Fic: 10 Things About Veronica and Logan (Veronica/Logan) R
Title: 10 Things About Veronica and Logan
Author: chibi_care
Pairing/Character: Veronica/Logan
Word Count: 3192
Rating: R
Summary: This is the way their summer goes.
Spoilers: Through 2.22, Not Pictured
Warnings: Language
"I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
I do not think that they will sing to me."
T.S. Eliot: The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
1.
She cries at night now, when the moonlight pours its weight through the gauzy curtains, and she's lying with her cheek against her pillow. She can't remember crying like this since her mother left, but perhaps it's simply one of those inexplicable things that happen and cannot be helped. Maybe it's the memory of CassidyBeaverCassidy leaning back, accepting as a lover, letting himself fall over the edge of the Neptune Grand. Because as much as she hated him in that moment, she never did want him to die - not like that, anyway.
But then again - he died like a coward, and that was maybe the easiest thing of all.
Sometimes Veronica can't remember shedding tears during the night, but the pillowcase is always sodden and damp in the morning, stuck to her face. She doesn't let her father see, though she wonders if he can hear her from his room. Occasionally, she'll wake from nightmares, that her father's been killed all over again. There's always a scream caught in the back of her throat, hoarse and dry, endless and silent. Sometimes she sobs herself to sleep, a lullaby of sorts, as good as Logan's kiss and her father's jokes. It's not healthy, she thinks.
Veronica doesn't remember what healthy is; she can no longer tell the difference.
Logan's voice over the phone comes sleepy and gentle, thick as cotton balls. She calls him at one, leaves the phone by her ear until three, and hangs up when she realizes that she's no longer crying and he's no longer talking. She's reluctant to leave him, little snores bubbling through his mouth, but distantly she knows that she doesn't want brain cancer later in life. She can still be pragmatic, even through everything. Logan calls her "sweetheart"; he calls her "baby". She wraps herself in the cocoon of his words, the pitch of his sentences falling up and down.
All she wants to do is wake up with her eyes dry.
2.
Veronica hates the wallpaper in Logan's new bedroom. Or what he says is the bedroom. She can barely tell. Even her apartment is larger than the bungalow he's purchased. She's never pegged him for the type to like a smaller place, but the piece fits in with Logan - her Logan - like he's reclaiming parts of himself that have been scattered by his father. He sees the bungalow on the edge of the water, pays the full price by check, and calls her right away. She wants to know if he's gone insane; he says that's all he's ever been, baby, and would she help him move his shit in tomorrow.
She asks if Duncan's finally stopped footing the bill on the suite.
The two of them have to dismantle the bed frame to get it through the door and spend the next six hours putting it back together. It stretches from wall to wall. There's barely enough room for him to get to the closet. But Logan just laughs and says he's never put clothes in a closet anyway; he'll leave them on the floor. He pulls her towards him and kisses her with her kneeling on the bed and him standing up and his palms under her shirt and splayed against her stomach. She gasps a little into his open mouth, curls her tongue against his front teeth, and pulls him down as she falls back.
Afterwards, as he traces his sprawling, impressive signature across her bare skin, Veronica notices the wallpaper. It's a faint green, almost olive-toned, but speckled with khaki and what looks like lavender dots. She's sure she's never seen anything quite as revolting. She tells Logan he's living in a room that looks like vomit. He asks her whether he should loop the L in Logan or not. She says she wants to strip the wallpaper. He tells her he's considering buying a shag rug in the same shade to match the walls, and his smile reaches his eyes.
Veronica rolls over to better punch him.
3.
Logan likes to swim first thing in the morning, diving into the water that is colder than he usually estimates. The chill rides its way up his torso and along his back, breathing ice into his veins and clearing his head better than anything. He hears that on the East Coast the ocean is freezing, but in seventh grade science he learned that the Pacific lapping the shores of California is just as cold. He doesn't remember why because at that moment Lilly sashayed past the classroom and smiled at him and his brain lost all coherent thought.
Lilly at fourteen was dangerous; Lilly at seventeen was deadly.
He does the backstroke until he starts to lose his breath, and he shakes his wet hair so droplets slide down the side of his face. Logan can taste salt inside his mouth, and he moves his way back to shore, the thin line of the beach, more slowly then he goes out. Veronica comes mornings, during or after his routine, and Logan likes it when she tries to make him breakfast while he showers. He holds his breath, plunges under. It's water all around him, water under him and over him, and water that stands by him, water that watches him when he sleeps.
