Veronica
Standing on the sidewalk as Logan pays for the taxi, I look up at the house and slowly exhale, letting the events of the past few days escape my body. Coming home feels safe. It feels right. Like a reset. We would come home while Gory and the rest of C.H.A.D. were rounded up and when we returned to campus in a week, things would be better.
Before we headed to the airport last night, we had dinner with Jackie and Wallace, to check in with the hero of the hour. It had been announced by Dean O'Dell that Wallace's bravery, saving both Logan and Jeff, meant a special commendation from the college. Wallace tried to downplay it, but everyone was so proud that we decided that a celebration was in order and a few of us got together for pizza and drinks at his place to toast his bravery. Parker and Mac were there as were a few of his friends from the basketball team. Jeff was on his way to recovery, but with a shattered leg and punctured lung, it would be a long time before he could celebrate with us. Logan's headaches were still coming and going, but the doctors cleared him for travel anyway.
Logan hauls his suitcase next to me and gives me a weak smile. Dressed in comfortable jeans and a black Henley shirt, his winter jacket is open in the relative chill of the California morning. I realize that in my jeans and favorite black wool sweater—my jacket unzipped as well—we kind of match, and it feels both funny and appropriate for us to have travelled home like this. He had mixed feelings about coming back to Neptune, but did agree that it was the safest place for us right now. I give him a soft kiss on the lips, lingering to see if that would make him smile more. When I pull away and see that it did, my smile mirrors his.
"Don't just stand there, kissing on my sidewalk…" Dad's voice calls out and I jump away from Logan to see him laughing in the doorway. "Come on in, you two! Lianne has breakfast in the oven."
Shaking my head, I grab my suitcase, pulling it behind me as I walk towards Dad. He meets me on the steps and takes the suitcase from me, embracing me in a one armed hug. I close my eyes for a second and savour the feeling of being safe back home. Releasing me, he yanks the suitcase up the steps.
"Hope you're both hungry. Your mom made a feast for you guys."
My belly gurgles loudly and Logan chuckles. "I think Veronica's stomach speaks for us both."
"Good, because I can't eat all of this myself."
I can smell the most wonderful aromas floating through the front door as we approach the house, and my stomach growls again. Food. Real food. Not made in a cafeteria or our little kitchenette. Bacon. Real, honest to goodness eggs, not powdered ones. Fresh bread and coffee.
Stepping into the house, I drop my carry-on and shimmy out of my coat, hanging it up near the door and bee line to the kitchen to find my mother there, slicing pieces from a huge frittata on the counter. She grins at me, eyes bright and chipper, and my heart leaps. She is sober. Sure, it was only 9:00 a.m., but her glowing skin and sparkling eyes tell me what I need to know; there was no whiskey in her coffee today.
"Veronica! Sweetheart…." Mom comes around the kitchen island, her arms wide open to wrap me in a tremendous hug, which I gladly sink into, enveloping her with my arms.
"It's so good to see you, Mom." Tears prick my eyes and I try to keep them at bay as she continues to hold me, rocking ever so slightly.
"Oh, I missed you," she whispers, and I squeeze her tighter.
"I missed you, Mom."
It was true. Right now, it was true, because in my mind, nothing else matters. The deception. The alcohol. The problems. It doesn't matter to me in this moment. All that I care about was the feeling of being safe with her right this minute. The rest we can deal with later.
She lets go of me, holding my shoulders as she smiles, tears now dancing on her eyelashes as well. Releasing me, she steps toward Logan, her arms open wide, and for a split second, he looks shocked that she's going to touch him. But when she hugs him, he reciprocates, giving her a gentle squeeze back.
"It's so good you're both here," she says and releases him, walking back to her work at the island.
I take Logan's hand and lead him to a spot at the table next to mine. A tickle of joy runs through me at the sight of four places set. The last time I sat here, there were only three, but now our family is four. All of us together.
Mom has already poured coffee and orange juice and I lift my cup before I even sit down. When it hits my palate, my eyes roll back in my head. It's fresh ground beans and so much better than the stuff Logan and I drink at school and at this rate, I may never want to go back.
"You enjoying that coffee?" Logan chuckles, sitting down and reaching for his cup.
"God, yes." I slip into my chair, cradling my mug of pure liquid pleasure. "We need to up our coffee game at home."
"What do you mean, we? I'm still the one who makes it for us."
Breathing in the fragrant chocolate and nutty notes, my eyes flutter. "Okay. You need to up your coffee game, honey."
"Your wish is my command, darling." He shakes his head, taking a quick sip from his mug.
My dad laughs from his seat next to me. "Well, aren't you two the couple."
"What's that supposed to mean?" I give my dad a playful elbow and he runs his palm over his bald head.
"It means that I'm glad to see that your partnership is working out so well." Dad pats me gently on the back and smiles across at Logan. "A good match is a wonderful thing to see."
