Day 17
Another day, another twelve-hour shift, walking endless steps around the carrier, passing hundreds of faces. I can't possibly know all their names. Some of them smile, some of them don't. I'm bone-tired from multiple traps today and hours of EMCON radio training.
I tried to neatly compartmentalize my thoughts while I was here. When I was out, it was all about work, I buried myself in it; I was in the maintenance division so I spent countless hours in the hangar, surrounded by the planes and the workers. Joking and laughing and working my way through the pages of maintenance logs.
Keep busy, just keep busy, Logan. If I dare to pause, even for a moment, she filters right back in.
Veronica.
I remind myself that this is my work, my career. A money-making enterprise endured by mature adults the world over. Most people would kill for this job. Being entrusted with fifty-two million dollars of government steel on the daily. Pulling G's, getting to play (very responsibly, of course) with the coolest toys in the world. So why is this deployment so goddamn hard?
The ache for her was visceral, lingering in the back of my subconscious at all times. Eat. Veronica. Fly. Veronica. Spend five minutes alone in the shower, definitely Veronica.
I'm only 17 days in and 4587 miles of ocean apart.
4587 miles to ponder, alone in my bunk, turning through the pages of my notebook, trying to find a quote, something less inspirational and more telling. Something that can communicate to her from across the never-ending barrels of swell.
Something to say: I'm here. Thinking of you. Please wait for me.
I pick up the phone and record the message.
"This is Logan, with this week's inspirational greeting 'You know you're in love when you don't want to fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.'– Dr. Seuss."
Day 24
"I can't believe you're going to get paid more than me," Josh complains as we walk to the hangar.
"I'm not sure who's the bigger idiot. You for not applying for the promotion, or me for getting it. Nothing says success like a fuckload more work for an extra seven grand a year. Back in the old days, I could spend seven grand in an easy afternoon."
"Ahhh old Logan. He was fun. Old Logan and I had good times, he always shouted the drinks."
"He had his moments."
"Just putting it out there, I don't give a shit what rank you are, I'm not going to call you Sir."
"Your Highness would be fine," I reply with a smile.
I'd opted not to have a formal pinning ceremony. Captain Dalton had insisted, but after a life in the reluctant spotlight, I was beyond the need for fanfare. He still made an effort though, dragging as many people into the hangar bay as possible and pinning me in a much lower-key affair.
So I stand in front of my peers in my whites, with a smile from ear-to-ear. They cheer and crow like it's the Superbowl.
The epaulets are fixed on my uniform, three gold bars beneath a star.
Lieutenant Commander Echolls.
It had a nice ring to it.
I'm proud, I am. I've worked hard, studied, shown focus that I never knew lurked inside me.
That little yellow Post-it sat in the pocket on my chest, over my heart for the ceremony. It was folded three times in a perfect tiny square. It bore the name Veronica on it, and her touch that was once there. All the cheers were nothing compared to the presence of that Post-it. It made sense, part of her being there, she was the catalyst for my forward progression.
Official duties completed, I wander over to partake in the cake devouring. Standing at the dessert table, I pick up a plate and Admiral Thomas appears next to me.
"Chocolate?" he asks.
I shake my head, "Vanilla."
He screws up his face before shrugging and cutting himself a piece and then one for me, loading in my plate.
"Recommendations from Commander Brennan, Captain Jefferies, and Major Daniels you're either very good at your job, or very good at bribery…" he speaks into his cake, scraping off the icing with a fork.
"Bribery Sir, some blackmail," I say, quiet enough for only him to hear and he shakes his head with a smile.
"Congratulations Lieutenant Commander."
"Thank you, Sir."
Late at night, my stomach is still churning from the icing that I didn't scrape off. I lay in bed and considered telling Veronica about my promotion, sending her a picture, telling someone who cared. But, I didn't. In-person would be better, everything was better in person.
Day 31
Trips to the computer room were intermittent, snatched moments between briefings and paperwork so I had to make the most of my limited time.
I email Veronica nonsensical garbage, then wait with bated breath for a reply. Classification laws prevented me from divulging any real insight into my current location or activities. So we kept things breezy and light, attempting to keep the communication lines open when cell service wasn't an option.
My fingers paused, mid-air, I stare at the cursor blinking before me before finally typing.
To: vmars
From: navyboy
To her Majesty V. Mars,
Last night I went out on deck and I counted 378 stars before I gave up. It started raining and I decided I preferred to stay dry rather than keep counting. I forget how much we can't see stars in Neptune. Floating in the [undisclosed] ocean, on moonless nights the sky is so black you put out your hand and you can't even see it. It's kind of like blindfolding yourself, twice, then walking into a dark closet. It's one thing when you're just out and watching the stars, is another entirely when you need to land a plane on a night like that.
P.S. Eat a vegetable each and every day.
L. Echolls Esq.
Day 32
When the response comes I read the words and feel her within them, emanating like electromagnetic waves from the out of date monitor. I see her in my mind, sitting at her work desk, or on the couch at home, typing away at the keys.
