Great Expectations (1/4) (Logan/Veronica; PG13)
Fandom: Veronica Mars
Title: Great Expectations (1/4)
Pairing: Logan/Veronica
Author: boobsnotbombs
Word Count: 2600
Rating: PG13 (this part)
Summary: AU after season two - because seriously, how could they have possibly all ended up at the same college? Veronica goes to Stanford. It doesn't quite live up to the dream. Logan is there to soften the blow of disappointed expectations.
Spoilers: end of season 2
Warnings: none that I can think of
Disclaimer: I don't own Veronica Mars.
“It’s not like you’re actually enrolled in any classes either,” Logan said, the course catalogue for Foothill College long-abandoned to a pile of magazines and notebooks on the floor of Veronica’s room. “And besides - who the fuck cares? It’s just community college.”
“So?” Veronica said. She closed the open windows on her screen before shutting her laptop closed. “This is important.” Veronica recovered the discarded catalogue from the floor and began to shuffle through the pages herself. “Community college is still a great opportunity to interact with a diverse range of interesting people, take some classes, gain some perspective…”
“You just don’t want me all un-occupied, pining away after you. Annoying you because you’ll be all busy getting enriched and shit.”
Veronica shrugged. “That’s just an added bonus. And by the way, the only reason I’m not enrolling is because Stanford doesn’t allow us to add classes to our program until we’ve meet with our academic advisors in the fall. I still pretty much have all of my classes picked out.”
“Dude, you’ve gone over to the dark side,” Logan said.
“What are you talking about?” Veronica asked, throwing the booklet of classes at Logan’s head. He caught it, though, and returned it to the slush pile next to the bed.
“You’ve become one of those people that has to mention they go to Stanford in every other sentence.” Logan continued the criticism in a mock, girlish tone: “’Oh, Stanford doesn’t allow us to add class until we’ve meet our hoity-toity academic advisors. At Stanford, people do this. Oh, at Stanford…’”
“What?” Veronica said, truly offended. Her cheeks flushed with blood and her brow furrowed into a tight crease. “Seriously? Do I do that?”
Logan smiled.
“Well?”
“No,” Logan said, “but I’m glad the concept offends you so much. Can’t have my baby getting all pretentious on me, now. That just wouldn’t do.”
Veronica rolled her eyes and joined Logan on the bed. They lay adjacent to one another on their bellies, legs tangled together. “Come on, Logan, this should be fun. What interests you?”
Logan paused. “I don’t know,” he said. “I’m pretty interested in you, I guess.”
“Although I must agree it would improve my interactions with a healthy chunk of the human population if people would just take a class on me, I’m pretty sure Veronica Mars 101 is not listed in the course catalogue. How about this introduction to water biology class?” Veronica suggested, stretching to reach the Foothill booklet. “You like the water. And surfing. Those are sort of related, right?”
Logan snorted. “Please tell me that’s not a serious suggestion, or we may have to break up.”
“Well, why not?” Veronica asked.
“Babe, we’re over,” Logan said, making to get up off the bed and exit.
Veronica laughed and wrapped a hand around Logan’s wrist. “Okay, okay - no oceanography.” She nuzzled her nose into his neck before nibbling gently at his ear. “Come on, there’s got to be something you like besides surfing and me.”
Logan sighed and grabbed the bulletin from Veronica, actually glad she had insisted on him ordering the hard copy of the course offerings. It had gotten tedious rather quickly looking up classes online, and with the book it was easy to dog-ear pages and highlight the classes that didn’t sound like complete shit. “I was thinking maybe some English classes?”
“Oh?” Veronica said.
“Yeah - I mean, they have all the typical boring intro classes that you’re supposed to take, but you can place out of them.”
“I’m certain you could do that in your sleep ,” Veronica agreed.
Logan looked down and turned his head away, trying to hide a blush. Having someone be certain that he could do something good was not a familiar experience. “Right,” said Logan, regaining composure. “So there were a couple of classes I thought, if I could get into ‘em, might be pretty fun. I just have to pass the writing composition portion.”
