Part 3

i"I'll be right there," Veronica said quickly as she let Logan into the house, hurrying away to dry her hair.

Logan grabbed her wrist and pulled her towards him.

"Hey."

"Hey," Logan greeted huskily. "No greeting."

Veronica smiled and raised herself up on tiptoes, placing a quick kiss on his lips. "Good evening," she breathed. "I'm running late."

Logan glanced at his watch and smirked. They had had a wager about whether or not Veronica would be able to get ready for their Catalina escape on time.

"I was working," she protested to his unvoiced accusation.

"Sure," Logan said. He was about to loosen his hold on her when he noticed her eyes. "Were you crying?"

Veronica shook her head. "Where did that come from?"

"Your eyes are all puffy," he pointed out as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

"I got shampoo in my eyes while I was taking a shower," she told him. "And thanks for extending my prep time by thirty more minutes."

Logan groaned as she made her way to her room, although he was certain she would be out in ten. Veronica liked to pretend she had the same vanities as the girls he had dated before but in truth, she probably had less than he did himself.

For the past few weeks he had noticed Veronica slowly seeming more exhausted, more concerned, more at edge. She had always seemed fine with their relationship, and had not expressed any need to change. However, she seemed worried for a reason, and Logan knew she needed to relax. After inviting her for a weekend away to the Catalina, she had such a look of relief in her face that sealed it for Logan. This was no regular senior's anxiety. She had a problem, and he was going to take her mind off it.

While he waited, Logan assessed the one bag that she was going to take with her. He lifted it and placed it down beside the door. No sense having her drag it when he could so easily lift it himself. Veronica had that sense of independence that sometimes made it difficult for him to act like a gentleman. As she grew out of all her traditional girlish thoughts regarding her relationship with Duncan, Veronica barred other acts of sweetness from him. He knew he should be grateful that he wouldn't glance down and find her blinking up at him in starry-eyed affection. However, sometimes Logan expected starry eyes. He'd like to see if he could turn those starry eyes to fulfillment.

When he saw her handbag, Logan decided to put it on top of her suitcase. He picked it up and saw a few enveloped peeking from the pocket. He saw his name at the corner of one and slipped it out. He unfolded the letter and read through the content.

"What do you think you're doing?" came Veronica's voice.

Logan looked up and saw her glaring at him with her hands on her hips. "When were you going to tell me, Veronica?" he demanded.

She snatched the letter away. "It wasn't any of your business!" she snapped.

Logan snorted, then stalked up to her, leaving no more than two inches between them. "Tell me why you think this isn't any of my business, Veronica."

"Because this is my problem, not yours!"

"That's always going to be a problem, isn't it? You're never going to let me in. Everything's going to be either yours or mine. God, Veronica! How are we going to spend the rest of our lives together? Don't you trust me?"

She closed her eyes and crumpled the letter in her hands.

"Are you going to run away from me now?" he whispered.

"Of course not," she answered calmly. "We're in my house."

Logan sighed. "You have a stalker who's obsessed about you that he's writing you love letters and letting slip that he knows your schedule. This isn't funny, Veronica." He dropped into the couch and looked up at her.

Veronica met his eyes steadily. "How do you know it's not his first letter?" Her eyes flew to the television set.

Logan saw the movement. He stood up and knelt in front of the tv, then pulled the cabinet drawer open. He saw several other folded pieces of paper filed. He looked up at Veronica in disbelief. "I didn't know. Veronica, there's more than twenty in here, and you never told me." He took one out and skimmed through it. Logan took another one out and did the same thing. "Jesus, he has your entire life recorded. How long has this been going on?"

She mumbled an answer.

"I didn't hear that."

"Since we started dating," she mumbled.

Logan literally stumbled a couple of steps back. "A year?"

"You're blowing it out of proportion, Logan. I'm investigating it. If it makes you feel any better, once I find out who it is, I'll let you throw the first punch."

"If you haven't found it out after a full year, don't you think you should treat this as a serious threat, Veronica?"

She shook her head. "Logan, I grew up with a detective. The letters haven't turned violent at all. This is not dangerous, okay?"/i

Casey opened the car door for her when they arrived at the property of the Moon Calf Collective. She thanked him as he led her out of the car. He kissed her on the cheek and told her, "Wait for me. I'm getting our stuff."

He came back with a two thick blankets draped over his arm. He closed his hand around her elbow. They then walked towards the bonfire. When the group saw them arrive, the people around the fire scooted over to make space for them. Casey spread out the blanket on the grass and sat her down.