To: navyboy
From: vmars
To the Honorable L. Echolls,
Hmmm… you're in an ocean with stars… you're really starting to narrow down your location there? I went out, as instructed, and I looked at these stars you talked about. I saw a homeless man lying in the gutter, eating marshmallow fluff directly from the jar, he offered me some. I declined. I looked up and thought I saw a star, but it was just some floating rubbish. If that's not a metaphor for Neptune I don't know what is.
P.S. I ate a sleeve of Pringles today for dinner, that's potato, right? I think that should count.
Yours Sincerely,
Vegetably-challenged Veronica
Day 47
We'd been out all morning flying. I kept glancing at my watch, converting the time to Pacific Time, realizing that the opportunity to call her on her Birthday was swiftly drawing to a close. I didn't want to miss it.
I'd sent specific instructions to Dick, the way you would entrust coordinating a wedding with a five-year-old. He'd been given pickup addresses and times before I left, he was sent reminder texts one week prior, then final warning texts today. The cake and the pre-selected bouquet of flowers had been ordered. All he had to do was pickup and delivery. I'd also thrown in that he would receive bonus friend-brownie-points if he performed a lap-dance for her, clothing optional. But instead, when I call it appears that he'd made his delivery, enjoyed one too many celebratory beers, and promptly fallen asleep on Veronica's couch. I would expect nothing less from Dick Casablancas.
"Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday dear Veronicaaaa..."
"No," she cries.
As I sing I can hear her squirm. Fuck, I love to make her squirm.
"Happy Birthday to you," I sing with sugar, a slow smile spreads over my cheeks.
"How does it feel to be so old? I was going to get Dick to deliver a walker."
She makes a derisive snort, "Watch yourself boy."
"Maybe I should have gotten you a cane to pry Dick off the couch?"
"Just know that I'm making a mental inventory of all these smart-ass comments about my age buddy, I'm penciling it all in my diary, and in seven months… you'll pay."
"I truly can't wait. You're so cute when you're vengeful."
"I'm glad you think so."
"How was your day?"
Terrible, without you.
"Good."
"How was your birthday day?"
She pauses.
"Good," she repeats in a similar fashion, then changes the subject, "I think Dick misses you, he drowned his sorrows in cake and only wanted to talk about you. Thankfully he didn't cry, that would have been weird."
"Weirder than his offer to strip for you?"
She makes a gagging noise, "Good point."
"Put away any bad guys this week?" I ask.
"Not as many as I'd like."
"Tell me fantastical tales of this week's great Neptune escapades… let me live vicariously," I encourage.
"Hmmm… I worked, had a birthday lunch with Dad - got ice cream after - two scoops, fudge mint, then Dick came over and I ate an obscene amount of the cake you sent."
"You are a terrible storyteller Veronica Mars." I shake my head, "What are you doing sitting around eating cake with Dick? It's a Saturday night, a birthday on a Saturday night what's more, in some cultures that's regarded as an opportunity to socialize? Meet new people? Fraternize with fellow members of our species?"
"Our species is overrated."
I chuckle, "You know, in this experiment where I live with five thousand of them for a sustained period makes me kind of agree with you."
"I really only feel an affinity for very few of these things we call humans."
I humm in agreement.
I just want to keep her talking, about life, about existential nonsense, about nothing. Just keep talking, let her voice etch into the membranes of my eardrum, so I can remember it for at least the next few hours.
"I didn't always hate people," she muses.
"You kind of did."
"You're tolerable, in certain circumstances… when you're sleeping, for instance."
"That's because you use my sleeping body for your own personal pleasure. So many spoons, nooks…" I tease.
"Yeah, you really hated it."
"It was tolerable." I use her word back against her.
"Well, I'm going to say something and not just because you're the Birthday Girl, which means I have to be at least twenty percent nicer to you."
Her breath seems to hitch a little, she pauses. I want to keep her talking because I know with each word the moment I would have to say goodbye crept closer, like a shadow across my heart.
"You, Veronica Mars, are my favorite person of the whole species."
I swear I can hear her smile, the sound is incredible.
I fight the urge to ask the question that haunts me, is there someone else? Is it still me? It's been 47 days, have you moved on?
In her reply, she answers the question I'd been unable to verbalize, "You're mine too."
It wasn't an admission, or anything more than friendly nonsense, but it was something. I felt confirmation that she was still in this, still waiting for me.
It felt like my birthday.
Day 81
"So," asks drunk Veronica "What are you wearing?"
I take a deep breath and stare at the bunk above me. Drunk Veronica is a dangerous phenomenon. I'd successfully kept some questionable friendly antics at bay with sober Veronica. She seemed determined to breach the boundaries I'd formed on my departure.
She did as I suggested, going out to make some friends, but instead of making friends, she has too many margaritas and calls me.
Not that I mind at all.
"Veronica, we're just friends, remember? Friends don't ask friends what other friends are wearing in bed." I absentmindedly run a hand back and forth over my bare chest wondering why the hell I'm still clinging to this ridiculous friend notion.
"We are friends, I'm just being friendly ."
