Chapter 12

So she lied. About a lot of thing. She said she was going to go to the cafeteria and look for her brother but she couldn't do that. She had so much information about her life just sitting in her bag and she was toting it around campus as if it was nothing. The bag was weighing down on her like a ton of bricks. It's not that the bag was actually heavy, its emotional implications were heavy.

She sat down on the plush green grass and pulled her laptop out of the bag. She entered her password with a small smile on her face and then stared at the desktop image. This image was everywhere she turned. She wondered if something special had happened on that day because that image was still saved on her camera, it was her desktop wall paper and she was sure if she looked through more of her things she'd find that picture. Did she lose her virginity to him that day? Did he give her some sort of promise ring or something? Or maybe, it was just a really good day in their relationship. She remembered her conversation with Logan down at the beach, their lows were really low and their highs really high. Maybe that was one of the highs after a really low low. Even though she couldn't remember that day in her life seeing that picture made her really happy. From everything she had managed to piece together in her life, it wasn't an easy life and she had a lot of crazy things happening in her life. Logan seemed to be one of the nicer things to happen to her.

Veronica was just looking at the computer screen when all of a sudden there was a shadow standing over her. "Penny for your thoughts," said the shadow caster.

"Piz." She said shortly as she closed the top of her laptop and looked up at him. "How'd you manage to find me with a campus this big," she asked wondering if someone decided to squeal on her.

"I called the house and Alicia said you were at Hearst so I thought you were coming to see me. I thought maybe you got lost or something on your way to the studio," he said sounding hopefully.

Veronica used her hand to block the sun from her face and she looked up at Piz. She didn't really know what to say to him. She didn't want to be a bitch to him because he really didn't deserve that. He was a nice guy but he was trying too hard to be the guy that he thought she wanted. The funny thing about that was that Veronica didn't even know what type of guy she wanted and even if she wanted any type of guy.

"I didn't get lost," she said and for the first time her voice wasn't laced with sarcasm or anger when speaking to him, "I came to get some help with something from Mac and now shes out with her boyfriend and I just wanted some alone time outside of the house without the dog," she couldn't help but smile when she said that. She felt like her and Backup now had some kind of unbreakable bond. "It feels good to just be out without someone thinking they need to protect me," she stood up to be as eye to eye with Piz as she could possibly be.

"Listen, I'm really sorry about the way I acted towards you last night. You didn't deserve that its just that I have so much on my mind and I'm trying to figure out my life and I just feel like you crowd me sometimes. Like, my dad told me that you and I were dating and you never failed to mention it to me. If things are meant to be Piz, I'll just know it. I'm sure I'll get that feeling but right now I'm so preoccupied with other things its not fair to you for me to pretend I'm into being your girlfriend," she was going to go on but Piz interrupted her.

"So what, now you don't want anything to do with me? You want me to just disappear and hope that maybe sometime in between everyone coming to visit you that you'll have a random thought and just miss me or something," he said sounding his voice filled with sadness and anger all in one. Sanger. That's what he was, the feeling of sadness and anger.

Veronica changed her stance and was now standing with her arms crossed over her chest and it was now her turn to get all defensive. Apparently she was on a roll for pissing people off today. "Seriously, did I say I never wanted to see you Piz? All I said was that I needed some time without feeling pressured to remember something and c'mon put yourself in my shoes. Imagine you didn't remember anything and I just came around insisting I was your girlfriend and always trying to kiss you and feel you up. Believe me, you'd feel very uncomfortable," she said trying to convince him of what she was feeling but then remembered she was dealing with a teenaged guy. He'd probably be very happy to have her trying to feel him up regardless of if he remembered her or not. "I'd love to have you around Piz, seriously, I mean that, just can you ease up a bit. Let things happen naturally," she said trying not to sound defensive although she knew that was the message she was getting across.

"It just seems like you want to see everyone but me," he said lowering his eyes to the ground.

"Didn't I promise that I'd come to the studio to watch you do the show? I meant that. Apparently I'm a woman of my word. I will come and see you there but today just isn't the day but it will be soon, I promise."