Water's consistent; Logan likes that.
Veronica's consistency is guarded, vague, a distorted image that Logan finds difficult to grasp. He cannot trust that she will be there the next day, because she might very well not be. Because he forgives - oh, he forgave long ago - but Logan doesn't forget and with that comes Issues ("Issues". That's how his therapist refers to it, droning in his monotone while his patient lies on the couch and flicks rubber bands at the ceiling). He's too afraid that he'll wake up and she'll be gone, no note and no goodbye, no paper trail because she's too smart. She's Veronica Mars.
On the beach, Logan towels himself dry. If he squints, he can see Veronica's shadow walking Back-Up towards him.
4.
He's an awful cook. While he makes fun of her that everything she bakes leans slightly to the left, he can't even manage to make a pan of brownies (and definitely doesn't have enough skill to make "special" ones) from a Betty Crocker mix. The stove (or "oversized hot-plate" as Veronica likes to put it) in the bungalow is virtually untouched, save for a traumatic incident when Logan first attempts to make macaroni and cheese from a Kraft box. The night ends with the two of them scrubbing at overcooked noodles caked onto the walls, and eating cold Chinese take-out from the previous day.
Logan's disappointed, of course. He's a big fan of the orange stuff.
Some nights Veronica sleeps over, and he tries his best to at least make something edible. Eventually however, she goes out to the grocery store and brings back Cocoa Puffs, a loaf of whole wheat bread, Skippy peanut butter (chunky; Logan hates smooth), and strawberry jam. He builds a bonfire on the beach and loops his arm around her waist, one hand clutching a sandwich. She asks him what he would do without her and he tells her that he'd probably starve to death. She tells him that he could order a pizza, and he asks why would they waste the Skippy.
That's a good question. Veronica can't answer that one. Logan thinks that he rather likes making her speechless. She decides to smear peanut butter on his nose instead (because it improves his face), and of course then he has to wipe his sticky fingers on her neck (but she's so charming with pink streaks!), and their dinner dissolves into a messy food fight that the seagulls later eat when the two of them go to bed. She kicks him out early to go to the grocery store and buy more bread. Logan skips along the sand and scares some tourists.
Yeah. She's a keeper, all right.
5.
Veronica wants to be a doctor when she's five-years-old. Because, as she says, she wants to "help people with their boo-boos and stuff". Because her daddy is around "bad people" all day, and she doesn't want to be near those same bad people. Because doctors don't run out of their houses at three in the morning to respond to an emergency call (or so she thinks). Her parents give her a doctor's kit on her sixth birthday and Veronica is in heaven. She goes over to the Kanes and gives Lilly and Duncan check-ups to make sure they're okay.
Lilly tells her she doesn't want any other doctor but her, that Veronica makes her safe.
In middle school, Veronica still thinks that she's going to be a doctor - but it's a long way off. It doesn't seem important anymore to check medical references or to critically examine every cut or bruise Lilly manages to have. So she stops thinking about that, and Lilly seems to just stop thinking altogether, and Veronica and Lilly are VeronicaandLilly, until it later becomes VeronicaandDuncan and LillyandLogan and then it goes back to just Veronica. And, let's face it, disillusioned just Veronica isn't going to med school; she isn't really going anywhere.
And then disillusioned just Veronica realizes that doctors take care of people.
And private eyes can get revenge.
6.
Logan remembers having a real family. It's not that he wants to be sentimental and weepy and talk about how he was all abused and traumatized, but once, long long ago, he had a daddy, a mommy, a sister, and a dog - no. It's not like that. It's just that sometimes he likes to think about it, misses it in a way that he won't admit to anyone, not even Veronica (although at times, after having sex, he lies on his side and reminisces about going to movie premieres with his parents). It's just that sometimes he wants to pretend that Aaron Echolls the child-rapist, the murderer, was not all that.
One time he tells Veronica that "Little Orphan Annie" isn't all it's cracked up to be.
She kisses him and her hands slide down to his belt.