I imagine her vividly, laying on her pale blue sheets, with the tiny triangle pattern scattered across it. Her hair fanning out behind her on the bed. She's wearing her black silk tank top, one fine strap has slipped off her shoulder leaving it bare. Jeans low on her hips, exposing an inch of paradise that I want to trace my lips across. She's a little drunk, so her shoes are probably off, haphazardly kicked beside the front door, or directly in her doorway and she will trip over them in the night when she stumbles out for water.
"Friends. No hanky panky," I warn.
"I'm here. You're there. I couldn't hanky panky you if I tried."
"If you were here … would you try?" I ask.
Well, I resisted her for a sum total of three minutes, excellent job Echolls. I embody precisely zero willpower.
"Without a doubt," she replies earnestly. "So, back to my question, what are you wearing?"
I sigh deeply, and continue to feed the beast, "I'm just in boxers, I was planning on going to sleep." It's only 4 pm here, but it has been a big day.
"Interesting," she replies innocently.
I hesitate, don't do it, Logan.
Don't ask.
"What are you wearing?"
Weak, I'm so fucking weak.
"Nothing," she whispers back. The second her voice hits my ear, I feel the blood leaving my brain, traveling directly to my cock.
This vision is even more dangerous than my previous one. I see her again, laying against those same blue triangles, this time, all skin.
I look across, checking that my curtains are properly drawn. They are. The flecked fluorescent light from the desk seeping through the fabric.
I stay silent, scared to speak, to encourage her.
"Tell me, Logan, when you said you were about to look at my photo, were you just going to look at it?"
"No," I whisper, confessing the truth. I pull the pillow from behind me and place it over my head, like a silencer. Of course, the ship is never quiet. There is always the hum of the engines, constant machinery above, the creaking of the hull. All of these noises are excellent for disguising certain late-night activities.
On the carrier, you're never alone, and occasionally there is the need to take care of certain urges. Most of the time you just get it done as fast as humanly possible in the shower or silently in your bunk before someone catches you. Some people are better at masking their undercover activities than others. I took pride in my stealthy approach and zero strike rate for detection. Hence, my patented pillow silencer.
"So..." she encourages.
"Veronica, you've been drinking. We're just friends, remember?"
"You can't take advantage of me in my drunken state from where-ever-you-are."
"Okay. I'll tell you what I do when I look at your photo," she teases and I groan into the pillow, fearing that this little interlude would soon result in the end of my streak.
"I stare into your eyes, and I think about that morning you left. I think of the shower. When you slipped your hands between my legs and I run my fingers between my thighs and imagine they're yours."
My breathing quickens, I clench my eyes shut against the fabric.
"Your turn, What do you think about when you look at my photo?"
Am I going all in here? Seems like it. She is drunk and she calls me. She is horny and she calls me . Honesty, worse things could happen. It made sense to succumb to her temptation and I also really want to hear her moan into my ear.
"I think about that night at Wallace and Shae's wedding, and I imagine what I should have done. What I wished I had the courage to do."
"And what was that?"
My erection is resting against my stomach, just under my navel, pulsating, desperate to be touched. My hand travels down and pulls down the elastic of my boxers and my cock pops out, released from its enclosure. I run my hand along the length gently and whisper, "I imagine you beside me, running my hand along your stomach, turning you towards me and kissing you. Flipping you onto your back and running my lips over every inch of you, licking your perfect pink nipples, tasting you." In the darkness, I can see it, vividly, her stunning breasts before me.
"Oh God, I wish I did that."
"Me too," she sighs.
Without a fucking doubt.
I wrap my hand around my length, more firmly this time, hard and ready with visions of her. I stroke slowly up and down, pausing to run my thumb over the tip.
81 days without her. 81 days without sex. This isn't going to take me long.
"Your turn."
"I imagine soaping you up, feeling your hardness in my hands. Bending down and putting you inside my mouth. Tasting you. You are so damn tasty, Logan."
"Jesus Christ," I whisper-groan, my pace quickening with the thought of the way her warm mouth wraps around it, the little tongue swirl she does that she knows drives me to the edge.
"And you lifted my chin and pulled me up and kissed me. You dropped to your knees, lifted my leg over your shoulder, your tongue dipped into me, and I couldn't hold myself up; it felt so good. My legs started to give way, so you wrapped your arms under my ass and held me up, held me up and licked me until I came."
"I never wanted to stop," I reply. It's true.
I can hear Veronica's sheets rustling, imagining her, fingers buried deep inside herself. Talking to me, thinking of me. I pull my hand away for a moment to steady myself. I don't want to come yet. I want to hear her come first.
"Then I stood up and kissed you, pushing you against the shower wall. I lifted your legs and wrapped them around me, and I dipped inside you. God you felt so good, Veronica, so fucking good, I couldn't stop. I had your ass in my hands, and I came so hard."
"Oh, Logan," she cries out loudly, the sound of her orgasm music to my ears, it reverberates through me. I grab my cock again, more fiercely this time and stroke harder.
My balls tighten "Veronica," I sputter out, thrusting my ass off the bunk, coming hard all over my abs in a mess.
I hear a light thud down the line.
My cheeks crack into a smile, still nestled under my pillow. I feel that post-orgasmic bliss rolling through me and stupidly confess, "Veronica, I love you, I miss you so fucking much."
