It's been a year now since he was knocked into the wind. Head first, knees not buckling as he was launched from the leather seat of the blue Hyundai Tiburon onto the flaming gravel. His hair stinging with fiery ash down to the shaved sideburns, and the stitches from an old wound coming undone. Shrapnel zipping across his throat, earlobe, chin. Apparently he turned his head right before the bomb went off, so the most wrecked part was his right ear and the side of his scalp, which immediately began to melt and bleed. His chest area was the most damaged, since the impact was the strongest there. About three of his ribs broke from the explosive, and another two from the impact on the asphalt. Surprisingly, no metal bits flew at his heart, which I guess some say was lucky. It's probably the only reason he's still alive. But his back is wrecked, his right eye isn't healing, his lungs are unstable, and he's been in a medically-induced coma for a year.

This is around the time that my insurance runs out. Well, that's a lie. It probably should have run out months ago, but Dad's been picking up a couple extra cases to make ends meet. We pay in installments, which makes me feel even more like Logan's life is hanging by a thread. Since the Penn case got publicized, people have been calling from all over the country to find out if their husband is cheating on them (yes), whether or not their mother is coming home (no), and if a political party was tampering with votes for the 2020 election (figure it out, genius). Mars Investigations has been taking advantage of all the free publicity, but I'm not exactly travel-ready with Logan like he is. My worst nightmare would be leaving him for a case only to return wearing a black dress and carrying a pamphlet reading, "Logan was one of the good ones," or "He loved to laugh," which would be especially horrible because Logan never loved to laugh. You could tell that he thought something was funny because his lips would curl up, eyes brighten, and he would softly snort. If it was really funny, he would open his mouth a tinge so you could see his perfect teeth and throw his head back, eyes squeezed closed. But he hasn't done any of that for a year, so maybe that's just another thing I've made up to make him seem more real to me.

Logan was no angel, though. I always have to stay a little mad at him for something. It was part of our relationship, me being a little irked at him for something unrelated during the day going wrong, and him taking the frustration so sweetly and kissing me on the forehead to calm me down. Since then, I've been upset that Logan didn't hear me call out his name before the car blew up. If I stop believing I'm angry, I'll probably lose my mind. Some of it has to be his fault, because otherwise it would all be mine. And I'm not sure how long I could live with that.

In the meantime, I take local cases with Matty, who we hired last summer as a paid intern. She's a good distraction first and foremost, but I've grown really close to her in the past months. If before I was upset with her for taking our gear, now it's all forgotten. Matty loves Pony, and comes by to walk him every morning at 7am. She usually finds me on the couch, sticky and tired from my run. If I've got a particularly bad bout of depression, she'll sit and talk to me about a case until I start crying, and then it'll be over. She knows I hate it when people see me cry, so she gets a box of Kleenex from the bathroom and then takes Pony outside. But most days, I'll be packing up my bag with the necessary taser, band-aids, bullets, voice recorder, and camera when she walks in, then I'll go with Matty and the dog and we'll talk about the Seasprite's renovation process until we get to the office.

I think Matty's doing okay. In her case, it's also been almost a year since her dad died, but she seems to be handling it well. His murder was already avenged, so we'll have to wait a couple more months until a bus goes over a cliff. I've been trying not to steer Matty onto my amazing life path, but what can you do? In the words of my hero and coincidentally also my father, "A long time ago, I tried to get this teenage girl to stop taking cases, but she kept putting herself in danger, and there was nothing I could do about it." Once you get the wheels on the tracks, it's not going to stop chugging forward until it crashes into a No-Entry sign.

I've been teaching Matty the tricks of the trade, and she's a quick study. She already perfected her innocent little girl and her Martina Vasquez on the phone, but is still having trouble with the slutty girl who is definitely very interested in you. I can't blame her, I'd want to kick a dude in the nuts too if he asked to see where he could put his thang. It's all about impulse control, I guess. A place known for its lack of impulse control is Matty's new school: Hearst College. It's only a few classes, she reassures me, like criminal justice and psych, but let's just say that Matty now knows what has happened if you wake up in someone else's dorm with your head shaved. In graphic detail. So she splits her time between Hearst, Mars Investigations, and her mom's house, but never stays in the dorms for too long. I hear she's antisocial except for a few friends, hates the Pi Sigs, and is the personal PI on campus: Matty's well on her way to becoming a fully-fledged Veronica Mars.