"Welcome home, Casey!" said the young woman that Veronica remembered as Rain. She waved at Veronica as well. "You too, Veronica. Casey, you should really come back more often so Veronica can visit us."

Veronica grinned lopsidedly and cocked her head to the side. Casey leaned towards her and whispered, "You never came here while I was in school?"

She smiled and whispered back, "It wasn't worth it without you here."

Casey returned the smile and kissed her on the lips. It was then that Holly Mills, their former teacher, informed them that it was poetry night. Holly's longtime lover Josh announced that in honor of Casey's visit, he could recite his selection first.

"Are you ready for this?" Veronica frantically asked him.

"Of course," he answered. "It's always classic poetry night on Tuesdays." He took a folded piece of paper from his pocket.

Josh gestured to Casey. "Before you begin, know that your selection represents a desire, or inner pain, maybe your fondest dream. Moon Calves, your role as the speaker recites the poem is to seek inside yourselves to assess whether the same desires or fears lay within you. Casey?" he prompted.

Casey nodded. Veronica shivered as he looked at her as he read the lines. The flame made his face glow orange.

i"…I listened with heart fit to break.

When glided in Porphyria; straight

She shut the cold out and the storm,

And kneeled and made the cheerless grate

Blaze up, and all the cottage warm;/i

As he read, and stared at her, Veronica wondered why he had chosen of all poems to read "Porphyria's Lover." He had never seemed the type to have a poem like it ready. Most likely, she thought, he took an elective and had recently taken that poem in class.

iAnd, last, she sat down by my side

And called me. When no voice replied,

She put my arm about her waist,

And made her smooth white shoulder bare/i

Veronica closed her eyes. Meeting Casey's gaze as he said the words made her uncomfortable. She took the edges of the blanket and pulled the blanket closer to her body.

iAnd all her yellow hair displaced,

And, stooping, made my cheek lie there,

And spread, o'er all, her yellow hair,

Murmuring how she loved me -- she

Too weak, for all her heart's endeavor,

To set its struggling passion free

From pride, and vainer ties dissever,

And give herself to me forever./i

She swallowed at the words. They brought to mind that one night in which she experienced such helplessness she swore it would never happen again. She felt tears in her eyes, but fought against them. Suddenly she felt suffocated, as if the events could trap her again. Veronica felt the viselike grip on her wrists and they were held tightly over her head.

Lips searched for hers. When she turned her head away, fingers buried in her hair as her head was slammed back on the wall.

iHappy and proud; at last I knew

Porphyria worshiped me: surprise

Made my heart swell, and still it grew

While l debated what to do.

That moment she was mine, mine, fair,

Perfectly pure and good: I found

A thing to do, and all her hair

In one long yellow string I wound

Three times her little throat around,

And strangled her. No pain felt she;/i

His hands reached around her neck and he tightened them. Veronica started. Her eyes flew open and she found herself looking into Casey's warm, comforting eyes. She felt the tears flow, and she wiped them quickly away. Casey would not know about that. She would make sure Casey would remain in the dark if that was the last thing she did.

Casey was a whole new world to her. She could pretend nothing happened, and that she was neither a victim nor a criminal in his eyes.

He frowned at the sight of her tears. Without breaking away from the poem, Casey took his handkerchief from his pocket and dried Veronica's tears.

iI am quite sure she felt no pain.

As a shut bud that holds a bee,

l warily oped her lids: again

Laughed the blue eyes without a stain./i

"Oh God," she murmured. No matter how many times she had read the poem or heard it read aloud, she trembled when she reached that part, when the persona had finally killed his lover and was looking into the corpse's dead eyes.

iAnd I untightened next the tress

About her neck; her cheek once more

Blushed bright beneath my burning kiss:

l propped her head up as before,

Only, this time my shoulder bore

Her head, which droops upon it still/i

Casey reached over and held her hand. Veronica asked herself whether Casey understood the poem or not.

Now the persona spoke of his happiness as the dead woman now lay completely dependent against him. She looked into Casey's eyes and knew that he did not understand what he was saying. There was no way that he could look at her so lovingly, the way he always did, if he understood the poem. His hand around hers tightened as he said the last lines.

iThe smiling rosy little head,

So glad it has its utmost will,

That all it scorned at once is fled,

And l, its love, am gained instead!

Porphyria's love: she guessed not how

Her darling one wish would be heard.

And thus we sit together now,

And all night long we have not stirred,

And yet God has not said aword/i

The spattered applause that followed broke Veronica from her fascination with his eyes. She realized that Casey was done. Veronica started clapping as he smiled at her.

