Right back to square one.

[logan_echolls]

If I had known that Veronica's reaction to me kissing her would be ravishing me right back, despite the fact that she had just broken up with Duncan, I quite possibly would have kissed her a lot sooner

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[renewedsoul_v]

"I think you may have answered you're own question there." I smiled, "And you can have Sour Patch Kids for dessert after lunch, couldn't you?" I pointed out. He could pair them off with actual food.

"Yes, I saw the fruit, and I'm impressed, I promise." I told him before his lips found mine, and his fingers threaded gently through my hair, and I relaxed completely at his touch. "And I did say 'too off task', didn't I? Meaning it's pretty much inevitable that we're going to to a point." I pointed out with a smirk.

"As much fun as just tossing everything and getting straight to the distraction would be, Logan, isn't there anything on here you or your sister might actually want?" I asked gently. I understood the inclination to get everything out of sight by whatever means necessary. My dad had that when it came to anything of my mom's last year. Now I was just as bad. Went full circle there, really. I chucked the music box in the trash right after she left, didn't I? Still, I didn't want Logan to get rid of something he might regret later just to get this over with faster.

[logan_echolls]

"Trina collected Dad's Golden Globe that survived from the fire," I told Veronica, kissing her lightly once more with a sort of shrug before separating from her. "I guess we can pretty much chuck my dad's stuff. There's nothing I want of his," I insisted quietly. "I don't know, we can sell it on eBay or something. Just put it in a box." - And toss it away out of sight so I didn't have to see my dad's collection of belts or feel like my mom was still existing here just because her stuff was still around.

There really wasn't much I had wanted. Emptying my box of some of the smaller things I'd taken from the hotel room, I put the empty box between us. The last thing I wanted to see was Trina deciding that Mom's clothes were in style again.

I was pretty sure that the only thing of my mom's that mattered was that lighter. I had it. Nothing else here really did. It was just a show room. I opened the top drawer on my dad's side before starting to take the clothing out and pile it in the box. I kept it neat because I knew if I didn't I'd just have to end up folding again lately.

"All this stuff is pretty much junk, Veronica. Really." I insisted again.

[renewedsoul_v]

"Even so, it needs to come out, right? And like you said, eBay's always an option. Or you can leave it at the Goodwill, or the dump. Whatever you want. It just needs to not be here, right?" I questioned. "I do get it, Logan." I told him, my tone gentle. Getting it out and not having to look at it all would make being here much easier for him.

"I'll clear out your mom's stuff." I said, pulling open one of the drawers and pulling out a stack the perfectly folded clothes and moving them to the box. No way had my drawers ever been that tidy. Moving on to the next stack, it felt a little heavier when I went to move it, which made sense as soon as an unmarked VHS tape tumbled out of the pile and into the drawer.

After I put the pile of clothes in the box with the others, I picked up the tape. Sure, it wasn't a video camera tape like the ones with Lilly were, but why would there be a tape hidden in Lynn Echolls' underwear drawer in the first place? Nothing about that felt even close to right.

"Uh, Logan?" I asked, picking up the tape. "Why would your mom be leaving unmarked tapes carefully hidden among her silk finery?" I questioned nervously. I was almost afraid to know.

[logan_echolls]

I knew Veronica got it. She was probably the only one who'd ever see me this way. There was possibly only two people in the world that I'd ever do this with - clean out this stuff with - and one of them had separated himself completely from my life. The other was right here for every moment I could smell the cologne my dad used or the scent of my mom still lingering on her clothing.

"Thanks," I said. "I think I'd have a problem going through her underwear drawer." Other than the fact that it seemed Oedipal from the beginning?

Glancing over as I heard the plop of plastic against the thick wood of the drawer, I saw exactly what Veronica was talking about. A blank tape in her underwear drawer. Blank, but it was hers. Important, but it was hers - and I had no conceivable idea of what it was.

Sinking feeling again, I slipped the tape from Veronica's hands, inspecting it for a moment. Whatever, it was a regular tape. It probably just had a missed TV show or movie on it. No, we had the TiVo. No, we didn't tape things. Well, my mother certainly didn't as far as I knew, but, hey, my family had this habit of shocking me with secrets.

