Veronica would never forget the fear that gripped her as she stared at Logan, and then at the gun in his hand, then back at Logan. Then she saw it, lying on the pool table in the River Styx, her heart pounding, mouth dry, staring at Logan and the gun. She saw it in sharp, clear focus. The casket was satin lined, the best money could afford. Trina was at its side, her cheeks streaked artfully with expensive mascara, her eyes rimmed in red. It was the inevitable end.
"You're going to die." She told him when they were sitting in his car, Veronica's face covered with tears, her nose running as she tried not to scream at him, beat him with her fists.
"I don't give a fuck." Logan spit back at her.
She left after that night. Told her dad she couldn't stay there. She couldn't stand by and watch Logan self-destruct. She packed a suitcase and got onto the first bus to L.A. Everyone wrote it off as typical teen stuff, the state of borderline mental illness all adults secretly suspected anyone between the ages of eleven and twenty-one existed in.
Veronica knew it was more.
She bought her own gun, a small, sturdy little pistol that fit neatly in her hand. Perfect for the ladies, the salesman had laughed. It even came in pink. Veronica told him she'd stick with the classic gunmetal black. Those nights when she walked down dim streets and darkened alleyways, her fingers would stray to the pocket in her bag where she'd tucked the gun and she would feel just a tiny bit better.
She changed her name, becoming Cyndi or Ashley or Jane, anyone but Veronica Mars. And with each new name came a new personality, new habits, new layers of someone else beside herself she used to face the world. She had a folder full of faked social security cards and faked driver's licenses. She could get up in the morning and choose who she would be that day and soon she started forgetting who she was.
She learned to live in darkness, only going out at night, sleeping when the sun was peeking over the hills of L.A., shrouded deeply in the brown-grey pollution that invade the lungs of its residents, stuck in their pores, leaving sallow complexions and an ever lingering cough. She took odd jobs, lived in cheap hotel rooms with sinks and cracked mirrors, bare light bulbs hanging from the ceiling. She lived out of the suitcase she'd hastily packed the day she left their small apartment. The day she never looked back.
She would get cards from her dad, each one with a letter tucked carefully inside, his scratchy handwriting asking her to come home, sometimes a twenty dollar bill would fall out on the ground of the grungy mail center. He wanted to know if she was okay, asked for something, maybe a letter, at least a phone card. Veronica tucked the twenty in her pocket and threw the card into the trashcan at the bus stop down the street.
Her old life was dead to her.
People liked her. They liked her forced, sunny smile. They liked her quick wit. They invited her to their houses, to parties in the hills full of beautiful people, white powder on mirrored trays, naked hot tubs. Veronica would sleep on their couches; rummage through their cupboards grabbing whatever she knew would bring her next meal. She'd sneak into their bathrooms and take expensive toiletries, bottles of shampoo and sweetly scented lotions, tucking them into her bag. In the morning no one would remember the slight blond girl with the pale complexion who drifted through the party like a ghost.
Sometimes she felt barely alive.
He was looking for her. At some point her dad gave him the PO box and Veronica opened it to find a letter that wasn't in Keith's handwriting. She stared at it, her hands shaking and tears welling in her eyes. She knew who it was from. She didn't throw that one away, just threw it in her bag and planned to burn it later. She never did.
She changed P.O. boxes after that, sent a quickly scrawled note telling her dad not to do that again.
Duncan got married. She saw it in the papers, a black and white photo of his handsome face, carefully styled hair. It made her heart ache for everything that never was. Meg was on his arm, smiling sweetly, Neptune's miracle child back from the dead. Veronica wanted to feel happiness for them, to share the moment when your entire life is in front of you and everything shines perfectly. Except she felt nothing.
She scanned the papers for references to him, the billionaire bad boy turned good. He held charity ball after charity ball, always the same cause. He turned to the cameras and made heartfelt statements.
"I had a friend who ran away once."
Veronica held back her tears as she watched the trashy afternoon tabloid show. The next story was on the latest Hollywood breakup. Then they would have celebrity pet tricks. Right now they were interviewing the Hollywood hunks who gave the most. He was on the screen, his eyes reaching out to her.
"I don't know if she's okay, I don't know if I can help her…but maybe, maybe I can help someone else."