I get no response.
"Veronica?" I wait, hearing shuffles in the background, "Veronica?"
The sound of her breathing comes back on the line and I ask "Did you drop me?"
I don't get a response, just more labored breathing.
"Are you okay, Veronica?"
"No," she replies.
"Are you okay?" she asks.
"Absolutely not."
"I feel like I should light up a cigarette?"
"You don't smoke," she laughs, breathy and cute.
"Maybe I should take it up, for moments like these?"
"Moments when you have accidental phone sex with your friend ?"
"Precisely."
Day 82
The days start to blur, surrounded by masses of metal and the sea, vast, wide and endless. When we pull into Apra Harbor in Guam, land is a welcome relief.
As soon as we're on solid ground, Josh and I take a taxi to Talofofo, hire surfboards, and hit the waves. After we're sufficiently waterlogged we head into the main town. I take a quick photograph and send it to Veronica before strolling the stores, searching for a gift for her.
I always bring her home a souvenir, the tackier the better. I find a little shop, selling mostly jewelry and I run my eyes across the table of wares. I almost buy her very own puka shell necklace, but put it down when I see the empty snow globe, sitting on the shelf.
Our souvenir tradition stipulates that the gift must be void of any location details. It was all part of the game. I pay for the tiny globe, it's the perfect combination of smart ass and whimsical annoyance to drive her crazy. Just the thing for Miss Veronica Mars.
As part of my initiation as a Lieutenant Commander, I'm required to throw a party in my own honor at my own expense at the next port. It's a wetting-down at a local bar in Guam. Navy custom dictates that due to my promotion the bar tab is my responsibility tonight, and everyone (myself included) is making the most of the drinks. The tiny bar is spilling with the squadron and fellow officers, it's loud, very loud. The speeches are over now, thank god, my foibles have been related ad nauseam by my Captain and every squadron pilot with a memory and a mouth.
It's a kitschy tiki-themed bar on the main strip not far from the ship's moorings, a favorite for sailors. Featuring faux palm trees, ornamental surfboards and bar staff wearing coconut bras. The beer was cold, that was all anyone cared about after 82 days at sea.
We've now entered into the joke-telling part of the evening as it knocks past 2 am, and things are starting to get messy. I think I saw Rugrat vomit into a decorative plant, then pick up his glass and continue drinking. I think, because my own sobriety is increasingly questionable at this point.
ALF attempts to stand and spills his half his beer on the bar, "Okay, okay I've got one," he pauses to create the appropriate amount of tension and attention in his direction. Josh looks directly at me and rolls his eyes.
"What's the difference between God and a pilot?"
"God doesn't think he's a pilot." He cackles maniacally.
I hold up my beer, taking the floor. "How do you know there's a fighter pilot at your party?"
"He'll tell you."
I notice Kate is hovering closely behind me and one of the LSO's, Michelle, isn't far behind her. They seem to laugh the loudest at my joke, which is fine but we've all heard it a thousand times before. When she laughs, Kate touches my bicep and flicks her head back making her dark brown hair sway in the breeze.
The floor is moving quite a bit now. When you've been at sea for protracted periods and return to land it can feel like the ground is moving. So I take another drink, it seems to solve my land-sea legs, or I'm so drunk I can no longer feel it?
A woman across at the bar, sitting with another girl raises her beer bottle to me before taking a long sip, extra emphasis on the wet mouth around the bottle.
This is the problem with being single, well, technically single. When we finally get a moment off the boat, away from the rules and the prying eyes, everyone is suddenly in heat. Combine it with the fact we're sitting in an open-air bar on a stunning balmy evening in the Pacific with copious amounts of alcohol consumed.
Everything on the ship was amplified. We were locked in a floating high school, things were bound to get confusing sometimes. We were forbidden (at least technically) to copulate, which of course, means everyone just wants to get it on all the more.
Kate and Michelle take their leave to the bathroom, leaving me with just the boys.
Burger scoffs as they depart, looking at me with indignation, "Why do you always have a harem?"
"I want a harem," Alf groans sadly and sips his beer.
"You couldn't handle a harem," I throw back chuckling.
"I would try," he retorts.
Alf grumbles, "You waste your harem. It's like you don't even appreciate it anymore."
I shrug. "It's hard being looked at as a piece of meat. I'm a person too, I have feelings, dreams, desires."
"Fuck you, Mouth," he bites back.
We laugh and I run my hand through my hair, which is starting to grow out a little.
"See, even when you talk shit like you look so good that and even I don't know whether to punch your face or buy you flowers."
"Peonies are my favorite," I wink at him.
"Noted," he replies, batting his eyelashes.
A glass smashes on the floor in the background, and someone screams TAXI, a brief reprieve from the attention on me.
"I just want to live vicariously through you, be a single man, let loose with your fan club. I bet they'd even both do you at the same time," he groans.
Maybe, a while ago I might have had a bit of a reputation with the ladies. I was young and excited to be out of my own. But now we all suffer from the grass is greener malaise; I want the picket fence, they want the single life. They forget the realities and the loneliness that accompanies it.
