This chapter gets a little hectic. There are lots of P.O.V. switches and flasbacks... but it is longer.
Chapter 3
Veronica's P.O.V.
"To die, to sleep—to sleep, perchance to dream…"
To dream, I would close my eyes to the memory of a searing hot touch that glows at the ends of his fingers. I would close my eyes to flushed cheeks kissed by the lips of June sunlight at high noon, that's the way it feels with him. The sheen of sweat that follows you all through the exhilaration of summer days that fade into lazy, humid nights.
Life as we know it.
I would close my eyes to something far more restless than being awake.
The Hamlet essay test is tomorrow. All soliloquies are fair game and I'm hastily going through my highlighted quotes in the book when he calls.
A few minutes later I'm in my car, driving over to the privileged zip code, a few miles away on a planet all its own.
With his voice all hushed and hesitant over the phone he says, "No one's home."
He says, "You can come over. If you want."
What I want is to finish up and go to sleep.
What I do is mumble something to my father about having left my copy of Hamlet at a friend's house and being back in an hour or two.
I think I caught the raised eyebrow before I quietly hurried out the door.
I don't go through your usual boy-girl rendezvous ritual; no make-up, my hair is still carelessly pulled back and I didn't bother changing out of my Curious George PJs.
When he opens the door, it's not like he's expecting anything better.
(-) Flashback (-)
"Hey, it's Veronica Mars!"
She nervously bunches up the material of her white cotton dress in her fingers and doesn't reply.
"Who the fuck invited you!" Brad Walters inquires cheerfully. Though new to the 90909 zip code, he'd quickly learned who the school black sheep was.
Before she could say anything in response, his attention averted to the two boys behind her hauling up a new keg into the house, and forgetting about the unwanted guest Brad swung the front door to Shelley Pomroy's house wide open. She darted in through the door and began to walk gingerly around the house, trying to ignore the hushed whispers that followed her steps as she searched for a familiar face. When she saw her former boyfriend's apologetic face as some girl she didn't recognize traced kisses down his neck, she walked quickly by trying not to seem as unnerved and heartbroken as she felt.
"Golly, I wish I had my own stalker," Logan Echolls snarked pointedly, gulping beer from his red plastic cup as he walked by Duncan.
(-) 00 (-)
Logan's P.O.V.
I don't think she knows that she does this.
When Veronica is nervous one of her hands will wander up to her collarbone and her fingers will find that small locket. On days she's wearing something like a tank top, one of her hands will almost always be digging in a pocket where she keeps it.
He's the bad habit she carries around and thinks that nobody notices.
To look at her now, you would think she's so completely cool and collected. But even Veronica Mars has a giveaway.
"Hey," she mumbles as she walks by me into the dark house. Retreating inside, she looks as if she's being swallowed into shadows. When I shut the door, for a second, she's gone altogether.
"You, uh… want something to drink?"
She shakes her head no, and leans for a moment on the banister by the stairs.
This is the hard part.
"I…um, I can't stay long…"
"Uh, yeah. Okay…"
She purses her lips for a second and sighs. "I'll have some water…"
"Alright," I mumble and head towards the kitchen to get her a bottle and by the time I get back she's already headed upstairs.
I walk up to my room and find her seated on my bed, with her face in her hands. The creak of the door snaps her head up and she awkwardly clears her throat.
She slowly stands up and I step towards her until we're only a few inches apart and I tower above her tiny frame. I lower my face to kiss her and instinctively she pulls away a bit before relenting. The bottle falls from my fingers, rolling along the floor as I lift her into my arms and she wraps hers around my neck. And we calmly tumble onto the bed.
(-) Flashback (-)
She looks up at him, all astonished, flushed cheeks, stained with fading streaks of mascara tinted tear drops. Low hiccoughs and winding sobs escape her throat as she pulls her knees into her chest, holding up her dress where one strap was torn.
He looks down at his throbbing fist and the crumpled body on the floor. And then back at Veronica, who looks smaller than he's ever seen her. Abruptly, he unzips his hoodie and tosses it near her feet. She looks at it briefly, touched more by the small gesture than the fact that he had saved her, and feels her eyes dripping over with tears again.
