Title: Farther Than Ever Before
Author: Finn21
Pairing/Character: Logan, L/V (mentions of D/V)
Word Count: 1000ish
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Logan's mind on autopilot.
Spoilers/Warnings: Up through Normal is the Watchword.
Notes: Constructive criticisms are welcomed.
The best part of his day is that moment between consciousness and the dream world. When the light blue sky filters into his bedroom like a faint ghost, and cloaks his vision with momentary ignorance. In those few precious seconds before his mind wakes to the world, he is free. Not hopeful, but content. For a brief instant he is simply okay. And right now 'okay' is so much more than he could ever expect.
But then the light melts into a bright, sun drenched, aquamarine that invades his room threateningly. An unspoken warning. Time to begin another day. Time to face the faceless. The nothing. And the everything else.
He likes to count the minutes before class ends by digging check marks into the edge of his desk with a pen. It's not as if he's actually paying attention to what the teacher is saying anyway.
Somewhere before lunch, but after third period, he wonders why he even bothers showing at all. Everyday he's there he asks himself this, and everyday he comes up with the same answer:
Got nothing else better to do.
It's a fucking sad reality when he'd rather be at school than surfing at the beach or driving his way to Tijuana, and getting himself the hell out of this town. Because honestly, there's nobody left to really keep him here.
But in ten years he figures, none of this will matter. His father fucked his girlfriend, then murdered her. Whatever. He was accused of murder himself. Been there, done that. Veronica Mars destroyed his life. Hey, get in line buddy!
It's all relative. If that means anything. Who knows? People like to say corny shit like 'Life goes on' and 'What doesn't kill you, makes you stronger'. Logan's not so sure he isn't already dead and this is a hell of his own making. It'd be oh-so tragically beautiful, right? The designated psychotic jackass falling from the proverbial throne. Karma's a bitch, and all that jazz. Yeah, it fits. He knows how the game is played and in the Whose turn is it to get fucked over in life?, God has made sure the wheel perpetually stops on his name. Ding! Ding! Ding! What has he won Bob!
Maybe God hates him. Maybe there isn't a God. Maybe it doesn't matter because either way it doesn't change what's happened. It doesn't bring Lilly or his mother back. It doesn't make his father less of an evil bastard. It doesn't make him whole again.
Logan thinks if God does exist and he could talk to said God, he probably wouldn't know what to say. He'd be too busy throwing God's shitty table lamp across the room in a fit of rage. Because the sound of shattering glass? Makes a satisfying noise. It truly does.
Deep down Logan knows God agrees. After all, it was created for a reason.
In the halls at school he sees her evade him. She's always a flash, a sunburst of light in the corner of his eye, and then she's gone. He's not holding his breath for her return. She has Duncan now, and Duncan makes sense.
Wait.
Don't
Stop.
Please,
stop.
Come
back.
Let go.
No.
Don't let
go.
She was never his to begin with. Honestly. And she wants things normal now. She told him so herself. And going back to the guy who screwed her and then left her alone the morning after is totally normal. It makes sense. Does she choose A) Duncan–The Royally Fucked Up or B) Him–The Just Plain Fucked. Veronica always was a smart girl. She knows how to make survival decisions.
Sometimes the weaker links have to be extinguished, or they'll spread farther than before. And she wouldn't want that kind of burden on her hands.
On Friday Logan doesn't go to school. He spends the whole day falling in and out of sleep. A dark, thick, burgundy curtain drawn over his bedroom window. The outside world merely a bad nightmare.
Monday, or maybe it's Tuesday, he runs into her coming out of the girl's bathroom with a pronounced frown on her face. He tries to focus his eyes in front of him, but he can't help but look at her as she passes him. Their eyes connect for a fleeting second, deep blue meeting ordinary brown. He sees the corner of her mouth twitch for an instant and his jaw tightens. He thinks about the smell of her perfume and how it reminds him of the early morning light.
Nothing like this ever gets easier with time.
People should stop believing the lie.