"Okay, enough!" I hold my hand out in a stop sign, sick of the grilling.
Of course, it continues, all the more due to my protest, bunch of insubordinate fuckers.
I walk out of the bar, beer still in hand, into the warm evening air. Half a dozen people stand in the street, the red glow of the cigarettes between their fingers. Kate appears behind me, following closely.
"Logan!" She calls out and I spin around. She smiles at me and I start picking at the label on my beer.
"Beautiful night," she looks up at the sky wistfully.
"Mmmm."
"I didn't say it earlier, but, I'm really proud of you Logan, you've come so far." There is a distinctive uneasiness that runs through me as she says the words. Like they're the right words, coming from the wrong mouth.
"Thanks."
"I love Guam, it's got some good memories."
I nod in reply.
"Remember that time we got the hotel here, the bubble bath?"
I nod, focusing my attention up the street.
"Want to revisit it Lieutenant commander?" she runs her fingers over my collar and trails down my shirt, a drunken effort at seduction.
I shake my head. "Not really, no."
"Come on, we can celebrate your promotion, the proper way. Just between us, no one needs to know."
I stand before her, very drunk at this point. Distinctly wondering if I'm crazy. Bars, drinks, is this what Veronica is doing right now? Is she out, meeting new people, like I suggested? Is some guy propositioning her right now, like Kate is propositioning me?
I start to feel sick.
Kate looks at me confused by my lack of response, asking, "You're still single, right?"
I laugh, bitterly. "Technically yes," but most definitely not.
I'm a single red-blooded male, standing before an attractive woman who is insisting I go to a hotel room and have sex with her. What is wrong with me?
I should say yes, shouldn't I? Not one ounce of my being wants it.
Leaning against the brick wall behind me, I turn and bang my head on it gently, over and over. Kate looks at me concerned. It's a lesson in how to go from sexy to worried about your mental stability in warp speed.
"Logan, I'm sorry. It's cool."
"Kate," I stop my head banging and look at her, "You're great, but I love someone else, we're not technically together … it's complicated."
She takes a step back, suddenly embarrassed, "Are you okay?"
I nod and she retreats back into the bar.
I clung to the inebriated faint hope that the earth would open up, swallowing me whole and spitting me out in Neptune, next to my blonde love, instead of here, rejecting a brunette.
I fix up the tab at the bar and make my way back to the ship in the darkness, my steps zigzagging back and forth on the pavement, the ground swimming. On shore-leave, I normally get a hotel room to enjoy a brief respite, but we were due to sail at 7 am, it hardly seems worth it.
I drunkenly ponder, surely there was a space-time continuum somewhere in the belly of this steel beast? A DeLorean, TARDIS, something, anything? Where I can slip back to 2006 and punch college Logan in the face, for not understanding Veronica's fears, her inability to trust, for not trying harder. For using his right-hook instead of his words. Because college Logan's inability to make this work robbed him of years with Veronica. Years I was now desperately trying to recoup.
Then, we can re-emerge, past-shifted and Veronica is waiting for me at home, mini-vans, babies, dogs barking in the yard. Certainty.
I collapse into bed, clothes still on, and am asleep in minutes.
Day - 87
I open my locker in the ready room and start to strip off my flight gear. I wait until all the others have streamed out and Josh and I are alone.
"Hey, Josh, how much are you thinking you want for your house?"
He chuckles.
"What?"
"It took you long enough to ask."
I narrow my eyes at him while pulling off my g-suit, wet from sweat, "How did you know?"
He shakes his head, "For you, 850, cut out the realtor's take."
I mull over the figures in my head, I had anticipated the price pretty accurately.
"Did you just spend that whole flight thinking about it?"
"Of course not, I was very busy doing my humble duty, my focus was wholly on the task at hand."
Yes.
"If you want it, Logan, it's yours. Saves me having to get it ready to show it." He sits on the bench and pulls on his boots, "I didn't take you for the whole suburban two-bed two-bath white picket fence kind of guy."
"Maybe I'm becoming that guy?"
"Have you spoken to her?" he asks, well aware of the delicate situation.
"Not about us, no."
"If you're thinking about buying a house dude, you need to start having some serious conversations."
"I am aware of that, thank you." I turn back to the locker, ready for this conversation to end, wishing I never started it.
"You wouldn't even be thinking about this if you didn't think that there was some chance, right? Get your ducks in a row, sort your finances, be ready for the questions when they come."
I nod, knowing he's right.
I head to the computer room and send an email to my accountant, Geoff. It couldn't hurt, right? Just getting a feel for the options. I just wasn't sure that I would be able to make the figures work.
Who would have thought, Logan Echolls, concerned about finances? Baffling.
Four years ago, I'd stumbled into my accountant Geoff's office and demanded that all of Aaron's assets, my share of the trust be donated. Naturally, he thought I was mad and drunk. He was right, I was drunk, very much so, still reeking of whiskey from the night before.
I'd been on leave, drinking in a bar with Dick and a bunch of random associates. Dick had shouted a round to the bar. Then for the next round, it was my turn.