Logan blushes slightly, his eyes darting from me to my dad. "It is a good match. But we're both working hard to make it that way."
"Well, that makes it even better." My dad smiles warmly and sits back in his chair, taking his own coffee in hand. "There is only so much Orwell can do. The rest is up to the partners to work through."
Mom comes around us with two plates, one she places in front of me, one she places in front of Logan. They both have a massive slice of a colourful frittata, two slices of fresh buttered bread, and a small mound of bacon. Saliva pools in my mouth and I'm so happy I want to cry.
"This certainly isn't toaster waffles," Logan states and I giggle.
"No. It's not."
I pick up the bacon and take the first bite. It's crispy and salty, not the rubbery stuff we get at the cafeteria and I am definitely never leaving home again. My mother places a plate in front of Dad before sitting with her own meal and I take it as a sign to just dig in. For a few minutes, they let us devour our food in silence before my mother begins the conversation again.
"You know, Veronica, I have some bracelets you can borrow to hide those…"
She nudges her chin in my direction and I look down, realizing my bruises are peeking out from my black sweater as I move my hands. They aren't as bad as they were—now just a greenish-yellowish stain around my wrists—but they are still there, reminding me of what happened. Heat rises in my cheeks and I keep my head lowered towards my food as I adjust the cuff of my sweater lower.
"Thanks, Mom. If I venture out tomorrow, I may take you up on it."
"You have nothing to hide, Veronica," Dad states, his hand coming to rest on my shoulder and I stop eating. "This is Duncan's fault, not yours."
"I know Dad, but…"
"No buts. Duncan attacked you. You did nothing to provoke it."
My hand shakes as I place my cutlery down on my plate, my stomach suddenly rejecting the idea of food.
"But, what if I did, Dad?" I can't look at him and so I keep my eyes on the tiny blue floral pattern running around the edge of my plate. "He said that I was flaunting my relationship with Logan in front of him, and it's kind of true. I let myself confront him while I was alone, and not with Logan like we had planned on doing. And when it happened….I couldn't fight him off."
Logan's hand slides onto my knee under the table and I drop my hand down to clasp his, giving it a squeeze.
"Oh, honey, it's not your fault. That's just the type of man Duncan is," Mom says from across the table, her face now filled with concern.
"Veronica, your mother is right. This is not about you; it's about Duncan." My eyes raise to meet Dad's. His lips are pressed to a thin line and he takes a calming breath before continuing. "There's a reason Duncan wasn't matched with anyone, and this is one of them."
"What?" My head jerks and I frown at him in confusion. "What do you mean?"
My mother and father exchange a glance and I'm even more confused. Dad rubs his neck and shakes his head with a sigh.
"Guess I should tell you the whole story…"
"Whole story? There's a whole story?" I look to Logan and he leans closer to me, his hand coming to rest on the back of my chair as his attention fixes on Dad.
"After the war, when Orwell was in the initial phases, I was part of the newly developed Regional Safety System, so I participated in the planning process," Dad begins slowly, hesitantly. "In the first year, it was predominantly the questionnaire that matched people, but we quickly realized that people could lie on the test, so they started to bring in geneticists to begin to isolate those traits that were deeply embedded in a person's DNA. The DNA samples collected, used in combination with the questionnaire, created a better picture of who was a better match. But it also allowed Orwell to weed out certain character traits."
My stomach flips and I cringe. This sounds like what Duncan and Piz were talking about—genetically selecting people to create super-humans.
"Back in the years after the war, as part of my job, I was brought in to consult on which traits may make for criminal behaviours. Excessive obsession or fixation with someone or something. Excessive hostility or anger issues. Excessive thoughts or actions identifying themselves as morally or racially superior, and others inferior. They were looking for things in both the DNA and tests that would be corrupt. They also looked for inconsistencies between answers and what the DNA analysis would tell them to see if people were lying. It all came together to form a larger picture of who they wanted matched with others, and who would get separated from the evolution of society."
I want to speak but I can't. My brain feels overwhelmed by what is being told to me.
"So, Duncan…" Logan adds. "He didn't get matched because he was being weeded out."
"It seems that way." Dad huffed, shaking his head. "I pulled some strings with people I still know on the Orwell project and they gave me his file. From the DNA sample taken at birth, he was marked as having excessive aggressive tendencies and fixations. But when he did his questionnaire, it was incongruent with other DNA findings about his personality, so he either lied on his test, or was trying to hide parts of himself for whatever reason."
"He…he admitted to me that his mother told him how to answer the test," I murmur and Dad nods.
"Then that would be why. He didn't answer as his true self."
"But the aggression…" Logan says, his hand squeezing my knee. "They could tell that? From DNA?"
