Title: 'Blonde on Blonde"
Author: Lila
Rating: PG-13
Pairing/Character: Logan
Spoiler: "Driver Ed"
Length: one-shot
Summary: "The past is not dead – it's not even past."
Author's Note: Heavily inspired by the SFU finale – it's a miracle I didn't call this thing "Everybody's Waiting." Just a little insight into Logan, since we've seen about two seconds of him post-L/V break up during season two. Summary comes from William Faulkner's "Requiem for a Nun" and the topic of one of my college essays. Hope you enjoy!
"Help, I have done it again
I have been here many times before
Hurt myself again today
And, the worst part is there's no one else to blame
Be my friend,
Hold me, wrap me up
Unfold me
I am small
I'm needy
Warm me up
And breathe me"
- "Breathe Me," Sia
Everyone has an addiction. Your mother's was pills and booze and escape. You remember a rainbow of pills, different colors and sizes, spilling across the marble of her vanity, bottles clinking under the bed, seven hundred fifty count Egyptian cotton wrapping around her limbs as she faded into oblivion. Your sister's is cameras. She craves them like your mother craved Vicodin and Stoli cocktails, her smile a little brighter and her step a bit more determined with every flash that illuminates her face. Long before your father smashed your girlfriend's brains in, you knew the only thing he cared about was himself.
You're addicted to blonde girls. Tall girls, short girls, skinny girls and curvy girls, it doesn't matter the length of their bodies or the shape of the curves so long as their hair is some shade of gold, they pretend to love you, and their smiles are destined to break your heart.
You were fourteen when you drowned in Lilly Kane. Everything about her was soft, her skin and her hands and her long blonde hair, and you just wanted to lose yourself in her. They make you go see Ms. James every week, on the days you get tired of Dick's PS2 and Kendall drilling scratches down your back, and you show up at school and ignore the whispers and the weird looks and the eyes boring "psycho's son" into your back. If only they could see that back, and the map of scars and faded bruises, and maybe the whispers would stop. Ms. James asks you about your father, and you don't want to talk about him. She asks you about your mother, and you don't want to talk about her either. She asks you about Lilly and she's all you can talk about. She wants to know what you loved about Lilly and what you miss about Lilly and what you hate about Lilly. You want to say you loved the way she loved her friends and her life and the way she loved you. You want to say nice things, kind things like you miss her laugh and her smile, the way she caught her lower lip between her teeth and grinned like a Cheshire cat. You want to say you hate her for leaving you and using you, for sleeping with your father and being stupid and a slut and betraying you over and over and over again.
You've wanted things your whole life, but that doesn't mean they'll come true.
What you miss most about your dead girlfriend is her body. Not her smile that never really reached her eyes or laughter lilting with false promises or the way she loved you, because she never loved you at all. You miss soft hair trailing across your stomach, soft finger wrapping around you and squeezing just right, a soft mouth caressing the bruises covering your back. Lilly Kane wasn't supposed to save you or love you – she was supposed to heal you – and instead she ripped you open.
You grieved for a year because you were an ass and she was a bitch and you weren't there to protect her. You spent the next six months trying to get into her best friend's pants because you'd kissed Lilly and she'd kissed Lilly and you thought kissing her might bring part of Lilly back. You spent your summer days watching her fuck your father on videotape, and your nights dreaming watching his arm swing and the ashtray crack and Lilly land dead and bleeding by her parents' pool. You don't grieve for her anymore, and you don't miss her either. You just wish you'd never met her.
You wish your life could be cliché, that you could wrap it up with a nice little bow and simply say that everyone you've ever loved has walked out on you or abandoned you, like those Lifetime movies your mother constantly turned down even though she hadn't booked a gig since your birth. But your mother killed herself and made you think she was still alive. Your sister sold her soul and your soul and what was left of your sanity for cash. Your father slept with your girlfriend and bashed her skull and smiled all the way through it. You wonder what kind of hell you live in, that the only person to never let you down is Dick Casablancas.
But you know what kind of hell, the one Lilly Kane was supposed to protect you from, make you forget your dead-but-really-alive mother and the bleeding pain in Trina's wannabe eyes and the lines of criss-crossing scars – like stretch marks she'd say – painting unnatural patterns across your back. And she failed every single time.
You can't turn back time. You can't bring Lilly back and let her live out her days young and beautiful and fabulous. You can't change that she spread her legs for your father and liked him or loved him or wanted him enough to die for him. And worst of all, you can't stop loving her even though the only thing she did was break your heart.