“So, what classes?” Veronica said, curiosity sufficiently piqued. All this time she had assumed he hadn’t yet found an interest or passion. The reality was that he just was too ashamed to share it with her. She understood. Veronica was still trying to figure out how to tell her father that she was taking Systems that Fail: American Law Enforcement - a seminar led by a radical professor with frizzy, unkempt hair. Doing background checks on all her potential professors had been priority number one. “Want me to guess?” Veronica asked Logan in a purposefully patronizing tone. “Let’s see…does it start with a -“
“Quiet down, smart ass,” Logan said as he handed Veronica the bulletin opened to page seventy-eight. “The one highlighted in blue,” he said.
“Introduction to Contemporary African American Literature?”
“Yeah,” Logan said, trying to shrug; but the movement was made difficult by the fact that he was lying down on his front.
Veronica smiled. “I had no idea you were interested in -“
“What?”
“Umm, how do I put this politely?” Veronica said, “Oh, I know,” she continued, “I don’t. But that’s alright, because since when do I worry about being polite?” She paused before going on. “I had no idea you any interest at all in non rich white people. Got to be honest with you, honey, you’re probably the most prejudiced person I know.”
Veronica didn’t know it, but the fact that she called Logan ‘honey’ so unconsciously softened any ill-feeling in the comment. Logan felt heart-warmed rather than offended. “I’m not prejudiced,” he said. “It’s just - I just like to get my cheap laughs where I can,” he said. “Sometimes it can be difficult to come up with consistently witty material.”
“I see,” said Veronica, reading the course description more fully.
“Besides,” Logan said, proving his own point, “It’s a class on African American Lit - not Mexican Lit. I would never take a class where the only reading material was a manual on how to work a lawnmower - in Spanish, no less.”
“Shut up,” said Veronica, no real bite in the words. “No need to put up the defenses. I wasn’t judging - merely curious.” She flipped through the selection of other English classes in the booklet, not making eye contact with Logan.
Logan sighed and nodded. “Defenses down, oh, Perceptive One.”
“Takes a perpetual wall builder to know a perpetual wall builder,” Veronica said. “So what’s the deal?”
“I’m familiar with a couple of the writers.”
“Which ones?” Veronica asked, trying to turn off her interrogation voice. She simply felt fascinated and wanted to know. It occurred to her that although she knew Logan very well, she didn’t know much about him. He liked to kiss.
“Suzan Lori Parks. You heard of her?”
Veronica nodded, “The playwright?” Logan nodded. “Yeah, I never read any of her plays, but I read a book she wrote called Getting Mother’s Body. The title intrigued me. It was phenomenal.”
“Yeah, well,” Logan said, nodding, “I saw one of her plays on Broadway with my mom a few years ago. Maybe 8th grade? I really liked it. It was different, you know? And, yeah, it had a different perspective, but it still felt relevant to me. So there. Mystery solved.”
“Sounds like a good class,” Veronica said, trying to give Logan her approval without being too obvious.
“Glad that you’ve given me your approval,” Logan said, smiling.
Not every try is met with a success.
#
Veronica tapped lightly on Mac’s bedroom door. “It’s me,” she said. “May I?”
“Come in,” Veronica heard through the wall.
She opened the door a crack and peaked in before fully heading in. Mac was in bed, curled under the covers reading what looked like a comic, her face seemingly happy. “Just let me finish this bit,” Mac said. Nodding, Veronica dropped her messenger bag to the floor before proceeding to sit on the foot of her good friend’s bed. It was good to see her smiling again. Two months had passed since the night at the Grande, but such events tended to leave wounds not easily healed by time. They were all dealing in their own way. Mac had the Watchmen. Veronica had Logan. Logan had Veronica.
Veronica liked to think that she was there for Mac, too.
“You up for going out tonight?” Veronica asked. “Snakes on a Plane? Clerks 2?”