He wonders where Trina is now, basking in the afterglow of the Aaron Echolls' murder, soaking up all the media attention that she can get - which is a lot, considering the prodigal son punches reporters. He reads about her in the paper when he goes into town, scans through the newsstands to see her face on People and Us Weekly. She sends him postcards sometimes. "How are you?" "Is the weather nice?" "Say hi to Veronica for me!" "Hope you're well!" "Miss you! XOXOXO". It's all bullshit of course, but Logan saves them anyway.
It's nice to know she still thinks about him, even if it doesn't really matter at all.
7.
He can't close Venetian blinds. It's simply impossible. Well, maybe he's done it once or twice, but other than that, he hasn't been very successful. The strings tangle so well. And closing them actually requires him to know which angles work, which angles will fuck him up and slide the blinds crooked. Logan never realizes that they would require any work; he's never had Venetian blinds before, after all. His mother thought they were tacky. The house was filled with cloth curtains, thick ones in the master bedroom to shut out the sunlight (it was good for hangovers), and lacy ones for the living room.
Actually, Logan doesn't want curtains for his new bungalow at all, but Veronica insists. She says it'll make the house more domestic, homier. He gives into her because there's no reason to argue. He thinks maybe if she's saying that, she won't leave. They go to the store and she walks around, fingering fabrics, eyeing what she thinks would look best. Logan goes to a wall display, points to the blinds because he can picture the way they'll slice the light, and charges them on his debit card, the debit card that leads to half of Aaron Echolls' money, all of Lynn's.
She berates him the entire drive back, telling him he's going to regret this.
He thinks that it's auspicious. Veronica helps him install the blinds in the windows, her tongue poking out of the corner of her mouth in concentration. He sets them into place, but only because (as she reminds him acidly) he's taller than she is. Well, he says, almost everyone is taller than her. When they finish, she pulls on the string and glides the blinds up and down in such a fluid motion that Logan, for a moment, has to admire the beauty in the flick of her wrist. After she leaves, he tries it too, but the blinds fall haphazardly around, lopsided, ugly.
Logan calls her on her cell phone; she reminds him that she said he was going to regret it.
8.
Veronica keeps a reading list in a ragged notebook with spilled nail polish over the cover (if she presses her nose to it, she can almost taste the acrid smell in the back of her mouth). She's had it since she was eight, each title occupying its own line, carefully written out in blocky print. The first title on the list is Ella Enchanted; the one she wrote in yesterday is Crime and Punishment. That's number seven hundred and thirty-eight. She's still on six hundred and seventeen. That's Jane Eyre. It's been sitting on her bedside table since sophomore year. She doesn't think she's read a novel since then.
By the end of the second week of summer, she's moved onto six hundred and twenty-five. She's a fast reader, and being with Logan encourages her. While he builds sandcastles on the beach and swims out into the ocean, Veronica reads. When he's tired, he lies down next to her, his hair brushed with sand and skin slick with sunscreen, and she reads to him. He says he likes the sound of her voice as it falls into the rhythmic patterns of the author's words. They work their way through Pride and Prejudice. She reads him passages from The Magus. He says it's fucked up shit.
Well, she thinks, what isn't fucked up shit?
Personally, Veronica likes The Magus. She thinks John Fowles is pretty good. She doesn't know if she exactly understands the novel, but it affects her all the same. She finds a battered copy of The Alchemist in a used bookstore downtown. She and Logan take turns reading it aloud. The book's short; it doesn't take too long. Veronica really likes that too. Logan's quiet after she finishes the last page, digging into the wet sand with the big toe of his right foot. He tells her the story's beautiful, but he can't believe the universe would conspire to help someone fulfill their "personal legend".
She wants to. More than anything, she wishes she could believe it.
9.
Logan thinks that he's in love with her. He thinks this because it's beginning to feel like he can't be without her. Because this summer is moving too fast, and the academic year is approaching again. Because he needs to, more than anything, wake up in the morning with her curled against him, forehead against shoulder. He can't imagine what things would be like alone, and he finds that his breath catches in his throat and his pulse accelerates when he entertains the idea and that simply cannot be good for him, so he stops doing it.
She's beautiful when she says his name.