Brad coughs suddenly, his entire form shaking on the floor. Logan looks down at him again, at the emerging black eye, the bloody nose and feels inclined to kick him again in the stomach. It was likely the kid wouldn't remember the incident at all when he would discovered these bruises the following morning.
He decides against it but rather stops to frown at Veronica one last time before shaking his head to himself and walking out of the bedroom into the blaring music of the party.
(-) 00 (-)
Veronica's P.O.V.
He slides his T-shirt on over his head and averts my eyes. Slowly getting up, Logan makes his way over to corner of the room, sliding open the window as he slips a cigarette between his lips. This is just to make it clear that he's a badass. I roll my eyes at him and he ignores it as he lights the tip.
When I'm done getting dressed, I hastily comb through my hair with my fingertips and pull it up as I start to leave his room. Walking by his dresser I pick up my keys and head out as he follows.
"My dad's gonna be out of town this weekend," I say quietly, without turning around.
"Okay."
I open the front door and step outside.
"Bye," he says, almost inaudible. I turn around and pull the cigarette dangling from his mouth, stubbing it along the wall by the door.
"Bye," I reply and he smirks at me before closing the door.
(-) Flashback (-)
She slides her toes into the sparkling, cool water, sitting at the edge of Shelley Pomroy's pool. The sunlight peeks discreetly through in pinpricks of light that sneak between the tree leaves, making the twinkling light bulbs that adorned them beautifully the night before look tacky and gaudy against the dawn sky.
Plastic cups and spilled beer litter the poolside with a few people here and there, lying still on patio chairs like decaying bodies.
Veronica Mars surveys her surroundings from the shrouded corner of the pool where the sunlight hadn't quite gotten to and she shudders, bunching up Logan's hoodie in the middle so that it wound around her more snugly. Truth was, she wished she could've headed home after she'd seen Duncan the night before but she'd told her father she was sleeping over at a friend's. Exhausted from the process of setting up his new P.I. practice, he hadn't thought to question her. And so she found herself with nowhere to go. Last night she'd wandered into an empty bedroom when Brad had cornered her and… well. She didn't want to think of the rest.
More and more, she found herself saying that lately. She didn't want to think of the rest. Her life with Lilly, Duncan… she didn't want to think of the rest. The way her family used to be…
Her old friends were her new enemies and she didn't understand any of it.
She caught herself wishing sometimes that her father had just done what was easy, or that maybe she had. But when she did allow herself to think of Lilly, of everything, she knew that getting to the truth wasn't just her father's crusade. It was her own.
"And she cries…"
Veronica looked up, startled to see Logan hovering above her, and realized that a teardrop had escaped her eyes without notice. She quickly wiped it away with the heel of her hand as he flopped down by her, splashing his feet into the water.
He looked at the boots he'd neglected to remove underneath the glint of the pool water and giggled. "I'm gonna be soooo pissed about that when I'm sober…"
She didn't reply but glanced at him in confusion. After last night she'd been expecting more compassion from him.
"So Veronica Mars… why are we all weepy this morning? Hm?" He gazed imploringly into her eyes, his mouth twisted into a cruel smile. "What the fuck are you even doing here?"
"Uh, I—"
"You realize that nobody wants you here, right?"
Veronica felt a sob making its way up her throat and she felt her body shaking.
"Oh, don't you fucking cry!" he muttered, his voice cracking. "You don't even—"
Logan stopped, his face paled and he doubled over, emptying the contents of his stomach. Veronica leapt backwards as he abruptly threw up on the edge, his vomit dripping into the pool, and slowly, she placed an apprehensive hand on his back. Suddenly, she noticed his shoulders shake and heard what seemed at first to be a choking laugh.
It was then she realized that he was crying.
Veronica pulled him closer into a hug and he tucked his head into the curve of her neck and he cried.
(-) 00 (-)
Logan's PO.V.
Was it the befores or the afters that made it all so hard?
In the befores there were the awkward silences. In the afters, there was the emptiness.
Before there was apprehension, after there was guilt.
She stubs out my cigarette and she offers me that almost smile and walks away, her golden hair swinging behind her. And I walk back into the house with its crevices crusted with loneliness and I flop back into my bed.
I close my eyes and I remember the first time I kissed her and that it felt like the first day of summer.