"From DNA at birth, yes," Dad affirms. "The DNA is the nature of who you are. The test when you are sixteen years old is how nurture has played into your behaviour. Somehow, even if he was lying, Orwell must have caught that his aggressive nature was not countered by nurture."
Logan's face goes white and he nods, pulling his hand away from me under the table and from the chair. I can see behind his eyes that he's gone into his head again, probably replaying his life with Lynn and Aaron as parents with my father's information firmly set as a guide.
"But nurture is everything," Mom responds. "It's your family. It's your friends. It's what you learn in school. It's what you learn in the world. When your father and I were matched, it was more difficult because so many of us had lived through so much with our families and the education system back then and then the war. They said that the trauma of what some of us had been through in our lives had altered our DNA. That's one of the reasons why the New Democracy has counsellors to help all of us work through our problems." She reaches for her orange juice and I see her hand shake ever so slightly as she brings it to her lips for a quick sip. "But you both are part of a new generation. A generation free from the traumas we all experienced."
Free.
The word sticks in my brain.
Free.
Growing up, we talked about freedom as being a collective idea. Before, there were people subverting other people's freedoms through racism and misogyny and misinformation. But now, we were free from these oppressions. Finding our careers and one true match freed us from the worry and want, the hardship of discovering these things on our own.
Then why is it that as my father keeps talking about Orwell that I feel less and less free?
"Veronica. Are you okay?" Dad's hand rests on my shoulder again and I give my head a shake to get myself out of my thoughts.
"Yeah. I'm fine. It's just a lot to process."
Dad chuckles and picks up his coffee again. "That's an understatement, sweetheart. I know it's a lot for you to understand right now, but please, if you take away anything from this, just know that everything that I've done, and the New Democracy has done, has been for the good of all of us. It's been a protection for us and others."
"And it's so much better than it once was," Mom adds with a smile as she offers her hand to Dad. He takes it and smiles back at her and for a moment, I'm happy that they seem happy again together.
Checking in with Logan, I see him focus again on his food, eating quietly next to me. He doesn't make eye contact and that alone tells me volumes. Once we finish, there will be time for us to talk. But for now, I pick up my fork and knife again, making an attempt to get as much good food in me as I can before it disappears again.
Logan
I follow Veronica through the living room to her bedroom, pulling my suitcase behind me. I'm so full of food I feel like I'm waddling and I'm a bit euphoric from being this stuffed. Cafeteria food was okay. Veronica's mom's food was practically orgasmic. Closing the door behind me, I spy Veronica drop onto her single bed on her back like a starfish, spreading to each corner.
"So…I'm sleeping on the floor tonight?" I chuckle, dropping my carry-on next to her dresser and parking the suitcase near hers a few feet away.
Frowning up at me, she tucks her legs and arms to her body and rolls onto her side, hugging the edge of the bed. "No. We just extreme spoon."
"Extreme spoon." I laugh and come around behind her. If we were at home, it would be my side but this bed is so small, it could all be my side with my six-foot frame.
Sliding in next to her, I curl my body around hers, slipping my arm under her neck so my bicep replaces the pillow under her head. Her ass presses against my groin and my knees tuck behind hers. We both wiggle together, tucking ourselves neatly together and she releases a long sigh of contentment.
"See. We fit."
I kiss the back of her head and chuckle. "All of my appendages will be numb tomorrow morning."
"Well, we'll be naked too. So getting rid of the bulk of our clothes should help."
"Oh, I'm not going to be naked," I protest. "Call me old fashioned, but I don't want to run the risk of your parents hearing us have sex, thank you very much."
As if to prove her point, she bucks her ass into me and my cock twitches in my jeans as she laughs. "Are you sure?"
Shifting away from her, I shake my body back and forth and the bed moves, slowly but surely, faster and faster until the metal headboard begins so hit the wall, the springs and frame sending up a high squeal. Veronica laughs and reaches back to grab my thigh.
"Okay! Stop. I get it. We'll just have to cuddle for the next week."
Wrapping my arm around her waist, I pull her close, nuzzling her hair and she sighs.
"That actually sounds nice. I mean, sex is great, but I also enjoy just being next to you." The footsteps in the room above us get louder and we both turn our heads to look up to the ceiling. "And it will keep that from happening."
A little snort of laughter rises from Veronica and we continue to follow the footsteps as they move around. "Do you think they're trying to send us a message?"
"Look, I don't care how open and honest our teachers were about sex, I'm pretty sure that your parents don't want to hear us having sex any more than we want them to hear us having sex."
"You're right about that." Veronica rolls in my arms to face me and plants a small kiss on my nose as she moves into a comfortable position. "Let's leave some aspects of our lives private, shall we?" I reciprocate her kiss on her lips and she sighs. "Considering the Government knows everything about us, right down to our DNA, maybe a couple of secrets are okay."