She was thinking it too. The Aaron Echolls and Lilly Kane sex tapes.

"It's in her drawers, Veronica. It can't be that. Those tapes were handed over, this is just something else. She didn't even know." She wouldn't have stayed with him if she knew about that. She would have just finally divorced the bastard. Or maybe not. She could pretend, but she wouldn't lie to me. I knew that. She couldn't have known and not...-

What would she be keeping?

It was that burning desire to know. We had to know. I saw the look in her eyes and I knew that it mirrored my own. Knowing was better than not knowing. Even if it was... even if it was them. I swallowed hard and motioned her over with a nod of my head towards the bed and the TV/VCR to the side. Flicking on the power of the audio/video equipment, I pushed the tape in letting it play.

The TV image showed the pool house. I opened my mouth to speak it was the tapes. In a minute I'd see Lilly like it was yesterday. I drew in closer to myself, glancing up towards the screen as Veronica's hand slipped over mine.

A moment later, my father moved into the camera view. With a blonde. Not Lilly. Not Lilly. A blonde too old and too thin to be Lilly. Seconds of relief. Seconds that crumbled down at the words that escaped from my father's mouth. The blonde's face flooded the screen and I stared in disbelief.

"Lianne. Lianne," he whispered.

[renewedsoul_v]

I wanted to be able to argue with Logan when he said his mom didn't know. Maybe not about Lilly, but after last Christmas it was more than a safe bet she knew he'd been unfaithful even if she wouldn't admit it to herself. And from the set up I saw in the pool house, how could the times with Lilly be the only trysts he'd bothered to record? It just didn't work like that.

And even then, what said that Aaron sleeping with Lilly wasn't one of the many things that broke Lynn? Affairs are hurtful enough, but one with your teenage son's girlfriend. Yeah, that would definitely take the cake.

As soon as my mom's face came into focus on the screen my stomach twisted itself in knots. I let go of Logan's hand only because I had to to get the image off the screen and I jumped up to hit the power button. "Okay, that's definitely enough of that." I said quietly.

Aaron Echolls and my mom? When did that even happen? Wasn't it bad enough that I spent most of all last year wondering if Jake Kane was my father because my mom was sleeping with him and my dad far too close together? And why does everything I find out about Lianne Reynolds and everything I find out about Lianne Mars endlessly contradict each other? What happened to her?

"How is it our parents keep finding new and more amazing ways to scar us for life?" I asked, dropping back down on to the bed beside Logan.

[logan_echolls]

Veronica reacted in the instant, shutting off the TV quickly. No, it wasn't news that my dad was unfaithful, but, god, who was I going to discover next between his sheets? Lianne Mars and Aaron Echolls, where did that even come from anyway? I mean, our parents got along, but it wasn't... - and no, the few seconds that I watched before Veronica just shut it off completely were passion filled.

Thanks a lot, mom - or dad. I'm not sure which one to blame at this moment. She knew dad was having an affair with Lianne? Since when. I ran a hand through my hair.

"W-When was that?" I asked. Stop staring at the blank black screen, Logan, I told myself.

Yeah, so he'd slept with the help, he'd slept with Lilly, he'd slept with Veronica's mom. Slept with a girlfriend and now a girlfriend's mom - and he taped that too for the private collection which mom found and what? Why would she even bother keeping it?

"This doesn't even make sense, Veronica." I said clearly, finding my voice. I'm sure my voice didn't level off at that. It just rose with the panicked shock of the situation. "There's no reason for my mom to keep a tape like that. I mean, she didn't even know - solid proof know - that he was sleeping around." It was a lie. I knew that the moment it slipped from my lips. It was the lie that she openly told herself whenever she'd catch some other lipstick on his collar or found empty condom wrappers around in her own house.

I flung the remote hard towards the TV, but all it did was make a small crash as it collided with the side and ricochet onto the bed.