Mac shrugged and laid the graphic novel on her bedside table. “Maybe some other time? I know there’s not that much time until I leave, but…”
“No worries, Q. Do you mind if I stick with you tonight?” Veronica asked. “Keep you company?”
“Never,” Mac said, another hint of a smile peeking through.
#
“So,” Veronica said, “I seriously think Caltech should change it’s motto from ‘The truth shall make you free’ to ‘Where the geeks live,’ or maybe, ‘Our internet security trumps your internet security’…oo, oo…or ‘where blondes go to die.’”
Mac laughed and rolled her eyes. “MIT is too far. U-Chicago is too cold and conservative. Caltech won out. What can I say?”
“I know, I know,” Veronica said. “You’ve told me a bajillion times, but I feel like I’m losing hella street cred. I used to be able to say ‘my super computer hacker friend Mac…” but now, when I have all these cute pictures of you on my wall, and my roommate asks about them, I’ll have to divulge the fact that you go to the nerdiest school in America.”
“Well, the fact that your boy-toy goes to community college should earn some points back.”
“Maybe,” Veronica said. “But I’m holding you responsible if people don’t like me because of you.”
“I think people have plenty of reasons to dislike you just for being you,” Mac joked, enjoying the easy banter. “Why would they need me as a reason?”
“Damn,” says Veronica, “defeated by logic.”
“Speaking of,” Mac said, hugging a pillow to her chest, “Logan is still ago to move to the Bay Area?”
“Systems are all ago,” Veronica confirmed, sensing the direction of the conversation. She plopped back onto the bed into a reclining position, propping her head on a folded over pillow. “His classes start before mine, so he’ll be going up there sooner. Plus, his lease opens September 1st, so he has to be up there by then. I’ll probably help him get situated, fly back South, and my dad and I will drive up to Stanford together. We’ve got it all worked out.”
“Uh-huh.”
“What?” Veronica said.
“I don’t know,” Mac said, “This just seems so…un-you.”
“What?”
“Look, I know you don’t technically have a say in what Logan does, but if you really wanted him to not move up there with you, you’d make it known, and he wouldn’t. You guys have only been back together for two months.”
Veronica nodded her head and closed her eyes, enjoying the bouncy softness of Mac’s worn mattress. “I know,” Veronica said, “I know.”
“So?”
“So…what do you want me to say Mac? I want to be with him. The thought of only weekends and holidays seems - to be quite frank - unbearable. Does that make me lame? Yes. Stupid? Probably. Does it change how I feel? Not really, no. It’s just…I’ve lost so much, you know?”
“I know,” Mac said, voice sympathetic. She rested on her side with her cheek in her hand, facing Veronica.
“Why lose one more person in my life because I’m worried about looking lame?”
“Understood,” Mac said. “Understood.”
#
Logan and Veronica watched the movie Orange County with a new sense of perspective, now having been at Stanford for two months.
“That looks a little bit like Stanford,” Logan commented. “See? Kind of like Branner Hall?”
“Meh, it looks like a giant Mexican restaurant,” Veronica said. “I swear, there must be some Hollywood set titled ‘generic California college’ Because UC-Sunnydale of Buffy, the Stanford of this movie, etc, all look the same.”
“Don’t be snooty.”
“You know you love it,” Veronica said. She stopped the DVD and turned off the TV as the credits began to roll. “They did get some things right,” Veronica said. “Stanford really isn’t the oasis it’s imagined to be.”
“What were you expecting?” He pulled her closer to him on the couch, folding her into the crook of his arm and chest. When he saw that she shivered slightly, he grabbed the blanket folded on the arm of the sofa and spread it over her body.
“Less assholes, maybe?” she said.
“Where there is humankind, there are assholes,” Logan said.
“I know - it’s just.” Veronica stopped and shrugged.
“Has someone been bothering you?” Logan said, turning on the lamp sitting on the coffee table. Veronica smiled.
“No, of course not.”
“You’re lying,” Logan said.
