Chapter 6

Veronica was in her room brushing her hair after taking a shower. She was finally ready to start the new day properly, all clean and in her own room. She walked up to her desk to get her cellphone and check her messages, if there were any. As it turned out there were no messages, but there were a couple of unanswered calls from Logan. She wondered for a while whether she should call him back or wait for him to call or just let it all go... Finally she figured that since he called so many times and didn't leave a message, he must have really needed to talk to her. So she pressed the call back button.

"And she's alive." she heard a familiar and somewhat cheerful voice.

"You called me." she started. "So I just wanted to see what that was all about." Logan didn't reply right away and she could hear him breathig. "Logan, are you there?"

"Yes, I'm here. And I called you because..." he paused for a moment. "Well, because I wanted to make sure you were OK.You left in such a hurry that we didn't even get a chance to talk or say goodbye or..." he stopped talking, not really sure she wanted him to go on. "So... Are you? OK I mean?"

She couldn't help but think how sweet it was of Logan to worry about her. And despite everything that happened, she knew that he cared for her and never wanted to see her hurt, no matter if they were together or not.

"I'm fine." she replied. "At least as fine as I can be considering the situation."

"Yeah, I know." there was another longer pause. "So how did everything go with your dad? Does he hate me even more than before? Although I don't think that's possible."

"He doesn't hate you, Logan." she tried to assure him. "He's just not a fan of yours right now."

"I can't say that I blame him. But everything is OK between the two of you?"

"Yeah, it's fine. He was a little freaked out at the beginning, but it's all good."

"So I guess I will be going now..." he started, not sure whether he really wanted to hang up now.

"Yeah, I guess." she knew they needed to talk about everything, but not right now and not like this. She still needed to be alone with her thoughts for a while. "Thanks for checking up on me."

"No problem." he smiled to himself and finally plucked up the courage to say what he really intended to say. "You do know that sooner or later we're gonna have to talk, right?"

"I know." she took a deep breath. "But right now I choose later. I need some time to think and I need to come to terms with Lilly's death. And I need to do it on my own, Logan. I just have to do this. I'm not ready to deal with us just yet. Not with all of this craziness surrounding the trial and everything. I'm sorry Logan, I just can't do this right now."

"That's OK, take all the time that you need." he said and there was something so honest about the way he said it. Something that made Veronica believe that he would really wait for as long as it was necessary. And since she didn't really know what else to say, she waited for Logan to finally say "Bye."

"Take care." she replied and waited until she was sure that Logan hang up before she put the phone away. She took another deep breath and fell almost helplessly onto her bed. Everything was so complicated right now. Lilly was gone, her murderer was running around free, Logan professed his love for her (well sort of!) and then forgot all about it. But that night on the beach changed something between them. She wasn't sure what it was, but as mad as she still was at him, the thought of lying in the sand in his arms brought her nothing but comfort and consolation. No matter what happened between them, she couldn't deny that warm feeling every time he looked at her or touched her. And she knew that those feelings weren't just gonna disappear, so she knew she had to try the best she could to make her and Logan work. Yes, he screwed up big time, but everybody makes mistakes and she just wasn't sure she was rady to give up on her and Logan yet. She knew this was gonna take a lot of time and effort, but they had the rest of their lives.

THE END