[renewedsoul_v]

"I don't know, Logan." I shook my head when he asked when that was. I didn't have a clue, and I was suddenly wondering if my dad knew about it at all. Probably not or he would have kicked Mom out long before she had a chance to leave us. "I wasn't exactly looking for a date stamp." No, I just wanted it off the screen and to scrub the images from my brain. Where where the Men in Black with their memory-erasing light every time I really needed it?

I let out a breath. For some reason I couldn't shake the feeling that whatever had happened between my mom and Logan's dad wasn't just a one time thing, but at the same time I was pretty sure the only people that actually knew about that tape were Aaron, my mom, Lynn, Logan and I.

"Maybe them being together doesn't make any sense." I agreed, "But your mom keeping the tape, acting like she didn't know - something like that would be a huge amount of leverage in a divorce..." I said a little reluctantly. That was especially true if it violated any pre-nup the Echolls might have had. It would make her automatically entitled to half of everything, possibly more if she could have bargained her way to it.

"Logan, it's okay." I said softly, reaching for his hand. I was spinning from this just as much as I was, which is why I wasn't going to let the throwing things bother me. It was better that he let the feelings out. "I - that tape didn't tell us much about who Lianne and Aaron are as people that we didn't already know. At least not in terms of behaviour." I pointed out. Sure, them with each other was new. But it wasn't like we didn't know they'd been unfaithful in their marriages before today. "It doesn't matter." Yeah, maybe if I told myself that enough about my mom's behaviour, I'd actually believe it in the next decade or so.

[logan_echolls]

"Okay, so should I be feeling better about the possibility that my mom wanted to leave my dad or feel worse when she didn't do it?" I asked, slipping my hand out from under Veronica's. Sure, she made a point about how that tape didn't tell us anything new about our parents other than the fact that they were together (And from looking at how they acted? More than once). It was a point. They were always unfaithful. They were always the crappy parents we thought they were.

The one thing that Veronica wasn't quite getting was the fact that it told me more about my mom. It just confirmed all the weakness in her that I hated. The parts of her that couldn't tear herself away from him no matter how much he hurt her.

"She had the fucking leverage and she could have used it and she would have been alive today if she did. She would have had the money and dad would have looked like a fool." She kept the fucking tape in her underwear drawer. For what? Safe keeping until she got the nerve to do what she wanted to do? "She hated him, Veronica. She hated him and she didn't even leave him when she knew about this."

I didn't believe for a moment that this was in any way okay. She was questioning her mother's actions just like I was questioning mine. Oh yeah, and the sick irony that perhaps love triangles are passed through generations. Jake Kane and Lianne Mars was something at least known about. They were the Duncan/Veronica of back then, just irony that it happened to be their kids. But what was with the secrets of Lianne Mars and my dad. Thinking about that only made my head spin more.

[renewedsoul_v]

"I didn't mean it like that and you know it." I stated when he asked if he should be feeling better about his mom wanting to leave his dad. I let out a breath. He wasn't going to help anything by trying to dissect why his mom didn't use the tape. He was just going to make himself feel worse.

"Logan, listen to me, please." I said softly, "I get that this sucks beyond any possible description. I do. But the fact that she didn't use this tape? I don't think it's just being too scared to take a chance. Part of it was that she genuinely loved your dad. Why else would she have hired mine to investigate that stalker last Christmas?" I asked. Logically letting that whole mess go completely un-dealt with could have resulted in it ending in more than just a simple stabbing. But that's not what Lynn wanted, "Maybe despite everything he did to her, she still believed being with him was better than having him not be in her life."

And maybe after the party she was just too broken to care either way, anymore. She just gave up.

"None of this is okay, but it's not a reflection on us, either." I said softly, "We're not our parents." I had to believe that was true. I all but completely hated the person my mother had become, and the thought of becoming just like her made me absolutely sick to my stomach. I was sure I was paling just from the thoughts that were swirling inside me.

If I believed for a second that my mom's past with Jake didn't influence Celeste's treatment of me, I'd be the first to call myself insane, but the fact that I fell for Duncan was separate from that. Just like Logan and I were separate from our parents.