“I’m not.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Well, fine,” Veronica said, annoyed that the mood had gone from calm and relaxed to tense in the course of a few moments. She untangled herself from Logan’s embrace and stood. “Can’t a girl make an offhand comment without her boyfriend going into caveman mode?”
Logan inhaled, trying to reign in his temper. “So I’m worried,” Logan said, “sue me. You hardly let me come visit you on campus -“
“Because we agreed that we should try to maintain a semblance of separate lives,” Veronica said, her voice raised. She began to gather her things, pulling her hoodie over her tank top and shoving her feet into her boots.
“Don’t go,” Logan said, still sitting on the couch. “Let me be worried for you. You’ve been so tense lately and -“
“Just, leave me alone, okay?” Veronica said. “I’ll call you.”
She slung her leather messenger bag over her shoulder and walked out the door.
#
she used to say
about five times a day
how much she hated me.
she still says it.
often.
only now I know not to believe her.
It took Logan less than one minute to compose that short piece, and even less time than that to highlight and then delete it in his word document.
her hair in the drain
tells me i am home.
And that piece of drivel took five seconds to write, and one second to erase.
The introduction to writing poetry class he was taking proved a lot more difficult than the short story writing class he was in, where interesting plots, complex characters, and perfect prose seemed to project from his fingers like launched missiles.
i wish that she would call
so i could not pick up the phone
so i could let it go to voicemail
so I could maybe decide to answer
on her third or fourth try to reach me
and then hang up when i got fed up of all her hangs ups.
i miss the way her soft snores lullaby me to sleep.
Logan stared at his phone, looking to see if maybe he had missed the buzz alerting him to a text message or a missed call. There was nothing. It had been two days.
a girl with brain damage
walks into a bar,
walks to the counter,
wanders and wonders awhile waiting for the waiter to take her order.
girl says ‘i’ll have a vodka tonic on the rocks.’
bartender says ‘should you really be drinking?
your brain is damaged.’
girl says, ‘i’m fine.’
Logan picked up the phone and pressed two.
Title: Great Expectations (1/4)
Pairing: Logan/Veronica
Author: boobsnotbombs
Word Count: 2600
Rating: PG13 (this part)
Summary: AU after season two - because seriously, how could they have possibly all ended up at the same college? Veronica goes to Stanford. It doesn't quite live up to the dream. Logan is there to soften the blow of disappointed expectations.
Spoilers: end of season 2
Warnings: none that I can think of
Disclaimer: I don't own Veronica Mars.
“It’s not like you’re actually enrolled in any classes either,” Logan said, the course catalogue for Foothill College long-abandoned to a pile of magazines and notebooks on the floor of Veronica’s room. “And besides - who the fuck cares? It’s just community college.”
“So?” Veronica said. She closed the open windows on her screen before shutting her laptop closed. “This is important.” Veronica recovered the discarded catalogue from the floor and began to shuffle through the pages herself. “Community college is still a great opportunity to interact with a diverse range of interesting people, take some classes, gain some perspective…”
“You just don’t want me all un-occupied, pining away after you. Annoying you because you’ll be all busy getting enriched and shit.”
Veronica shrugged. “That’s just an added bonus. And by the way, the only reason I’m not enrolling is because Stanford doesn’t allow us to add classes to our program until we’ve meet with our academic advisors in the fall. I still pretty much have all of my classes picked out.”
“Dude, you’ve gone over to the dark side,” Logan said.
“What are you talking about?” Veronica asked, throwing the booklet of classes at Logan’s head. He caught it, though, and returned it to the slush pile next to the bed.
“You’ve become one of those people that has to mention they go to Stanford in every other sentence.” Logan continued the criticism in a mock, girlish tone: “’Oh, Stanford doesn’t allow us to add class until we’ve meet our hoity-toity academic advisors. At Stanford, people do this. Oh, at Stanford…’”
“What?” Veronica said, truly offended. Her cheeks flushed with blood and her brow furrowed into a tight crease. “Seriously? Do I do that?”
