CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

It was a Tuesday morning, the light still low over the east hills. The beach was almost empty, save a few surfers hauling their boards out of the water. Salt and the mildly rotten smell of seaweed hung on the air. Veronica and Logan sat on an old plaid bed sheet, watching as Pony played in the surf. Logan was in Service Khaki, his shirt and pants almost the same color as the sand beneath them. His cap sat on top of their cooler, his shoes and socks stowed neatly nearby. He was due back on base at noon. From there, they’d fly him out, first through Norfolk, then through Italy, and then—the final leg—back to the Truman, which was somewhere in the Arabian Sea.

The remnants of their breakfast picnic littered the blanket around them—plastic tubs of fruit, quiche Lorraine, chocolate croissants, and mugs of hot coffee. Veronica had barely eaten, picking at her food, but Logan had sampled everything and gone back for seconds. “Real food’s about to be a thing of my past,” he’d said, his mouth full of pineapple and blueberries. “Gotta savor it while I can.”

They watched as Pony charged and retreated from the surf, her body writhing with excitement. She’d almost doubled in size since the day they got her. Now she was too big to sit in Logan’s lap. It didn’t stop her from trying—Veronica had at least three pictures of the dog awkwardly splayed over him. One was now her desktop wallpaper.

“How am I going to raise Pony without you?” she asked. “You know what happens to puppies who don’t have a strong masculine figure around. She’ll grow up with daddy issues.”

It wasn’t meant to be a real argument; she’d let those go the day he’d mailed his paperwork. She’d bottled up all the things she’d been feeling—resentment, fear, grief—and forced herself to smile and pretend everything was normal. He’d be leaving, whether she liked it or not. It didn’t do her any good to fill their last days together with fights.

And they say Veronica Mars doesn’t know how to pick her battles, she thought wryly. Well, she still had plenty of windmills at which to tilt. In the weeks since her trip to Vegas, she’d been stuck, unable to gain any more traction against Bellamy. She’d e-mailed Bethany Rose again, asking if she’d consider filing a police report, but she’d never heard back. She’d sent another e-mail to Tonya Vahn, the girl whose phone had been disconnected, and begged her to call with any information. Strike two.

Without another witness who’d go on record, there was nothing else she could do. Nothing but watch Mitch Bellamy, and wait, hoping they got a break before he tried to hurt someone else.

At least Mac is still monitoring his accounts so we’ll know if he does try something. That’s some comfort. And I always have Sweet Pea’s number—not that I’ll use it. But she thought about it sometimes, taking it out of her wallet and holding it up. Imagining the no-niceties dimension in which she could casually sic a very large, very businesslike man to take care of cases she couldn’t prove in court.

Between that and Logan’s preparations to leave, she’d felt uncharacteristically helpless. She’d started jogging in the mornings, just for something to do. She’d run along the beach and weave through the neighborhood, trying to make herself too tired to care. So far it wasn’t working, but she’d shaved a few seconds off her mile. And she’d started to follow the election coverage feverishly. She read every article she could get her hands on about Marcia Langdon, obsessed over poll updates and projected voting patterns. She’d helped with Keith’s caseload a few times that week to free him up to work on the trial preparations. It wasn’t much, but it was easier than all this waiting.

Voices of the Navy wives at the funeral echoed in her mind like a Greek chorus. We try to look out for each other. Well, you’ll see. It didn’t make her feel better. She didn’t want to be in their club. Didn’t want to learn how to be apart from the one person she longed to see every day.

“Veronica.”

She snapped back into the moment and looked over at Logan. He was watching the ocean, his eyes intent on the waves, his brow slightly furrowed.

“You know we can do this, right?” he said.

She wanted to say yes. To reassure him, to keep their morning simple. She had a feeling that was what Cathy and the other Navy wives would do. But she couldn’t seem to make herself speak.

“Well, that’s not reassuring,” he murmured, turning to look at her.

She hugged her knees to her chest. “Logan, all of this is still new to me. This coming and going, the cycle of losing you and then getting you back, only to lose you all over again.”

“You’re not losing me, Veronica.” He ran his hand through his hair. “You know, I’m not leaving you.”

“But you’re not staying either.”

For a moment, they sat in silence. Veronica’s shoulders were tight, her fingernails cutting into her palms. When Logan spoke again, his voice was low. She looked up to meet his eyes. They were serious and sad.