[logan_echolls]

She had hated him. Hate was easier to accept than the alternative of her actually being in love with him - with everything that he had done to her, still in love with him. I think I'm the only kid in the world that possibly didn't want his parents to be in love, just because they kept hurting each other.

"She wanted to keep up the image, Veronica." I told her seriously. "Beautiful, bigger than life?" i echoed her words from earlier. "It's just this stupid facade that everyone played along with until it became so twisted that we couldn't pretend anymore. But they kept it up. ... My mother's best acting job was the role she played as mother and wife. She was even better than he was." Because she made me believe.

There's a very fine line between murder and suicide when it came to my mother. She jumped off the bridge, but only when he pushed her. The only difference is that the ashtray that hit Lynn Echolls in the head was a metaphoric one. It was the one murder he got away with.

"I'm sorry. I'm not missing the big flashing lights that are drawing parallels either. What we just saw... that couldn't have been the first time that they... - It wasn't emotionless." I staggered when I tried to speak. What do you think? My dad may cheat without love, but your mom? She loved Jake Kane? What were her reasons for Aaron Echolls?

Why would they watch their kids get into the same twisted mess?

"Do you think she loved him too?" I asked even though I regretted it. I don't know. What would be worse? If our parents were in love too or if they weren't?

[renewedsoul_v]

"I know." I said quietly, closing my eyes for a moment as he talked about his parents. Sad part is that I really wasn't much better in the keeping things going because it was easier than not department. How long did I stay with Duncan when things felt off? How far did I have to be pushed before I walked?

I was so completely sick of how fake everything in this town was. I could probably count on my fingers without any trouble at all the amount of people at school that aren't completely phony about everything. Keeping everybody at arms length, making like everything's perfect. If it was an olympic sport there were some serious contenders for the gold medal in this place.

"I know." I repeated when he mentioned the tape. I ran my fingers through my hair, trying to keep breathing evenly, not let recorded images of a woman I wasn't completely sure actually loved me being so completely in love with a man that wasn't my father completely crush me.

How could she do that to us? How could she do that to Dad? I mean, that tape didn't exactly look super recent, not old exactly, but still - it had to have been before Dad lost his job...

God, I hated her. I did. After everything we'd done for her, I just keep finding out these things that make me think not only that we shouldn't have bothered, but that she really didn't want us to.

Sure, there's the surveillance photos, but aside from that, what has my mom done since Lilly's death that could be considered something caring about me since she tried to get me to leave town with her? Yeah, I was having trouble coming up with a solid example.

"You sure you should be asking the daughter who questions if her mother actually wanted her that particular question?" I breathed. "I mean, it's becoming increasingly obvious her family loved her so much more than she ever did us..." I added, a few tears slowly rolling down my cheeks just to spite me. I didn't want to be crying over her. Not again. Not now.

[logan_echolls]

Lianne Mars: Another Neptune wife, another Neptune mother. She fit the minimum requirement of having a dirty past that people knew, but never talked about. She had enough secrets and she definitely did things that screwed over Veronica for life. I grimaced at the sight of Veronica's tears.

"Hey," I said quietly, exhaling softly as I reached over to brush her tears away with the pad of my thumb. "I didn't...- I know that this brings up as many questions for you as it does for me. I just-"

I wonder if I could have dealt better with this if I had seen Lilly on the tape. I think I would have understood why my mom didn't turn in the tape. I think I would have gotten it over with and just hated him and continued to reassure that hatred. Even if it was a stranger, I would have tossed it away; but, no, it was Veronica's mother. I mean how screwed up could things really get.

I shouldn't have pushed because now Veronica was crying with the full belief that her mother never loved her. Ironically, it was something that I could almost find funny. The two people in the video were the two people who should have loved us but never could. Hell, my dad would love Trina, his adopted daughter, before me: his biological screw up of flesh and blood.

And we hated them too. Just for the stuff like this.