Caitlin Ford was skinny and easy and you were never quite sure you could run your fingers through her platinum hair and it wouldn't break off in your palm. You didn't like her, you barely cared about her, and you sure as hell didn't love her. But it still hurt like hell when she left you or you left her, and the slim thread holding what passed for a relationship snapped right against your heart.
Caitlin Ford wasn't Lilly. You would have been sad if she'd died, like you'd have been sad if any breathing human being had died, but you wouldn't have fallen into a drunken stupor for the better part of a year and seriously thought your world might end if she'd turned up dead on you doorstep. Caitlin Ford was like Lilly. She was rich and spoiled and a year ago when your life was normal you'd considered her your friend. When she came to you, right before the anniversary of Lilly's death, all you'd seen was the blonde hair and the blue eyes and memories of Lilly wearing the same pep squad uniform, you kissed her hard and pretended she was Lilly instead.
You were used to girls stepping out on you. It had been Lilly's favorite hobby, even if she always came back to you at the end of the day. You were used to fake smiles, used to the excuses, used to lies. Caitlin Ford was supposed to be like Lilly, but better. She wasn't supposed to lie. She wasn't supposed to stray. She wasn't supposed to choose someone over you. Caitlin Ford was like Lilly, but worse. You didn't have to love her for her to leave you. You didn't have to love herfor herto break your heart.
You were seventeen when you cut yourself on Veronica Mars. If Lilly ripped you open wide, Veronica poured salt in the wound and rubbed hard. The scars on your back are long healed, silvery in the right lighting, like badges of honor, that you could survive your father and live to tell the tale. You can't talk about Veronica. You won't talk about Veronica. The scars she left are hidden from sight, but as achingly real. You know they won't fade, won't heal, won't ever quite go away.
The first time you kissed her you thought you'd break her. She was short, but so was Lilly. She was skinny, but so was Caitlin. But she was fragile, and that was something neither of them could have hoped to be. You cradled her face in your hands, felt the slender bones under the pads of your fingers, her body weightless against yours. When you were six your father hit you so hard he broke your nose in three places and the best LA surgeon money could buy gave you a new one. You hated your father, but he was a part of you. His blood, his genes, his everything were a part of you. You slipped a hand behind her head, another across her cheek, wondered if you twisted your wrist just right, if her neck would snap and she'd slip silently into your arms and you could lose her before she had the chance to lose you. After she dumped you and went running back to Duncan, you almost wish you had twisted your wrist just right.
You wonder, when she kissed Lilly, if she took a little bit of Lilly into her. She said Lilly taught her how to dress, to drink, to live life, and you wonder if Lilly taught her how to lie. She said she trusted you, and she sold you out for murder. You said you loved her, and she laughed to your face. You said you missed her, and she looked at you like you didn't even exist. You know, when she kissed Lilly, that she took part of Lilly into her, the part that let her break your heart.
Lilly was supposed to heal you. Caitlin was supposed to make you forget. And Veronica was supposed to save you. Your mother jumped off a bridge, and she held you while you cried. Your sister's boyfriend beat the crap out of her, and she tracked down the bastard without a word. Your father killed her best friend, and she thought it was you. Her first boyfriend turned out not to be her brother, and she did things with him she'd never have done with you. Lilly is dead, and you can forget. Caitlin switched schools, and you have forgotten. You stopped going to school because you can't quite forget Veronica.
But you remember the first time you saw her, on the soccer field, knee socks sliding down skinny calves, because you thought she wasn't like Lilly. She looked like her, and with the right amount of training, could talk and walk and act like her, but she wasn't like her. Madison was a bitch, Shelly was a slut, Meg was boring, Caitlin was a traitor, Veronica was different – except she wasn't. Lilly only broke your heart. Caitlin destroyed what was left of your trust. Veronica smothered you soul.
Three strikes and you're out.
There's nothing special about Kendall Casablancas. She's not soft, she's not sharp, and she's not yours either. You life isn't sunshine and smiles anymore, and her hair is long and dark and nothing close to blonde.
When she slides down the length of you, you don't feel sharp bones pressing into your hips, and when you hold her in your arms the last thing you want to do is protect her. When she kisses you, she tastes like lies, and all you smell and feel is Veronica.
She doesn't care if you live or die, so long as you get her off, and you're pretty sure you feel the say about her.
She never promises to be loyal, and you don't call her for the hypocrite she is.
She doesn't love you, and you like it that way – even if you can't stop craving blonde girls.
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