She called her dad the next day, leaning inside the phone booth that sheltered her from the early morning damp fog.
"Come home." Keith said, his phone cracking and she knew he was crying.
"I can't." Veronica answered, not really knowing why any more. It had become a meaningless conviction she lived by. She'd walked away one year ago, how could she walk back in like nothing had happened.
"Logan came around again."
Veronica was silent. There was nothing she could say.
"It's been a year, Veronica. Whatever happened…"
"I have to go." Veronica interrupted, not wanting to hear a lecture on the eternal devotion of Logan Echolls.
She kept the gun tucked in her waistband now, her fingers straying to it as she slept beneath the overpass, waiting for someone to try to hurt her, beat her, take her food, rape her. Veronica wondered how it had come to this, wondered if this is how it all would end. She'd only wanted to get away from it all. From Neptune, from the snickers that followed her, from Duncan and his smothering professions of love, from the crazy fear that gripped her every time she saw Logan.
She pulled it out sometimes, the letter that was now dirty and creased from sitting in the bottom of the bag. She'd look at it, look at the uneven chicken scratch handwriting. She'd wonder what it said. Did it tell her to go to hell, did he profess his undying love? Did she care?
She pulled her tattered coat tighter around her, trying to keep warm, and her fingers shook as she tore open the envelope. She pulled out a single sheet of paper and quickly scanned it. There was one sentence, written in dark ink, scrawled sloppily across the page.
Come home.
Veronica couldn't breath as she crouched on broken pavement and read the sentence over and over and over until the words started to blur on the page and she could no longer hold back the tears.
The bus smelled like fried food and diesel mixed together. Veronica settled into her seat and stared at the window, watching as the miles and miles of urban landscape slowly transformed into groves of orange trees, then wheat fields, then the green of the California coast.
Her dad was at the bus station and his arms were around her almost before she stepped off the bus. Veronica allowed herself to relax, to let her daddy hold her and soothe away the worries and the fears one more time. They walked out to his car, arms wrapped around each other, Veronica squinting into the strange sunlight.
She'd never seen sun like this in L.A. Just the street lights covering the grime of the city, giving the dinginess a glowing patina, making everything seem just that much more glamorous. But no sun like this that made Veronica think of surfing and afternoons at the beach. She had missed this.
They drove toward the apartment in silence, her father glancing over at her every once in a while, Veronica flashing him a smile. After a long silence Keith finally took a deep breath.
"I'm not going to pretend to understand."
"Dad…."
"…and I know you have your reasons."
Veronica swallowed, her throat felt dry and scratchy.
"I'm sorry, dad." She mumbled, trying hard to hold back the sob that was forming in her chest. "I'm so sorry."
"What I'm trying to say, kiddo," her dad continued, "is that I'm glad you're finally home."
Veronica was glad too. She hadn't realized how much she'd missed Neptune as they drove down its familiar streets. Past the Camelot. Past the Seven Veils. Cliff was still doing good business, Keith told her. The agency was doing well. He gave her all the updates except the one that she really wanted. Finally Veronica decided to broach the subject her self.
"What about him, dad?" she asked. They both knew who she was asking about. Him, the boy who broke her heart, who sent her fleeing from everything that was good and familiar to her. Him. The boy who had done penance ever since, becoming a model citizen while still not even twenty one, working to make a difference in the world around him, the one he'd ignored for so long.
They pulled up outside their apartment. It looked the same as it did a year ago when Veronica had walked away because it was the only way she knew to stop the pain.
"He's here."
Keith's voice faded into the background as Veronica stared out the car window. Logan was standing outside the door of their apartment, hands shoved deep in his pockets, eyes fixed on the ground. Her eyes scanned his tall form and she thought how strange it was that he seemed so different but at the same time he felt the same. She pushed open the car door and took a step onto the pavement.
"Logan?"
Her voice was strange and shaking as she called his name. His eyes flew up and locked on her face. She could see all the pain and rage and betrayal of a year. But behind that she could see something else. The same thing she'd seen in his eyes on the television show, a longing that made her heart ache. And she knew
Veronica stepped out into the sun and blinked. She knew it was time to come home.
fin