He's not trying to make her Mrs. Logan Echolls. That's not his goal. What he wants is to see how long they can ride this wave, how long can they continue to hold hands and take walks and sleep in the same bed. He says they're "epic", but epic wouldn't be epic without something tragic happening, and Logan's worried that he's jinxed it all now. Maybe saving her from Beaver isn't enough to keep her. Maybe there's the next guy with the gun, or the other woman jumping off the bridge. Maybe next time it won't be anybody else - it'll be him.
Well, there's the consistency thing again.
At one, he turns off the light and lies on the bed and he wants to ask her what she wants, but the question won't come and somehow he knows that she won't answer. He never claimed that epic was grand, but he wishes if he could find out why it has to be this way. Logan wants to know why he has to die, bit by bit, until everything is consumed. She sighs in her sleep, murmurs against the curve of his neck, and his heart shatters. This is part of their epic, their story, their fucked-up lives. He doesn't think they can help that.
He just thinks that they can be slightly less fucked-up together.
10.
Veronica knows that she can't stay with Logan. She knows this as well as she knows him now, tracing the faint freckles on his shoulder with her tongue and fingers, lingering over his mouth for a kiss. Yeah, it's cynical, it's awful, it's mean, but she knows it and it weighs down her every step. She can't call this a summer fling, because summer flings don't come back to haunt you like this does, and nor do they make you hurt like drowning. It's like her whole heart is full of him, like everything is only him, and she's falling in so far she can't get out.
This is dangerous. She can't fall that far.
She needs to know what she's doing, because staying with him is out of the question. She has college and grad school and a career. She cannot be with him forever. His bungalow by the water is maybe the closest she'll get to heaven, but she doesn't have a choice. Watching him sleep is already painful; walking away from him while he's awake would be ten times more difficult. She lies every day, and she wonders if she's doing it for him or for herself. Logan's not something she can trade away. He has claws.
Falling in love sucks.
When she's sure he's asleep, she untangles herself from him and dresses in the shadowy dark, with the moonlight playing off the walls. Veronica slides from his bed and out of the room, careful to sneak around the furniture that's packed tightly into this little shelter. She's been removing herself little by little, so subtle that he doesn't even notice. Last night she took her books. The night before her clothes. Tonight she'll take away all of her, and that's the hardest part of all. When she's ready to leave, she goes to see him one more time.
Her footprints lead away from the bungalow on the beach. The water will wash them away before dawn.
Author: chibi_care
Pairing/Character: Veronica/Logan
Word Count: 3192
Rating: R
Summary: This is the way their summer goes.
Spoilers: Through 2.22, Not Pictured
Warnings: Language
"I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
I do not think that they will sing to me."
T.S. Eliot: The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
1.
She cries at night now, when the moonlight pours its weight through the gauzy curtains, and she's lying with her cheek against her pillow. She can't remember crying like this since her mother left, but perhaps it's simply one of those inexplicable things that happen and cannot be helped. Maybe it's the memory of CassidyBeaverCassidy leaning back, accepting as a lover, letting himself fall over the edge of the Neptune Grand. Because as much as she hated him in that moment, she never did want him to die - not like that, anyway.
But then again - he died like a coward, and that was maybe the easiest thing of all.
Sometimes Veronica can't remember shedding tears during the night, but the pillowcase is always sodden and damp in the morning, stuck to her face. She doesn't let her father see, though she wonders if he can hear her from his room. Occasionally, she'll wake from nightmares, that her father's been killed all over again. There's always a scream caught in the back of her throat, hoarse and dry, endless and silent. Sometimes she sobs herself to sleep, a lullaby of sorts, as good as Logan's kiss and her father's jokes. It's not healthy, she thinks.
Veronica doesn't remember what healthy is; she can no longer tell the difference.
Logan's voice over the phone comes sleepy and gentle, thick as cotton balls. She calls him at one, leaves the phone by her ear until three, and hangs up when she realizes that she's no longer crying and he's no longer talking. She's reluctant to leave him, little snores bubbling through his mouth, but distantly she knows that she doesn't want brain cancer later in life. She can still be pragmatic, even through everything. Logan calls her "sweetheart"; he calls her "baby". She wraps herself in the cocoon of his words, the pitch of his sentences falling up and down.
All she wants to do is wake up with her eyes dry.
2.