Logan smiled.
“Well?”
“No,” Logan said, “but I’m glad the concept offends you so much. Can’t have my baby getting all pretentious on me, now. That just wouldn’t do.”
Veronica rolled her eyes and joined Logan on the bed. They lay adjacent to one another on their bellies, legs tangled together. “Come on, Logan, this should be fun. What interests you?”
Logan paused. “I don’t know,” he said. “I’m pretty interested in you, I guess.”
“Although I must agree it would improve my interactions with a healthy chunk of the human population if people would just take a class on me, I’m pretty sure Veronica Mars 101 is not listed in the course catalogue. How about this introduction to water biology class?” Veronica suggested, stretching to reach the Foothill booklet. “You like the water. And surfing. Those are sort of related, right?”
Logan snorted. “Please tell me that’s not a serious suggestion, or we may have to break up.”
“Well, why not?” Veronica asked.
“Babe, we’re over,” Logan said, making to get up off the bed and exit.
Veronica laughed and wrapped a hand around Logan’s wrist. “Okay, okay - no oceanography.” She nuzzled her nose into his neck before nibbling gently at his ear. “Come on, there’s got to be something you like besides surfing and me.”
Logan sighed and grabbed the bulletin from Veronica, actually glad she had insisted on him ordering the hard copy of the course offerings. It had gotten tedious rather quickly looking up classes online, and with the book it was easy to dog-ear pages and highlight the classes that didn’t sound like complete shit. “I was thinking maybe some English classes?”
“Oh?” Veronica said.
“Yeah - I mean, they have all the typical boring intro classes that you’re supposed to take, but you can place out of them.”
“I’m certain you could do that in your sleep ,” Veronica agreed.
Logan looked down and turned his head away, trying to hide a blush. Having someone be certain that he could do something good was not a familiar experience. “Right,” said Logan, regaining composure. “So there were a couple of classes I thought, if I could get into ‘em, might be pretty fun. I just have to pass the writing composition portion.”
“So, what classes?” Veronica said, curiosity sufficiently piqued. All this time she had assumed he hadn’t yet found an interest or passion. The reality was that he just was too ashamed to share it with her. She understood. Veronica was still trying to figure out how to tell her father that she was taking Systems that Fail: American Law Enforcement - a seminar led by a radical professor with frizzy, unkempt hair. Doing background checks on all her potential professors had been priority number one. “Want me to guess?” Veronica asked Logan in a purposefully patronizing tone. “Let’s see…does it start with a -“
“Quiet down, smart ass,” Logan said as he handed Veronica the bulletin opened to page seventy-eight. “The one highlighted in blue,” he said.
“Introduction to Contemporary African American Literature?”
“Yeah,” Logan said, trying to shrug; but the movement was made difficult by the fact that he was lying down on his front.
Veronica smiled. “I had no idea you were interested in -“
“What?”
“Umm, how do I put this politely?” Veronica said, “Oh, I know,” she continued, “I don’t. But that’s alright, because since when do I worry about being polite?” She paused before going on. “I had no idea you any interest at all in non rich white people. Got to be honest with you, honey, you’re probably the most prejudiced person I know.”
Veronica didn’t know it, but the fact that she called Logan ‘honey’ so unconsciously softened any ill-feeling in the comment. Logan felt heart-warmed rather than offended. “I’m not prejudiced,” he said. “It’s just - I just like to get my cheap laughs where I can,” he said. “Sometimes it can be difficult to come up with consistently witty material.”
“I see,” said Veronica, reading the course description more fully.
“Besides,” Logan said, proving his own point, “It’s a class on African American Lit - not Mexican Lit. I would never take a class where the only reading material was a manual on how to work a lawnmower - in Spanish, no less.”
“Shut up,” said Veronica, no real bite in the words. “No need to put up the defenses. I wasn’t judging - merely curious.” She flipped through the selection of other English classes in the booklet, not making eye contact with Logan.