"Did you like that?" he asked.

Veronica hesitated a few seconds before answering, "It was breathtaking."

Casey nodded and kissed her on the forehead. The two huddled under their blanket and leaned against each other. The night drew late and Veronica laid her head on his shoulders. He placed his arm around her as they watched the rest of the members read.

Josh looked at the two of them. "Veronica?"

Veronica stiffened. "I didn't prepare."

"Why don't you recite to us your favorite poem? I'm sure in your life one or two has struck you close enough to heart that you memorized a few lines," he urged.

She thought back to the one poem she had always related to the months following Duncan's death, and what had happened between her and Logan.

iPity me not because the light of day

At close of day no longer walks the sky;

Pity me not for beauties passed away

From field and thicket as the year goes by;

Pity me not the waning of the moon,

Nor that the ebbing tide goes out to sea,

Nor that a man's desire is hushed so soon,

And you no longer look with love on me.i/

Her voice caught at the emotion that suddenly hit her as she remembered the way Logan had avoided her.

iVeronica stood in line with Wallace as she waited for his bus. Wallace had received his sports scholarship and was going away to college. When it was his time to board, Wallace gave Veronica a hug and climbed onto the bus.

She waved as Wallace's bus left. When she turned around, she sighed. It was going to be a long walk to the bus stop going back to Neptune.

Veronica trudged along the road when she saw Logan's car approach. She waved at him, and he zipped by fast.

That was when Casey's Jaguar stopped in front of her. "Need a lift?"/i

There were so many occasions, and she felt that he had cut her out of his life. Many times she had thought it was possibly because he loved her too much.

iThis love I have known always: love is no more

Than the wide blossom which the wind assails,

Than the great tide that treads the shifting shore,

Strewing fresh wreckage gathered in the gales.

Pity me that the heart is slow to learn

What the swift mind beholds at every turn./i

"Are you okay?"

Veronica looked at Casey confused until she felt the cold wind kiss her cheeks. Her hands flew up to her face and found that she had been crying as she recited the poem. She looked around her and saw everyone applauding.

"Veronica?"

She saw Josh watching her closely, and she smiled. "I'm sorry. It's a beautiful poem."

"Yes it is," Josh agreed. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"About what?"

"Veronica," Holly said gently, "do you want to talk about any insecurity you feel regarding your relationship with Casey?"

Veronica's jaw dropped. Holly and Josh opened that possibility in the collective because she had recited a poem about a woman who was pleading for sympathy because she could not accept that the man she loved no longer loved her. However, they did not react when Casey read a poem about a man who murdered his lover because he wanted her to remain forever pure and within his control. Sometimes, it sucked to be the virtual newbie.

"I'm not insecure," Veronica protested.

She saw Casey look at her with concern.

"Nobody's judging you, Veronica." Around her, the Moon Calf Collective gazed at her with understanding and support. "I know how hard it is when Casey's away most of the time."

"Veronica," Casey said softly, "where's the box?"

"What box?"

"The one I brought for you."

"The college pin?" she asked.

"Just get the box, Veronica. You put it in your pocket earlier."

Veronica drew out the box and handed it to him. Casey took the box and looked up at Josh. Josh smiled and approached Casey. Josh slapped Casey a few times on the box. "Moon Calves, let's go and grab the marshmallows from the supplies!"

The group rose and spread out. Veronica watched as everyone left. She then turned to Casey, who already had the box opened. Veronica gasped as she saw the ring, with its diamond reflecting the light from the bonfire and the moon.

"Casey!" she exclaimed.

He smiled and took the ring from the box. He picked up her hand and slid the ring on her finger. "There's nothing to worry about, Veronica. I'm so in love with you. We're getting married as soon as I graduate. I promise, Veronica. I'm going to give you more love than you'd know what to do with."

Veronica bit her lower lip and looked down at the diamond ring on her finger. By a bonfire, sitting on a blanket under the moon and the stars, Veronica found out she was going to be Mrs. Casey Gant.

She yawned.

"Tired?"

Veronica nodded. "We're opening the shop early tomorrow."

"When we're married, you know you're going to have to sell the business to Mac and Meg."

"I'd get bored out of my mind!"

"The kids will keep you busy," he pointed out.

Veronica wondered if the diamond wasn't too large for her finger. It looked odd sitting there. "We'll talk about it, okay?"

Casey nodded. He drew her close and kissed her on the lips. "Come on. You're so tired. I'll take you home."