Speaking of close friends, Mac is back from Istanbul. Other than having a really great tan and streaks of green in her hair, she's mostly the same. Mac got an offer to return to Kane Software, but after seeing the mess I was in, she came to work for us. Now I see her all the time, and we gab about old times and braid each other's hair and pretend like nothing's changed. But things have changed. I'm.. me, and Mac has a real boyfriend named Michael Bradley who she's been with for two years, the longest she's ever dated someone. She met him in Istanbul, and he's also in the military. We all like Mike, but he too is often gone. I hate to admit it, but he reminds me of Logan. Who am I kidding? Everything does. The triple-ply toilet paper reminds me of his most recent Halloween costume as a mummy, the TV show a client was binge-watching reminded me of our late-night Harlots sessions, the guitar my upstairs neighbor plays reminds me of when he and Dick jammed out after one of the first film premieres. Mac doesn't know about any of this. As much as I love her, it's too much information for anyone to receive and it makes me seem crazy. Plus, she's been gone recently, off on a case with Dad in Silicon Valley. She goes with Dad partially to improve her field skills, but mostly because I can't.

Wallace is the only of my chosen family not to be involved in our capers; he's the good ol' steady-income worker of our bunch. He's the one who keeps me hopeful, and tells me that Logan might have a chance. I try to believe him. In the beginning, I wouldn't leave the couch in our living room. I think somehow I was waiting for Logan to come back from moving the car. The way the delusion worked was if I didn't leave the kitchenette-dinner table complex, I would never see the wreckage of our bedroom and the road outside. During that time, Wallace was the one who took care of Logan's medical bills, called all my friends and family, and made sure I didn't kill myself by setting shifts between my dad, Matty, and him. I don't think Shae ever understood how important I was to Wallace until then. After all, I was the one who refused to babysit his child and ridiculed Wallace with college memories at every dinner party they hosted. But after that, she knew. A few months ago, Shae and I actually had a long conversation on the phone. It started about when Wallace was going to be free to go see a movie, and wandered away to me telling her about Alicia and my dad being in a relationship, which was the biggest fight we'd had at that point and how I'd cut Wallace down from the flagpole and other memories I hadn't previously realized were special.

I found out more about Shae, too. Apparently she was from Chicago, and moved to Neptune for a job at Kane Software in 2015. Her original major had been Computer Science with a minor in German. But she realized she hated working with computers, that it took up too much of her time. This was around the time Dad and I had busted the Third Eye, a drug ring that operated under a string of nail salons. Needless to say, I came home from a lot of those ***stakeouts with colorful fingernails. But the crazy thing was none of the drug ring members got busted. An 09er involved with the ring had an uncle who was the district attorney, and connect the dots. Shae was furious by this, because she'd had a good friend who OD'd on their drugs. It inspired her to become a lawyer, so three years and one law degree later, Shae was a public defender. She knew Cliff well, too. It made me embarrassed that I'd known Shae almost four years but barely knew her other than in relation to Wallace. Since then, we meet weekly for smoothies at Fiji's Sandwich Shop.

Talking with Shae made me feel like I should reach out more to people. Which leads us to Nicole. Yeah, she's the one that I bugged because I suspected her of murder. The one whose intimate conversations I listened to. Et cetera, et cetera. So, I called her about a month ago, and some older woman answered. Nicole had changed her number. I resisted the urge to look her up online for a long time, because I know she doesn't want to hear from me, but finally succumbed yesterday. Nicole lives in Menlo Park now, in the Bay Area. She apparently opened up a shooting range, and it's called Troubleshooting. I do miss her. Nicole was always energetic and focused, and knew very much what she wanted. I have the number for the store, but I haven't called it yet. I don't know why not.

But on the bright side, I feel more like myself than I have in months. Exactly 11 months, 4 days, 21 hours. Fine. I know I'm not okay. But I'm better than I was. The journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step. Lao Tzu. See, I'm not just a hot blonde!

Logan would have smiled at that. Maybe someday I'll get the chance to tell him. Is our time up already, Jane?