Veronica hates the wallpaper in Logan's new bedroom. Or what he says is the bedroom. She can barely tell. Even her apartment is larger than the bungalow he's purchased. She's never pegged him for the type to like a smaller place, but the piece fits in with Logan - her Logan - like he's reclaiming parts of himself that have been scattered by his father. He sees the bungalow on the edge of the water, pays the full price by check, and calls her right away. She wants to know if he's gone insane; he says that's all he's ever been, baby, and would she help him move his shit in tomorrow.
She asks if Duncan's finally stopped footing the bill on the suite.
The two of them have to dismantle the bed frame to get it through the door and spend the next six hours putting it back together. It stretches from wall to wall. There's barely enough room for him to get to the closet. But Logan just laughs and says he's never put clothes in a closet anyway; he'll leave them on the floor. He pulls her towards him and kisses her with her kneeling on the bed and him standing up and his palms under her shirt and splayed against her stomach. She gasps a little into his open mouth, curls her tongue against his front teeth, and pulls him down as she falls back.
Afterwards, as he traces his sprawling, impressive signature across her bare skin, Veronica notices the wallpaper. It's a faint green, almost olive-toned, but speckled with khaki and what looks like lavender dots. She's sure she's never seen anything quite as revolting. She tells Logan he's living in a room that looks like vomit. He asks her whether he should loop the L in Logan or not. She says she wants to strip the wallpaper. He tells her he's considering buying a shag rug in the same shade to match the walls, and his smile reaches his eyes.
Veronica rolls over to better punch him.
3.
Logan likes to swim first thing in the morning, diving into the water that is colder than he usually estimates. The chill rides its way up his torso and along his back, breathing ice into his veins and clearing his head better than anything. He hears that on the East Coast the ocean is freezing, but in seventh grade science he learned that the Pacific lapping the shores of California is just as cold. He doesn't remember why because at that moment Lilly sashayed past the classroom and smiled at him and his brain lost all coherent thought.
Lilly at fourteen was dangerous; Lilly at seventeen was deadly.
He does the backstroke until he starts to lose his breath, and he shakes his wet hair so droplets slide down the side of his face. Logan can taste salt inside his mouth, and he moves his way back to shore, the thin line of the beach, more slowly then he goes out. Veronica comes mornings, during or after his routine, and Logan likes it when she tries to make him breakfast while he showers. He holds his breath, plunges under. It's water all around him, water under him and over him, and water that stands by him, water that watches him when he sleeps.
Water's consistent; Logan likes that.
Veronica's consistency is guarded, vague, a distorted image that Logan finds difficult to grasp. He cannot trust that she will be there the next day, because she might very well not be. Because he forgives - oh, he forgave long ago - but Logan doesn't forget and with that comes Issues ("Issues". That's how his therapist refers to it, droning in his monotone while his patient lies on the couch and flicks rubber bands at the ceiling). He's too afraid that he'll wake up and she'll be gone, no note and no goodbye, no paper trail because she's too smart. She's Veronica Mars.
On the beach, Logan towels himself dry. If he squints, he can see Veronica's shadow walking Back-Up towards him.
4.
He's an awful cook. While he makes fun of her that everything she bakes leans slightly to the left, he can't even manage to make a pan of brownies (and definitely doesn't have enough skill to make "special" ones) from a Betty Crocker mix. The stove (or "oversized hot-plate" as Veronica likes to put it) in the bungalow is virtually untouched, save for a traumatic incident when Logan first attempts to make macaroni and cheese from a Kraft box. The night ends with the two of them scrubbing at overcooked noodles caked onto the walls, and eating cold Chinese take-out from the previous day.
Logan's disappointed, of course. He's a big fan of the orange stuff.
Some nights Veronica sleeps over, and he tries his best to at least make something edible. Eventually however, she goes out to the grocery store and brings back Cocoa Puffs, a loaf of whole wheat bread, Skippy peanut butter (chunky; Logan hates smooth), and strawberry jam. He builds a bonfire on the beach and loops his arm around her waist, one hand clutching a sandwich. She asks him what he would do without her and he tells her that he'd probably starve to death. She tells him that he could order a pizza, and he asks why would they waste the Skippy.
That's a good question. Veronica can't answer that one. Logan thinks that he rather likes making her speechless. She decides to smear peanut butter on his nose instead (because it improves his face), and of course then he has to wipe his sticky fingers on her neck (but she's so charming with pink streaks!), and their dinner dissolves into a messy food fight that the seagulls later eat when the two of them go to bed. She kicks him out early to go to the grocery store and buy more bread. Logan skips along the sand and scares some tourists.
