Chapter Eleven: The Morning After
Mac opened her door early the next morning and let Wallace inside. "She's at the table. I've got breakfast in the kitchen."
"How's she doing?" he asked quietly, glancing in the direction of the room in question.
"Not great." The woman replied in a matching tone. "She didn't sleep at all, just pulled out her laptop and started looking through old pictures of the two of them."
Wallace nodded, then went to the kitchen and poured himself a cup of coffee. "So what were your reasons for leaving?" he asked as he sat down across the table from a pair dark-circled eyes.
Swallowing, Veronica replied softly. "It was too much. Us living together, going to Europe for two months. He kept wanting more of me. I was losing who I was."
"Bullshit." He replied bluntly, shaking his head. "Don't give me that excuse. Whatever your issues were with the relationship, it sure as hell wasn't that you were losing who you were. Logan accepted that more than anyone else."
"He wanted me to stop working for my dad." She said. "Asked me to stop investigating."
"What he asked you to do was to stop getting yourself into dangerous situations. Stick to cheating spouses, petty theft. He was concerned for your safety. With good reason, after the fourth time he found you locked in your own damn trunk."
"You found me locked in my trunk and didn't tell me to stop."
"I found you locked in your trunk at Neptune High, where you had been shoved in there by a wannabe secret society that Duncan Kane belonged to. Logan found you locked in your trunk three blocks away from the River Styx. I think he had a slightly better argument that you shouldn't chase down angry Irish meth-heads."
Looking her in the eyes, Wallace's tone turned more serious. "He wasn't asking you to change who you were. You left because you were afraid."
"What?" she gasped indignantly, "I was not!"
"You were." Mac said, as she joined them. "You have an extreme issue with trusting people, and going to Europe with Logan would have been asking you to trust him with your relationship- something that you still considered yourself in charge of."
"I didn't think that I was in charge of--"
"You did." Two voices interrupted her sharply in unison, then Mac took a breath and continued.
"And you were. He had very few expectations of you, and gave them up all the time to keep you happy. He blames himself for a lot of your issues, so it's understandable that he let you get away with being so... independent."
"My issues don't all lead back to high school!"
"No, but a lot of them do." Wallace interjected. "I came in the middle of it, but you had already decided not to trust anyone. And no one can really blame you for it... at that point. He knows he was a part of that."
Taking a sip of tea, Mac nodded before continuing. "But after everything the two of you went through together, you should have trusted him. Explicitly. Logan saved you more times than either of us can count, and did very little to betray your trust, or even challenge it."
"He slept with Madison." Veronica mumbled as she took a bite of toast.
"In freshman year." The other girl said blandly. "And he felt like a complete shit for it. You can't bring that up now, as you seemed to have gotten over it since you lived with him for two years.
"You however have a long list of things that he could have used as an excuse not to trust you. You promised him you wouldn't go after the Hearst rapist that same year. But then you end up getting dosed with GHB- twice. You promise him that the two of you will talk things over if it got too dangerous. You stayed with me and Wallace for a month because you were avoiding him and dodging his calls. Anytime that you felt that your relationship was overwhelming, you ran. Do you really think that he didn't have doubts about it? He was hurt every single time that you turned off your phone, or made a joke about him cheating on you. For years, he felt like he was never going to be enough for you. That his past indiscretions were haunting him, as well as what his father and his friends did to you."
With wide eyes, Veronica looked up.
"Logan's nothing like Aaron." She said vehemently. "Even when we hated each other, even before I knew everything that son of a bitch did, I never said anything like that to him."
"Of course not. We know that." Wallace said quietly. "But his biggest fear was that if the two of you got married, and ended up pregnant, that he would be like Aaron. You remember what Piz said to him after you dumped him."
The blonde's gaze darkened with the memory of her ex-boyfriend implying that Logan would turn out like his father. "And Logan was standing next to me when I broke his jaw."
"Right. And do you know how much that meant to him?" Mac asked with a softened gaze. "You were defending him like he had always defended you. Like he still defends you. He and Dick stopped speaking for three months when Dick blamed you for how he acted when you ran away. And Dick was walking around with some mysterious bruises after that argument."
"Why does he even want to see me?" she asked, her voice breaking. "What I've done is inexcusable."
"Because you're Veronica Mars." Wallace said. "You're one a billion, and the people that get past that prickly exterior can't help but love you. Hell, neither of us have dated you- but we'd still do anything."
"Including telling me off for leaving a guy both of you hated during high school."
"That guy you're talking about is a better person than anyone gives him credit for." Mac said, handing her a jar of jam.
Veronica nodded bleakly. "'I know."
"But you're a better person than most people give you credit for." The other woman added. "How is life going for you in Chicago, anyway? You said you were working with Pete again." Raising an eyebrow at her change in topic, Wallace merely took a gulp of his coffee.
"Yeah, he's here. Along with a newbie, Alexis. I like her. She reminds me a little of Lilly." The blonde didn't even blink at the conversation switch. "You know, I talked to her after seeing Logan."
Two pairs of eyebrows shot up. "Excuse me?" Wallace asked. "You, Veronica Mars, queen of the closed-off persona- Ginger Roberts of the avoidance waltz- opened up to a coworker that you just met?"
Her mouth twitched into a teary smirk as the blonde replied, glad for the minor shift in topic. "Well since neither of you picked up your phones, I ran to someone who reminded me of the girl I used to confide in."
"Interesting. That sounds like a sign of maturity." Mac said wryly. "Maybe you could bring yourself to call Logan, since you let your guard down with a stranger."
"No." Veronica said flatly. "I am not going to ruin his life again by getting involved. He's better off without me."
Shaking his head, Wallace disagreed. "No, he's grown, just like you have. But he isn't happy, Veronica. You need to at least get in touch with him, so he knows that you didn't run away because of anything that he did."
"No." she repeated. "It was hard enough for the two of us to share a cup of coffee. I'm not calling to pester him into another ill-fated meeting."
"Fine." Mac said. "We'll talk about something else. What's the story you're in LA for?"
A smile slowly appeared on her face as Veronica answered. "There's a high school junior that was recently arrested for possessing a plethora of party drugs with intent to distribute."
Chuckling, Wallace accepted the shift. "Is his last name Vandegraff?"