"Promise," he repeated and she nodded her head to indicate that yes she did promise. "Okay well, I have to go before the show starts without me although that's rather impossible. He extended his hand out to her and Veronica took his hand and let out a laugh.

"Well that's formal isn't it," she said through her laughter as she leaned in and gave Piz a friendly hug goodbye. "I'll call you to set up a day to come watch you, now scrat before you are late to your own show," she said and watched him run off.

After Piz was gone from her line of sight she sat back down and put the laptop back in her bag. This just didn't feel like the place she really wanted to be when she found out about her past and how everyone she loved or she was told she loved was a suspect in a murder trial. In fact, at that very moment she didn't even know if she wanted to open those solved cases. The file names weren't exactly something that she thought she should be involved with. She was only 19 years old and apparently at 16 years old she was working on unsolved murder cases. How was that even remotely normal? How could her father let her do something like that? She wondered how many other kids in Neptune dealt with things like that.

She laid down on the grass and used her bag as an uncomfortable sort of pillow. The warm sun against her skin felt amazing. For the first time in a long time she felt like a normal teenaged kid. At that very moment she felt like a kid who was on a break in between her classes just enjoying a nice moment outside instead of in a dorm room with course books piling up on each side of her while cramming for an exam. Even though she knew it was pretend it felt amazing. This was the kind of thing she was supposed to be dealing with at her age, not having amnesia and trying to figure out her life all over again.

As her eyes were closed Veronica was pretending that her life was all put together. In her mind she wasn't amnesia girl with a pretty sorted past. Instead she was Veronica Mars, a pretty average student with above average talents at solving crimes. She was always surrounded by loving friends and family and she had a great boyfriend. At the moment the boyfriend's face was blanked out. "Aw c'mon even my imagination is drawing a blank there," she said opening her eyes feeling frustrated with herself. She figured if she'd just let her imagination run wild maybe a blank would be filled in. She just chalked it up to her subconscious being as confused as her conscious.

"You know people might mistake you talking to yourself as a sign of you going crazy."

"I thought that people already thought I was crazy," she said with a smile on her face.

"Yeah but you don't need to prove them right," he said.

"Maybe they shouldn't be that concerned with my life," she retorted.

"But you are unbelievably interesting."

"Says who?"

"Says me."

"And you are special why?"

"My mom always told me I was special and I just believed her. Are you calling my mother a liar."

"Maybe not a liar but probably an ego stroker."

"Low blow Veronica, very low."

"Sorry Logan, you left yourself open for that one."

She couldn't take her eyes off of him and at the same time she couldn't stand to look at him. She was feeling guilty for running off the night before but when she was around him it was like nothing else mattered. He didn't sulk around avoiding her because of the previous nights events. "Can I sit or is this patch taken," he asked her using his foot to indicate the area he'd like to occupy.

"Well you see, that's just the thing, I wasn't talking to myself, I was talking to my invisible friend Brandie but I'm sure she won't mind if you take her seat. She just went to get some ice cream but she'll be back soon and then you'll have to move to that patch over there," she pointed to the other side of her.

"I'll save myself the trouble and just sit there now," he smiled at her as he took the few steps to his allotted greenery.

"I was hoping you'd say that, You see if you sat where you originally wanted to I'd have to squint the entire time I was talking to you because the sun would be in my eyes."

Logan let out a laugh, something that she hadn't seen him do much of when she'd see him. "Oh so my vision can suffer but not yours? How about we go sit under that tree over there. That way we can both maintain our 20-20 vision?"

"Agreed," she said. Logan instantly got up and held his hand out for Veronica to grab. She took his hand and he helped her up. She took her bag and swung it over her shoulder and followed Logan over to a large willow tree.

"Logan," she said after taking her seat and getting comfortable against the tree, "I'm really sorry abo-"

"Don't apologize for anything Veronica. It's just not like you," he said with a half smile on his face which showed one of his dimples.