As I handed over my credit card, the bill well over two thousand dollars, Dick hooted to the crowd, "Thank you Aaron Echolls!" The crowd repeated his toast and then downed the drinks.
I froze.
I stared at my drink, the drink that Aaron Echolls bought. From the grave.
It hit me like a roundhouse to the jaw. I was spending the money of the man who killed my girlfriend, whose actions caused the death of my mother, the man who very nearly killed Keith, and Veronica.
I hated every single thing about that man, what he did, who he was, hated that no matter what I did, he remained a part of me. The thought of him festered like an open wound in the back of my subconscious and left a foul taste in my mouth. How could I despise him so fiercely and at the same time proceed to spend his money, treat it like my own?
That evening was the very last time. I used it to buy enough alcohol to nearly cause my own death. I woke on the pavement near the beach at midday, pondered taking it out of the bank in hundreds and dumping it off the Coronado Bridge, so it could float down like my lost childhood. I didn't want any of it, not a fucking cent.
Geoff had made me sit on it for a week to "consider my options." Apparently people didn't regularly sign over twenty million in inheritance and royalties to charity.
But I was done, the decision made, I was saying adios to my somewhat chaotic existence and past life. Money was useless, specifically Aaron's money, at least to me anyway. I donated all of it anonymously to a women and children's shelter. Maybe, just maybe, it would save one family from the unmitigated heartache that I endured. Childhood trauma was mine to farewell with the stroke of a pen. That's what I told myself anyway and I think it healed me, at least a little.
When I didn't see his money anymore, I had no reason whatsoever to ever think about him again. I was erasing him and his legacy from the earth, and I liked that idea just fine. I kept my change in financial situation secret for some time, I didn't tell Carrie, and certainly not Dick. They would just think I'd lost my mind, and they would probably be right.
Now, considering the prospect of homeownership and the middle-class horrors of mortgage commitment was the only time in six years I'd even thought about the money. I wanted more than anything to just be my own man, I had no interest in his money and what that meant. I did, however, keep mom's. There was around five hundred thousand left in the trust from her and I'm glad I kept it, it's the only part of her that remained. I think she would like the idea of me spending it on a house, especially one with Veronica.
Mom always liked Veronica, she called her 'sweet'.
So I had to learn how to live like a regular person. I was by no means frugal, but I had to consider my finances in a way that I'd never experienced in my life. It was oddly exhilarating. It made me feel like an adult, like more of an independent human than emancipation ever did.
Now I just have to wait for the accounting gods to tell me if this is a crazy pipe-dream or something within reach.
I stare at the monitor, awaiting a reply.
The house was my ticket, the way of showing her that this was what I wanted.
You, me, us.
Day 94
"Hey you."
"Mr. Echolls, I thought you'd forgotten about me," she replies, her voice is like my favorite book, I've read it a thousand times, dog-eared the pages, but I still want to pick it up again and savor each word.
It's been a while since we spoke, the reception has been terrible, things have been busy again. We've been on missions each night for six days in a row, when I was getting a chance to sleep, I wasn't sleeping well.
"How are you?" I ask, because there is a sound to her silence, her breathing that is telling me that things are not all sunshine and rainbows in Neptune.
She replies quietly and listlessly, "This is torture, Logan."
"I know," I drop my head, "I'm sorry."
There is a distinct tightness in my chest, a guilt that I'm causing her pain, but it's also my pain. They combine together in a dangerous cocktail. Hearing her voice crack just makes it all the more real.
"You have nothing to be sorry for. This is your job. I'm so proud of you, for what you're doing. I guess I'm just struggling at the moment, ignore me."
"This is a big part of me V. If we do this, I'm going to be gone a lot, sometimes I'll be away more than I'm home."
"I know," she replies quietly.
"You've got the rough end. You're the one left behind. I realize it must be difficult. I can't imagine how I'd be if the tables were turned."
"I'm sorry, I don't mean to make this harder for you. I'm being ridiculous."
"No, Veronica, you're not. Long-distance is hard. I don't know anyone here who finds it easy. We're all struggling in different ways. There is lots going on here to distract me most of the time, but it doesn't mean I don't miss you, think about you." I think about you all the time. "As your friend, I need you to know that I love you. No matter what you decide, I'll still be there, okay?"
We're both silent, content just to listen to each other breathe.
Day 102
I'm sitting in a cafe in Japan, enjoying a beverage of some form. I can't actually read the characters, but the bottle is purple and bears fascinating pictures of coconuts and grapes complete with smiling faces. It's quite delicious.
I look down at my phone, squinting in the afternoon sunlight.
9.49pm from Veronica: It's official, I've found another man
I read the text and stop breathing for a moment, staring at my phone in suspended animation. Here I was, sitting on the other side of the world, musing over the curious contents of my foreign beverage and she's found someone else. My eyes rapidly re-read the message over and over, like doing so might change the words and have them make sense in my mind.
I swallow, hard. As I do, another text comes through, a picture message. I open it to a picture of Veronica, on her couch, snuggling up with a copper-colored boxer. Veronica is smiling, a wide, happy smile and I can't help but smile right back at the phone like a fucking idiot.