Yeah. She's a keeper, all right.
5.
Veronica wants to be a doctor when she's five-years-old. Because, as she says, she wants to "help people with their boo-boos and stuff". Because her daddy is around "bad people" all day, and she doesn't want to be near those same bad people. Because doctors don't run out of their houses at three in the morning to respond to an emergency call (or so she thinks). Her parents give her a doctor's kit on her sixth birthday and Veronica is in heaven. She goes over to the Kanes and gives Lilly and Duncan check-ups to make sure they're okay.
Lilly tells her she doesn't want any other doctor but her, that Veronica makes her safe.
In middle school, Veronica still thinks that she's going to be a doctor - but it's a long way off. It doesn't seem important anymore to check medical references or to critically examine every cut or bruise Lilly manages to have. So she stops thinking about that, and Lilly seems to just stop thinking altogether, and Veronica and Lilly are VeronicaandLilly, until it later becomes VeronicaandDuncan and LillyandLogan and then it goes back to just Veronica. And, let's face it, disillusioned just Veronica isn't going to med school; she isn't really going anywhere.
And then disillusioned just Veronica realizes that doctors take care of people.
And private eyes can get revenge.
6.
Logan remembers having a real family. It's not that he wants to be sentimental and weepy and talk about how he was all abused and traumatized, but once, long long ago, he had a daddy, a mommy, a sister, and a dog - no. It's not like that. It's just that sometimes he likes to think about it, misses it in a way that he won't admit to anyone, not even Veronica (although at times, after having sex, he lies on his side and reminisces about going to movie premieres with his parents). It's just that sometimes he wants to pretend that Aaron Echolls the child-rapist, the murderer, was not all that.
One time he tells Veronica that "Little Orphan Annie" isn't all it's cracked up to be.
She kisses him and her hands slide down to his belt.
He wonders where Trina is now, basking in the afterglow of the Aaron Echolls' murder, soaking up all the media attention that she can get - which is a lot, considering the prodigal son punches reporters. He reads about her in the paper when he goes into town, scans through the newsstands to see her face on People and Us Weekly. She sends him postcards sometimes. "How are you?" "Is the weather nice?" "Say hi to Veronica for me!" "Hope you're well!" "Miss you! XOXOXO". It's all bullshit of course, but Logan saves them anyway.
It's nice to know she still thinks about him, even if it doesn't really matter at all.
7.
He can't close Venetian blinds. It's simply impossible. Well, maybe he's done it once or twice, but other than that, he hasn't been very successful. The strings tangle so well. And closing them actually requires him to know which angles work, which angles will fuck him up and slide the blinds crooked. Logan never realizes that they would require any work; he's never had Venetian blinds before, after all. His mother thought they were tacky. The house was filled with cloth curtains, thick ones in the master bedroom to shut out the sunlight (it was good for hangovers), and lacy ones for the living room.
Actually, Logan doesn't want curtains for his new bungalow at all, but Veronica insists. She says it'll make the house more domestic, homier. He gives into her because there's no reason to argue. He thinks maybe if she's saying that, she won't leave. They go to the store and she walks around, fingering fabrics, eyeing what she thinks would look best. Logan goes to a wall display, points to the blinds because he can picture the way they'll slice the light, and charges them on his debit card, the debit card that leads to half of Aaron Echolls' money, all of Lynn's.
She berates him the entire drive back, telling him he's going to regret this.
He thinks that it's auspicious. Veronica helps him install the blinds in the windows, her tongue poking out of the corner of her mouth in concentration. He sets them into place, but only because (as she reminds him acidly) he's taller than she is. Well, he says, almost everyone is taller than her. When they finish, she pulls on the string and glides the blinds up and down in such a fluid motion that Logan, for a moment, has to admire the beauty in the flick of her wrist. After she leaves, he tries it too, but the blinds fall haphazardly around, lopsided, ugly.
Logan calls her on her cell phone; she reminds him that she said he was going to regret it.
8.