Logan sighed and nodded. “Defenses down, oh, Perceptive One.”
“Takes a perpetual wall builder to know a perpetual wall builder,” Veronica said. “So what’s the deal?”
“I’m familiar with a couple of the writers.”
“Which ones?” Veronica asked, trying to turn off her interrogation voice. She simply felt fascinated and wanted to know. It occurred to her that although she knew Logan very well, she didn’t know much about him. He liked to kiss.
“Suzan Lori Parks. You heard of her?”
Veronica nodded, “The playwright?” Logan nodded. “Yeah, I never read any of her plays, but I read a book she wrote called Getting Mother’s Body. The title intrigued me. It was phenomenal.”
“Yeah, well,” Logan said, nodding, “I saw one of her plays on Broadway with my mom a few years ago. Maybe 8th grade? I really liked it. It was different, you know? And, yeah, it had a different perspective, but it still felt relevant to me. So there. Mystery solved.”
“Sounds like a good class,” Veronica said, trying to give Logan her approval without being too obvious.
“Glad that you’ve given me your approval,” Logan said, smiling.
Not every try is met with a success.
#
Veronica tapped lightly on Mac’s bedroom door. “It’s me,” she said. “May I?”
“Come in,” Veronica heard through the wall.
She opened the door a crack and peaked in before fully heading in. Mac was in bed, curled under the covers reading what looked like a comic, her face seemingly happy. “Just let me finish this bit,” Mac said. Nodding, Veronica dropped her messenger bag to the floor before proceeding to sit on the foot of her good friend’s bed. It was good to see her smiling again. Two months had passed since the night at the Grande, but such events tended to leave wounds not easily healed by time. They were all dealing in their own way. Mac had the Watchmen. Veronica had Logan. Logan had Veronica.
Veronica liked to think that she was there for Mac, too.
“You up for going out tonight?” Veronica asked. “Snakes on a Plane? Clerks 2?”
Mac shrugged and laid the graphic novel on her bedside table. “Maybe some other time? I know there’s not that much time until I leave, but…”
“No worries, Q. Do you mind if I stick with you tonight?” Veronica asked. “Keep you company?”
“Never,” Mac said, another hint of a smile peeking through.
#
“So,” Veronica said, “I seriously think Caltech should change it’s motto from ‘The truth shall make you free’ to ‘Where the geeks live,’ or maybe, ‘Our internet security trumps your internet security’…oo, oo…or ‘where blondes go to die.’”
Mac laughed and rolled her eyes. “MIT is too far. U-Chicago is too cold and conservative. Caltech won out. What can I say?”
“I know, I know,” Veronica said. “You’ve told me a bajillion times, but I feel like I’m losing hella street cred. I used to be able to say ‘my super computer hacker friend Mac…” but now, when I have all these cute pictures of you on my wall, and my roommate asks about them, I’ll have to divulge the fact that you go to the nerdiest school in America.”
“Well, the fact that your boy-toy goes to community college should earn some points back.”
“Maybe,” Veronica said. “But I’m holding you responsible if people don’t like me because of you.”
“I think people have plenty of reasons to dislike you just for being you,” Mac joked, enjoying the easy banter. “Why would they need me as a reason?”
“Damn,” says Veronica, “defeated by logic.”
“Speaking of,” Mac said, hugging a pillow to her chest, “Logan is still ago to move to the Bay Area?”
“Systems are all ago,” Veronica confirmed, sensing the direction of the conversation. She plopped back onto the bed into a reclining position, propping her head on a folded over pillow. “His classes start before mine, so he’ll be going up there sooner. Plus, his lease opens September 1st, so he has to be up there by then. I’ll probably help him get situated, fly back South, and my dad and I will drive up to Stanford together. We’ve got it all worked out.”
“Uh-huh.”
“What?” Veronica said.
“I don’t know,” Mac said, “This just seems so…un-you.”
“What?”