My fingers trail up her arm, moving across her cheek to sweep her hair behind her ear. For a moment, I try to collect my thoughts about what Keith told us at breakfast, and how my mind won't stop thinking about it.
"I keep wondering...if Duncan tested high for traits that involved his anger, what did it say about me?"
Veronica reaches up and presses her palm to my cheek, frowning. "What are you saying? That you think you should have been eliminated from partnerships too?"
"I don't know…." I shrug, my hand coming down to rest on her hip. "I mean, you saw what I was like when I found out what happened with Duncan...I was legitimately ready to kill him."
"But you didn't."
"But I didn't."
"Why?"
She sits up on the edge of the bed, her arm bracing herself as she leans towards me, her eyes firm and serious.
"I...I could't. I mean, I thought about it, but I couldn't." I exhale hard, tucking my hand behind my head on the pillow. "As mad as I was, there was no way I could take his life. But I could easily beat him to a bloody pulp."
"And why? Was it something inside you that you learned? Or something more that kept you from going further?"
Pausing, I replay the scene in my head. Seeing Duncan's face and the overwhelming urge to smash it with my fist bubbles in my belly once more. The thought of how he hurt Veronica—the image of his hands around her wrists—and the hurt and fear in her eyes when she told me. Then, the feeling of my mother, smoothing my hair as I tried to sleep, in pain, after Aaron spanked me so hard I could barely lay down in my bed.
"I wanted to teach him a lesson," I murmur. "Like my father taught me. You break the rules, you get punished. Physically. Emotionally. And my anger scares me to death, because I don't want to turn out like him."
"Logan, that's just part of what your father taught you. Obviously, it is not part of your DNA, or Orwell would have eliminated you from being matched. "
"I don't know, Veronica…" Emotion starts to rise like a giant lump in my throat, catching my words. "What if Orwell made a mistake?"
Her fingers brush through my hair and I close my eyes, trying to keep back my tears. That's when my brain begins to falter, sending a wave through me of self-loathing, reminding me that I don't deserve her love.
"There was no mistake, Logan." Her voice is soft and calm and I keep my eyes shut, trying to focus on her words. "You are a kind, loving man, who was handed a rotten, rotten father. But still, you've risen above it. Orwell must have seen that in the answers on your test. It must have seen that you're smart, and caring, and loving, and that's why it put you with me." Her breath is shaky and I open my eyes to see her looking down with a glassy gaze. "You chose not to follow in your father's footsteps. You chose to volunteer and help people. You chose to be a good friend to people and a loving partner. And that's what sets you apart from Duncan. You made choices in your life that were so much different from his, and that's why we're here now, together."
I rise slightly and she forces a smile across her lips. "Now, you need to make the next hard choice, Logan. You need to follow through on what we talked about and tell my father about what happened to you. You need to break free of Aaron and everything he's done and get the help you need so you can move on. So we can move on, healthier and happier."
Taking in a sharp breath, I squeeze my eyes shut for a moment. She's right. I know that she's right. I said it myself a few days ago. But being here, now, it's feels so much harder to do.
"You don't have to do it now," she whispers. "We have a week here. But you know that I'll be here to support you when you decide to do it."
When her hand rests gently on my arm, I open my eyes once more to see the tears running down her cheeks. I open my arms, laying back down on the pillow and she curls into them, as her head presses against my chest. I kiss the top of her head, my arms closing around her.
"I will. I promise you, I will." My cheek presses against her crown and she relaxes into my embrace. "If I can't do it for myself, then I'll do it for you, Veronica. Because I want us to have a long and happy life together."
"I want us to be happy, Logan. I want you to be happy, that's all. Truly and unequivocally happy."
Happy.
"You make me happy, Veronica. The kind of happy I haven't felt since I was a child." Pausing, I close my eyes, letting my memories safely wander with her in my arms. "My earliest memory I have was me being happy, with my mom. I must have been three or four years old—before Aaron started to abuse me. We were on a set and we took a walk down by the beach. It was morning and the tide was receding and the sand was so shiny and flat that it looked like glass. We took off our shoes and we walked barefoot, making tracks together while she laughed at the seagulls swooping over us. She let me fill my pockets with seashells and rocks, and when we got back to the set, she gave me glue and I glued them on a piece of plywood from a set. When I showed her what I made, she cried and took it back to her office and leaned it up behind her desk. She still has it there."
Veronica is quiet and for a second, I think she may have fallen asleep. But a tiny sniffle lets me know she's awake and I look down to see her looking back at me through teary eyes.
"Maybe then that's what Orwell saw in you, Logan. Maybe it saw the nurture of a mother's love in you, and it balanced out whatever Aaron has done."
My heart swells and I kiss her forehead tenderly, lingering to take in the soft vanilla scent of her. Laying back down, I pull her closer, my eyes lifting to the ceiling once more.
"Maybe, Veronica. Maybe."