I shut my eyes and pressed my lips lightly against her forehead. "Forget I asked that stupid question, okay?" I asked her. "I mean, this... what ever it was... It was a long while ago. It doesn't matter now."

It felt like lies through my teeth. Something too easy to tell and learned. Definitely, learned. No, the more I thought back on it, the more I could see how much of him was in me. I'm sure the being jailed recently hadn't actually helped in my comparison. C'mon, dad. This is where they put accused murderers.

"God..." I whispered under my breath.

[renewedsoul_v]

"It's fine, Logan." I said softly, as he wiped away my tears. I knew he hadn't meant to upset me, but it wasn't really him that had did it anyway. It was mom. "I know why you asked. It's fine. I just - my mom's practically a stranger aside from shared genetics, you know?"

Even before she left it had been like that to a point. I was always closer with my dad. I loved the idea of what she was supposed to be, what I wanted her to be, more than I did the person she really was. The one she never let me see. At least I could trust my dad to tell me the truth, be honest with me, even if I didn't always like what I was hearing. That's more than I can say for my mom. She was pretty much the exact opposite. Avoiding my questions in some ridiculous attempt to have me think well of her? Funny how that kept failing.

I just wasn't equipped to make judgments on if Lianne Mars was in love with Aaron Echolls or not. And truthfully, the little girl inside doesn't want to believe it anyway. That part of me wishes she could believe her parents loved each other more than anything, no matter what. Unfortunately, that's not real life. Or even the Neptune ideal of what real life should be.

I closed my eyes as he kissed my forehead, trying to soothe me. I relaxed just slightly. "No, it matters, it just doesn't change how we feel about each other, right? The fact that we're together has absolutely nothing to do with them." I insisted gently.

There was no point in trying to act like we didn't know. I knew that much. The thing is, though, that I knew we didn't have to let our parents screw ups completely define us. We were more than just their children. We were our own people in control of our own lives. If we weren't, well, we all might as well give up because we're beyond doomed.

This whole thing wasn't exactly helping Logan believe he wasn't. The look on his face, in his eyes, was screaming that fact. I placed a gentle kiss on his lips, caressing his cheek softly for a moment. "You are not him, Logan. You're so much better than he could ever be." I insisted, and I knew it was true. Just the way he was handling everything that had happened the last few days alone proved that. I had problems believing he'd have willingly obliterated his friendship with Duncan if he was actually that much like his father. Or that he would have just bit his tongue when my father was on his tirade. The fact that he's holding up as well as he is proves that as much as there are similarities there, reactions and learned behaviour that do come from Aaron, Logan is more than capable of rising above that.

[logan_echolls]

The fact that we're together has absolutely nothing to do with them. No, it did. It meant something ran in the family or that we were just inevitable to pick up our parents mistakes. Which was exactly what we wanted to prove wrong most of all in this moment. She kisses me, touches my cheek with affection and I can still feel him burning - like this monster inside of me that wants to rip itself out.

It doesn't mean that I'm not capable, Veronica. I guess that's really one of those thinks people are always afraid of. They live their life in fear that they're going to become the one thing that they hate. They do everything to prevent it and then one day they turn around and realize that they've been that person all along.

Veronica and I were stuck in this huge shadow the over-loomed with possibilities. Yeah, this was the best secret ever.

Somehow her words telling me that I'm not him don't register at all, because I'm already feeling like I'm him. People don't fail to remind you that you're drawn from bad blood. People don't fail to remind you especially when you're in jail ever other week it seems.

She's trying to force those words through me though. Like if I feel them I'll believe it. I don't feel it. I'm failing miserably when trying to convince myself that I'm not going to grow up and be this bastard that everyone ends up both loving and hating. There were people who'd love him no matter what he did.

I pull from Veronica's hands and lips - I can feel myself just tugging myself away like I'm trying to say Go away while you can. I just nodded slightly to her and exhaled. Breathing was key and I felt like I couldn't function. Do you really believe that Veronica? You can truthfully tell me that I'm not going to be like my father and you're not going to be like your mother? She could. We'd probably just end up making out own mistakes. Worse than the last ones.