“Look, I know you don’t technically have a say in what Logan does, but if you really wanted him to not move up there with you, you’d make it known, and he wouldn’t. You guys have only been back together for two months.”
Veronica nodded her head and closed her eyes, enjoying the bouncy softness of Mac’s worn mattress. “I know,” Veronica said, “I know.”
“So?”
“So…what do you want me to say Mac? I want to be with him. The thought of only weekends and holidays seems - to be quite frank - unbearable. Does that make me lame? Yes. Stupid? Probably. Does it change how I feel? Not really, no. It’s just…I’ve lost so much, you know?”
“I know,” Mac said, voice sympathetic. She rested on her side with her cheek in her hand, facing Veronica.
“Why lose one more person in my life because I’m worried about looking lame?”
“Understood,” Mac said. “Understood.”
#
Logan and Veronica watched the movie Orange County with a new sense of perspective, now having been at Stanford for two months.
“That looks a little bit like Stanford,” Logan commented. “See? Kind of like Branner Hall?”
“Meh, it looks like a giant Mexican restaurant,” Veronica said. “I swear, there must be some Hollywood set titled ‘generic California college’ Because UC-Sunnydale of Buffy, the Stanford of this movie, etc, all look the same.”
“Don’t be snooty.”
“You know you love it,” Veronica said. She stopped the DVD and turned off the TV as the credits began to roll. “They did get some things right,” Veronica said. “Stanford really isn’t the oasis it’s imagined to be.”
“What were you expecting?” He pulled her closer to him on the couch, folding her into the crook of his arm and chest. When he saw that she shivered slightly, he grabbed the blanket folded on the arm of the sofa and spread it over her body.
“Less assholes, maybe?” she said.
“Where there is humankind, there are assholes,” Logan said.
“I know - it’s just.” Veronica stopped and shrugged.
“Has someone been bothering you?” Logan said, turning on the lamp sitting on the coffee table. Veronica smiled.
“No, of course not.”
“You’re lying,” Logan said.
“I’m not.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Well, fine,” Veronica said, annoyed that the mood had gone from calm and relaxed to tense in the course of a few moments. She untangled herself from Logan’s embrace and stood. “Can’t a girl make an offhand comment without her boyfriend going into caveman mode?”
Logan inhaled, trying to reign in his temper. “So I’m worried,” Logan said, “sue me. You hardly let me come visit you on campus -“
“Because we agreed that we should try to maintain a semblance of separate lives,” Veronica said, her voice raised. She began to gather her things, pulling her hoodie over her tank top and shoving her feet into her boots.
“Don’t go,” Logan said, still sitting on the couch. “Let me be worried for you. You’ve been so tense lately and -“
“Just, leave me alone, okay?” Veronica said. “I’ll call you.”
She slung her leather messenger bag over her shoulder and walked out the door.
#
she used to say
about five times a day
how much she hated me.
she still says it.
often.
only now I know not to believe her.
It took Logan less than one minute to compose that short piece, and even less time than that to highlight and then delete it in his word document.
her hair in the drain
tells me i am home.
And that piece of drivel took five seconds to write, and one second to erase.
The introduction to writing poetry class he was taking proved a lot more difficult than the short story writing class he was in, where interesting plots, complex characters, and perfect prose seemed to project from his fingers like launched missiles.
i wish that she would call
so i could not pick up the phone
so i could let it go to voicemail
so I could maybe decide to answer
on her third or fourth try to reach me
and then hang up when i got fed up of all her hangs ups.
i miss the way her soft snores lullaby me to sleep.
Logan stared at his phone, looking to see if maybe he had missed the buzz alerting him to a text message or a missed call. There was nothing. It had been two days.
a girl with brain damage
walks into a bar,
walks to the counter,
wanders and wonders awhile waiting for the waiter to take her order.
girl says ‘i’ll have a vodka tonic on the rocks.’
bartender says ‘should you really be drinking?
your brain is damaged.’
girl says, ‘i’m fine.’
Logan picked up the phone and pressed two.