. He tries to merge them in his mind. Add the wit, subtract the puffy princess dress and add the red satin Lilly had been railing about for so long. It hardly ever works.
'red satin Veronica Mars.' She would randomly throw into the midst of a conversation as if a thing she'd said made any sense. Not that you could disagree, or tell by the smug — proud even, look on her face when Veronica would smile, something coy, shy and totally unlike the malice licked smirk he'd become accustomed to, and look down. It bugged him more that she wouldn't leave his thoughts, not one day would pass that he wouldn't think about her — sometimes he didn't even know which her he was referring to. Lilly, Veronica, Lilly, Veronica. It all became one in the same. A blur, a messy, colourless blur. Black and shades of grey, hatred, resentment, betrayal and begrudging respect but no colour because the world had been drained of it when Lilly died. He even made himself angry, angry that he still associated them in his mind. Lilly and Veronica — the epitome of a 'package deal'. Not that he'd minded before everything, when they'd been friends, best friends. When he helped her escape the lush of a mother he now so freely taunts and she helped him when he was five shakes to the wind and in a Lilly Kane motivated downward spiral. Sometimes the memories would soften him, drunken flashbacks of blonde hair tucking him in, in the pool house as to escape his parents wrath. Other times he would scoff and look for a new way to torture her because she brought it on herself. She betrayed Lilly and Duncan and Logan himself, they were family and she's the one that forgot.
There are times when he regrets it, all of it and wishes he could go back and change it all. Back to the beginning. Kissing Yolanda, kissing Lilly, meeting Veronica. Figure out which event in his life set off the butterfly effect that lead to all this pain. His heart is in a vice and he's drowning in a bottle, he stopped making excuses for it a long time ago. Dead girlfriend, catatonic best friend, Veronica Mars, lush of a mother, abusive prick of a father but mostly, he thinks to himself frequently: Genetics.
Take your pick.
He wonders if Veronica's drowning too. Of course though, he knows she is because no amount of mini skirts, combat boots or punk-rock-chick hair to hide behind will change the fact that he knows her. He sees every flinch and recoil in response to his comments even if only in her eyes as she flips the switch on Mr Sparky and threatens him with a hundred volts of cold hard justice. She's getting better at hiding it every day and a small part of him is afraid that one day he won't know her anymore, the old or the new, so he ups his game and makes sure at least that she won't forget.
Maybe she already has.