"Wow, I'm the non I'm sorry type," she asked and then decided she didn't care. She had something to say. "Let me talk please…. I wanted to say that I'm sorry about the way I acted last night. I don't have the right to be angry at you for something you did when we were broken up and I certainly don't have the right to be angry at you for something I don't even remember. I know that last night you said you wanted me to remember hating you but I can't remember that and in all honestly, I don't want to remember that."

Logan watched Veronica speak. His eyes wouldn't leave her face. He watched as her lips formed the words she was speaking and he found it hard to believe that Veronica Mars was apologizing for something, especially something she didn't remember doing in the first place. He looked into her blue eyes and tried to see if there was something deeper to what she was saying. Was he meant to figure out some kind of riddle or something or was she being genuinely honest?

"Veronica, the last thing I want is for you to hate me but the way I figure it is if you remember being so angry at me that you would walk away from our relationship you would remember how much I meant to you." He said trying to explain his logic to her knowing that it was hard to follow.

"I don't think you get it Logan," she said looking down at her lap where her hands were nervous acrobatics. "I was thinking about everything when I went home last night. And when I say everything I mean EVERYTHING. I thought about the way you looked at me in the hospital the first day I woke up and how you never came back after that. I remember everyone else trying to force their memories of uson me but you were the only one who didn't try to convince me that we were meant to be. I thought about how last night you cried trying to get me to understand how sorry you were, and well, call me crazy but…" she let her voice trail off not knowing how to continue.

Logan looked at her and wanted to tell her to go on but he didn't want to force her to do something that would make her uncomfortable. He was just happy that she spent her night with thoughts of him. "I didn't come back because I thought you needed space." He said making sure she understood that he wasn't avoiding her. He wanted to give her space so she could figure things out.

"You are the only one who figured I needed space, everyone else was too busy making me look at pictures of things and telling me what I would do every single day hoping to spark a memory. I've kind of come to the conclusion that maybe I won't be able to remember anything and I should probably start making new memories." There wasn't any sadness in her voice. Right then and there she had come to terms with how her life would probably be. Instead of trying to figure out the past she would have to live in the present and take things day by day. Life was too short to try to remember something that the doctors said might be gone forever.

"Like I was saying, I feel really comfortable around you Logan and every time I see that picture of the two of us I get this really happy feeling so I'd kind of like it if you could stop making yourself sparse and if the two of us could hang out. If it helps at all, I'm not mad about you sleeping with whoever you slept with when we were broken up," she said laughing at how strange the words sounded coming out of her mouth. She was no longer mad about something that happened when they were broken up that she no longer remembered. It made sense in Veronica Mars land.

"I'd really really like that," he said resting his head against the bark of the tree. "You have no idea how much I'd like that," he said turning his head and facing her.

"No Logan, you have no idea how much I'd like that," she smiled at him and this time the smile came from her eyes. She felt this magnetic field of energy between the two of them as their eyes locked. She moved a couple of inches forward and Logan reacted by moving a few extra inches closer.

He brought his head towards her face. He put his ear next to her lips and then brought his face up to hers, "Your lips are saying something," he said softly.

"What are they saying," she said finding it very hard to breath all of a sudden.

"They said that they are lonely," he said and then gently put his lips against her lips. Veronica's eyes closed instantly as she let the kiss happen and she surprised herself when she started to kiss him back. It was like an out of body experience. Her mouth moved against his mouth hungrily as the two of them kissed as if they had been waiting their whole lives for a moment like this. Veronica hadn't felt this alive since she woke up from her coma.

The only thought that Veronica had when their kiss ended was wow. His kiss had set her entire body on fire and she felt like she was in a scene in one of those cheesy movies where the couple would kiss and fire works would go off. She never realized how wonderful cheesy could feel.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have done that," Logan said without looking at Veronica.

"You are right, you shouldn't have," she said her cheeks were completely flushed and her heart was racing faster than a Formula One race car, "You should have never ended that kiss," she said with a smile as she leaned in for another kiss.