I'm just so happy, she's happy, and that she wasn't talking about a human male.
I breathe again.
9.53pm from Logan: I have to say the delay between the first message you sent and the photo was a little troubling for me.
9.53pm from Logan: But, he is a fine-looking fellow. One that clearly enjoys your lap as much as I do.
9.54pm from Veronica: Sorry, didn't think about the delay.
9.55pm from Logan: Is he a keeper?
9.55pm from Veronica: He is.
9.56pm from Logan: I think it's a great idea. I can't wait to meet him.
9.56pm from Veronica: Hopefully sooner rather than later.
9.57pm from Logan: I hope so too. X
Canine sidekicks were something that I'd always associated with Veronica. I was glad she was finding happiness and something positive to fill the days while I was gone.
Day 123
I spent the better part of today pondering stealing a jet and flying home. If only I could make it further than an hour and a half without running out of fuel.
123 days in and we are in the depths of shared-living hell, the stench in the room was otherworldly. At this stage, everyone's idiosyncrasies, which at the start I find endearing, just served to piss me off. Humans were not meant to live confined in such close quarters for a protracted period of time. Mass-produced, pre-prepared food had lost its appeal, even if it meant I never had to wash a dish. We were at the crumbs of the chip bag, there wasn't much left to say, the jokes had all been told.
I started to crave doing mundane things; grocery shopping, using an ATM, touching surfaces that weren't made of steel. Every time I opened my locker I stared at that black duffel, jammed into the top shelf. I wanted to pack it again, I wanted to get the fuck out of here. That duffel and I had such a tumultuous relationship. I both loved and hated it, depending on where in the world I was and which direction it traveled with me.
An inexplicable edge to my mood had been festering for the better part of a week. I was done with waiting, it was gnawing at my insides. I am ready to go home, I've started to forget the warmth of her skin, the way she tastes.
So I cling to the fragments of her I can access. A yellow Post-it, a photo of her, the soft pauses in her words as she leaves long, rambling voicemails. These get me through, those pauses remind me that I'm not alone in this, we are in this together.
Side by side, 5640 miles apart.
It's just geography.
I hit the head and climb into bed with a longer than anticipated sigh. The sighs are definitely deeper, the longer into deployment.
This was a big one.
I open my phone and browse through my camera roll, watching the last few years of our friendship scroll past my eyes. I sigh again, shutting down my phone. Looking at pictures was only exacerbating my melancholy.
The voice of Josh comes from above me, "Echolls, are you pining?"
"Fuck off," I reply as lightheartedly as the swear allows.
"You sound like you're pining."
"Don't make me come up there," I threaten.
"It's okay," he attempts to reassure me, "I pine too sometimes, just more quietly."
I chuckle and draw my curtains.
Day 132
I hide in the bathroom to record this one, fucking people everywhere, I need to evade all the listening ears. It takes two attempts at the recording because halfway through someone walks in and unzips. I stand in the cubicle until I hear the door close, back in my little cone of silence.
"This is Logan with this week's inspirational greeting, 'When we miss someone, often, what we really miss is the part of us that with this someone awakens.' -Luigina Sgarro."
As I turn off my phone I pray that I don't have to record many more of these.
Day 147
Today, our captain gives orders for the squadron to return to base in two days. The feeling of elation permeates through the group. Of course, we love doing this, but we all want to be home. The first thing I do is pick up my phone.
11.35 am from Logan: Good news
11.35 am from Veronica: Well, what is it?
11.36 am from Logan: We've just got word. Looks like I'm coming home.
11.36am from Veronica: Do you have an ETA?
11.37am from Logan: Soon.
Even if we only had two days left, we were still out for another night sortie tonight. No rest for the wicked. Not half an hour after I send the message, I'm back in the ready room and climbing into my gear.
I didn't get seasick, but I was working myself up to it. The closer we got to getting home the more a peculiar feeling formed in my gut, a ball of anxiety and dread, combined with unbridled excitement.
"How was the wife, happy?" I ask Josh as I slide my flight suit over my legs.
"Oh yeah, I might even make it home for one child to be born!" he fist pumps the air.
"Tell Veronica?" he asks.
I nod, knowing these two days are going to feel like a year in carrier time.
My jet is out of action today for maintenance, I've been put in Alf's jet, he's in the medical ward in isolation with a stomach flu. We make our way onto the deck, it's black, black like ink and it takes my eyes a moment to adjust from the sterile lighting inside. There are no stars to count tonight.
The gentle warmth of the trade winds were long gone. It was the beginnings of winter in the north Pacific, a harsh icy gale was the new norm. The wind stings my face it's so cold, prickling against my skin.
I check my ordnance with the WSO, run through the final checks of the aircraft and climb the ladder to the cockpit. Still performing my usual superstitious name touch, even if it's not my own. As I do, I notice that the A in ALF has come off a little, half of it is missing. A sense of something strange lingers, I feel my spidey-sense-juju tingle a little. But I convince myself it's just the weather, the nerves of night traps burrowing their way into my subconscious. I've spoken to the plane captain, I've checked myself, the plane is fine.
Everything is fine.