Veronica keeps a reading list in a ragged notebook with spilled nail polish over the cover (if she presses her nose to it, she can almost taste the acrid smell in the back of her mouth). She's had it since she was eight, each title occupying its own line, carefully written out in blocky print. The first title on the list is Ella Enchanted; the one she wrote in yesterday is Crime and Punishment. That's number seven hundred and thirty-eight. She's still on six hundred and seventeen. That's Jane Eyre. It's been sitting on her bedside table since sophomore year. She doesn't think she's read a novel since then.
By the end of the second week of summer, she's moved onto six hundred and twenty-five. She's a fast reader, and being with Logan encourages her. While he builds sandcastles on the beach and swims out into the ocean, Veronica reads. When he's tired, he lies down next to her, his hair brushed with sand and skin slick with sunscreen, and she reads to him. He says he likes the sound of her voice as it falls into the rhythmic patterns of the author's words. They work their way through Pride and Prejudice. She reads him passages from The Magus. He says it's fucked up shit.
Well, she thinks, what isn't fucked up shit?
Personally, Veronica likes The Magus. She thinks John Fowles is pretty good. She doesn't know if she exactly understands the novel, but it affects her all the same. She finds a battered copy of The Alchemist in a used bookstore downtown. She and Logan take turns reading it aloud. The book's short; it doesn't take too long. Veronica really likes that too. Logan's quiet after she finishes the last page, digging into the wet sand with the big toe of his right foot. He tells her the story's beautiful, but he can't believe the universe would conspire to help someone fulfill their "personal legend".
She wants to. More than anything, she wishes she could believe it.
9.
Logan thinks that he's in love with her. He thinks this because it's beginning to feel like he can't be without her. Because this summer is moving too fast, and the academic year is approaching again. Because he needs to, more than anything, wake up in the morning with her curled against him, forehead against shoulder. He can't imagine what things would be like alone, and he finds that his breath catches in his throat and his pulse accelerates when he entertains the idea and that simply cannot be good for him, so he stops doing it.
She's beautiful when she says his name.
He's not trying to make her Mrs. Logan Echolls. That's not his goal. What he wants is to see how long they can ride this wave, how long can they continue to hold hands and take walks and sleep in the same bed. He says they're "epic", but epic wouldn't be epic without something tragic happening, and Logan's worried that he's jinxed it all now. Maybe saving her from Beaver isn't enough to keep her. Maybe there's the next guy with the gun, or the other woman jumping off the bridge. Maybe next time it won't be anybody else - it'll be him.
Well, there's the consistency thing again.
At one, he turns off the light and lies on the bed and he wants to ask her what she wants, but the question won't come and somehow he knows that she won't answer. He never claimed that epic was grand, but he wishes if he could find out why it has to be this way. Logan wants to know why he has to die, bit by bit, until everything is consumed. She sighs in her sleep, murmurs against the curve of his neck, and his heart shatters. This is part of their epic, their story, their fucked-up lives. He doesn't think they can help that.
He just thinks that they can be slightly less fucked-up together.
10.
Veronica knows that she can't stay with Logan. She knows this as well as she knows him now, tracing the faint freckles on his shoulder with her tongue and fingers, lingering over his mouth for a kiss. Yeah, it's cynical, it's awful, it's mean, but she knows it and it weighs down her every step. She can't call this a summer fling, because summer flings don't come back to haunt you like this does, and nor do they make you hurt like drowning. It's like her whole heart is full of him, like everything is only him, and she's falling in so far she can't get out.
This is dangerous. She can't fall that far.
She needs to know what she's doing, because staying with him is out of the question. She has college and grad school and a career. She cannot be with him forever. His bungalow by the water is maybe the closest she'll get to heaven, but she doesn't have a choice. Watching him sleep is already painful; walking away from him while he's awake would be ten times more difficult. She lies every day, and she wonders if she's doing it for him or for herself. Logan's not something she can trade away. He has claws.
Falling in love sucks.
When she's sure he's asleep, she untangles herself from him and dresses in the shadowy dark, with the moonlight playing off the walls. Veronica slides from his bed and out of the room, careful to sneak around the furniture that's packed tightly into this little shelter. She's been removing herself little by little, so subtle that he doesn't even notice. Last night she took her books. The night before her clothes. Tonight she'll take away all of her, and that's the hardest part of all. When she's ready to leave, she goes to see him one more time.
Her footprints lead away from the bungalow on the beach. The water will wash them away before dawn.