“Look, Veronica, I know you’re pissed that I’m going back early.” She blinked, surprised. He smirked. “Sorry—you’re not that good an actor. And I come from a family of bad actors so I should know. Anyway, you have a right to be pissed. I get it. But this isn’t about you. It kills me to leave you. I hate it. But I have to, because this is who I am. You just don’t know what this job means to me.”

“So tell me.”

He ran his hand over his face. For a few long minutes he seemed to be gathering his thoughts.

“You were gone for nine years, so all you got to see was the ‘after’ picture. The ‘before’—let’s just say it wasn’t so nice. I was hitting the bottle pretty hard. And some other stuff too, bad stuff.” He laughed humorlessly. “You know how it is around here. As long as you call it ‘partying’ it’s all okay. But it was getting pretty out of control. Even Dick was worried, and that should tell you something.” He shook his head. “There’s stuff I barely remember. Like, once I wandered into a woman’s house, thinking it was Dick’s. She found me passed out on the sofa. I was lucky she didn’t call the cops. But the thing is, I didn’t even care. That was the worst of it.”

Something clenched around Veronica’s heart, a tightness that tore into her like claws. But she held her tongue.

“Everything just felt pointless and stupid. I remember being out on my surfboard one morning and sitting there for the longest time. I’d paddled out as far as I could, and the waves were amazing, but I couldn’t make myself stand up. I thought about just rolling off the board and letting myself drift. Seeing if I could drown without too much effort.” He looked up at the sky. “I guess it’s no big shocker. Another Hollywood brat who can’t handle his shit.”

Veronica inhaled sharply. She’d been at Stanford by then—trying her best to forget everything she’d left behind her. Trying to forget Logan. While she’d been complaining about all-nighters and turgid academic prose, he’d been casually, calmly thinking about ending his own life.

Logan continued. “It went on like that for a couple of years, worse and worse. And Veronica, it would have killed me. Without a doubt, it would have killed me, if not for Dr. Galway. I don’t know if you remember him; he was a history professor at Hearst. He showed up at the hospital after my second OD. I’d already dropped out of Hearst by then, but I guess for some reason I had made an impression on him. Turns out, he used to be a flyboy himself. He was the one who told me I was made for this. He checked me into a detox and rehab program and made sure I stuck with it. Afterward he helped me reenroll at Hearst, then he made some calls to get me into OCS.”

Logan scooped up a handful of sand and let it trickle through his fingers. “After that, it was like things just snapped into focus for me. For the first time in my life I had something that seemed worth working for. Something with actual, you know, purpose.”

He laughed, embarrassed by his own earnestness.

“Sorry—lamest recruiting script ever. Take Two: I just wanted the badass flight suit and a chance to reduce architectural treasures of the ancient world to smoking rubble.”

“Now that’s the man who won my heart,” Veronica said, gently rubbing his back.

“Look, you’ve known me a long time,” Logan said, the urgency returning to his voice. “I’m living proof it’s possible to have total freedom—to be indulged and deferred to by everyone around you—yet feel utterly worthless. You can’t imagine that feeling, Veronica, because you’ve never spent a day being worthless in your life. But for me it was like…a revelation.”

He took her hand and looked at her steadily. “So please understand, this isn’t some asinine death wish. This is what saved my life.”

Her eyes blurred, and she was half surprised to find tears running down her cheeks. For a moment she couldn’t think, couldn’t process; all she could do was hear his words echoing over and over. Drown without too much effort. Second OD. She felt his hand squeeze hers, and she squeezed back.

A warm, wet ball of fur suddenly collided into her. Pony ran back and forth across their blanket, tracking sand everywhere. Veronica pointed her finger at the puppy.

“Sit,” she said.

Pony licked her finger, then bounced in circles around them. Veronica looked at Logan.

“You see? She’s already acting out. It’s a cry for help.” She wiped her eyes quickly, and ruffled the fur on the puppy’s neck.

Then she took a deep breath. “Acceptance has never been one of my strong suits. But I’m trying, Logan. I just need some time.”

“That I can give you,” he said. He slid an arm around her waist. “I’ve gotten good at waiting for things.”

“Who knew you’d be the patient one?” She rested her forehead against his.

They sat that way for a few minutes, looking into each other’s eyes. And for that brief moment, nothing that’d come before or after mattered. The sound of gulls and waves surrounded them, the puppy leaned against Veronica’s leg, and she and Logan were just where they were supposed to be: side by side, at the edge of the world.

Date: 2015-12-18; view: 594