Take off is textbook, we coordinate a training Self Escort Strike mission. This deployment we hadn't seen any direct combat, it was an excellent opportunity to hone our skills. After my last two deployments in the Gulf, this was a welcome relief.
As we start to reform for recovery. A high pitched alarm 'neep neep' sounds on my monitors. I look at the OBOGS indicator on the panel, it tests the oxygen in my regulator. Maybe it's just a glitch?
I continue onwards, it sounds again. I adjust the breather on my face a little, I feel fine, don't I? I wiggle my toes to check. My digits seem to respond as predicted.
'Neep Neep' the alarm sounds again, the third time now. I wiggle my toes again, no change. I reach out to pick up my pen, and that's when I notice it, my fingers are tingling. The pinky is the worst, on both fingers. Pins and needles. I relay a message to the boat, letting them know about my alarms, but as I speak, I realize my lips are tingling too.
Fuck.
I fiddle with the regulator tubing, check the connection, checking for kinks, for a leak that would be causing a break in the oxygen supply. But I feel nothing out of place. Reverting to my training I turn the regulator all the way up and start to descend, as fast and as safe as possible. At the same time, I'm radioing the boat, relaying my OBOG readings. This is an emergency, everyone on the carrier will be scrambling. The rescue helicopter, the Angel, is moving in close to the boat. I need to descend and land as quickly and safely as possible. Of course, it's pitch black, there is no moon. A night trap is exceedingly stressful at the best of times, this is taking things to the next level.
All signs are pointing to me being hypoxic, for some reason not enough oxygen filtering through my blood vessels. My cells and tissue are shutting down. It sneaks up on you, who knows how long you've been without an adequate oxygen supply? It was well known to manifest in tingling digits, and before you know it, you've lost consciousness, lost it all. I need to focus, I need to stay conscious. An unconscious pilot in a single-seat jet - is a very bad day.
My situational awareness is usually honed perfectly, but I can feel my brain fuzz. Marshall calls out for my stats and when I can't read the monitors properly, I can see them, but I don't know what they mean. I know it's bad.
Calm yourself, Logan, breathe slowly, don't hyperventilate and draw more of the already depleted oxygen.
I descend as low as possible, all the while trying desperately to stay conscious. I can't flick this mask off yet, we're too high. I need to get below 18,000 feet. The air is more oxygen-rich at that altitude. Stay conscious Logan.
With zero visibility outside, I watch the altimeter drop as I descend.
23,000.
21,000.
Breathe slowly, Logan. It's harder than you imagine in a helmet with continuous oxygen or whatever the hell was or wasn't coming out of the goddamn mask.
18,000.
15,000.
I clear the clouds into sleeting rain. When I hit 10,000 feet and I don't feel an improvement I swat at my face, desperately clip off my mask and gasp in the ambient air. The fuzz fades, a little. My fingers are still numb and I can taste a distinct metallic tang on my tongue.
I now need to land this fucking plane, in the dark…
I pull down, they're waiting for me. Land Logan, concentrate. You've done this hundreds of times now. Easy as pie. Right?
Marshall is talking me through it, he knows that I'm compromised, I need that little bit of extra assistance tonight. Paddles have come out too to help. All everyone wants is all assets back on the ship, safe, but tonight has other ideas.
The deck is pitching before me as I come in. If only I could see it. Concentrate. Concentrate. Breathe Logan, let your lungs fill with air, everything will be better. The Carl Vinson rolls before me, up, down, side to side as I cross the deck, I hit the throttle, full afterburners.
And I feel it, the distinct lack of feeling.
The harsh pullback that should normally slam me against my buckles, doesn't come. Sparks fly behind me in my peripheral vision. Instead, I'm launched, full speed back into the black. The radio repeating "405 Bolter! Bolter!"
I missed the wires.
Holy shit.
I can hear it in the tone of voice coming in from control, this is not good.
I bank hard to the left and reform immediately to try to land again.
My Bingo cards are up, my fuel was getting very low, this was my last opportunity before I'd have to refuel mid-flight, which means going back up. Right now, I just wanted to be down. In the ready room, having a cold drink, tucking myself into my bunk, and thinking about being with Veronica in forty-eight hours.
Veronica, Veronica, Veronica.
My body is drenched in sweat, drips trickle down my face, I can feel it pooling underneath me on the hard seat.
Descending again, this time the black seems to have more crosswind than before, I try to correct against it. I 'dirty-up' flaps down, landing gear down.
Come on, Echolls. I try to sharpen my troubled mind, adrenaline does that. It helps to block the sheer terror. But my hypoxic body had other ideas.
I'm close, the deck before me, lights in a line. I fly the ball, or attempt to. Marshall is doing everything they can to help, but I don't know if it's working. Everything seems infinitely more difficult when I can't think properly.
10, 9, 8, 7.
Veronica, Veronica, Veronica. It chants in the back of my mind like a choral hum. I focus on it. Veronica, adrenaline, jet fuel, and the desire not to smash into the stern and explode into a million tiny pieces today.
6, 5, 4.
Suddenly, the stern wall appears in my lights before me like a black mountain in the sea.
3, 2, 1.