Things to know: Before summer break started, Veronica had to choose between Piz and Oregon and Logan and Neptune. She chose Piz and his cottage in little 'ol Beaverton; after Piz broke up with Veronica, Veronica had a one night stand with Logan. She failed to mention this when she agreed to go to Oregon with Piz. Piz is convinced that Veronica has to go back to Neptune because she still loves Logan; finally, this is the last chapter of this ridiculously long story. Remember, flashbacks are in italics!
If I haven't told you this already…this is a soap opera.
Most of what I remember makes me sure/I should have stopped you from walking out the door/Do the things that you always wanted to/Without me there to hold you back, don't think, just do/More than anything I want to see you go/Take a glorious bite out of the whole world
-
It was only a matter of time before he would pay her a visit. He would hear it, her return to Neptune, through the grapevine, but it was not so much a grapevine as it was a direct and very specific set of questions employed on her best friends, resulting in awkward pauses and reluctant answers. These answers eventually led him to her home, her porch, and three anxious knocks on her door.
"I know I've been…unfair." Logan admitted to her, rubbing his forehead. He looked at her cautiously, waiting for her to respond.
"You're right." Veronica agreed, crossing her arms over her chest.
Logan nodded and inhaled deeply like he was ready to expel his latest grand speech.
"But, not entirely." She said, making him hold his thoughts for a moment. "I can't blame you for everything's that's happened."
"Okay." He said, waiting for something more because she looked like she was composing other thoughts she might want to share.
"You're right." She said and gulped a lump in her throat. "I'm going to admit it now before I change my mind. I still have feelings for you."
He took her hands in his as his lips formed a small smile. "You didn't have to travel to the middle of nowhere to figure that out."
Veronica retrieved her hands and timidly wrung them away from him. "I came back to tell you that I love you, but I don't want you. Not now, not like this."
"I don't—" He said, his smile faltering, shaking his head, refusing to understand.
"I don't want to be careless." She said. "I don't want to be that person, someone who's selfish and cowardly. Piz—"
"Is not who you want to be with." He said urgently. "I know you Veronica. You can't decide to be someone else because it's easier or choose a life that seems better than the one you have now. You were lying to yourself when you left. You knew, I know you knew, that it seemed like a good idea at the time, finding peace or something that could take your mind away from all of this. I know things were confusing and hard, I'm probably the main reason why it was that way, but you have to know that with him you aren't yourself and it's not right."
"Neither is lying." Veronica snapped back.
"You were broken up with him when we got together." Logan pointed out, frowning.
"And do you know why we broke up in the first place?" She asked, crossing her arms tightly around her front. "He saw us together. I-I've turned into someone who I don't want to be. I…I've always hated the fact that people who you trust can betray you. I mean, who can you trust when the people who claim to care about you can't be counted on?" She sighed and added, "It's why we didn't work out…"
"I promised you that it would be different this time...I would be different." Logan said, running an unsteady hand through his hair. "We could start over again."
Veronica tentatively pulled at his shirt, bringing him closer to her. She looked up at him, pleadingly. "Maybe someday…maybe one day I can believe that. But, right now, there are too many things wrong to make that promise seem real or possible."
-
A night in Oregon…
You are the loneliest girl in the world/And I just want to make it go away
Wearing a frown on her face and a change of clean, slightly crinkled clothes, Veronica lounged over the front of an old, rusty pick-up truck. Next to her, Piz gave her a sympathetic smile and then shut his eyes as he rested his head against the truck's window, crossing his arms and letting out a deep sigh. She rolled her eyes and did not hesitant to jab him in the stomach, causing him to groan and his eyes to instantly jerk open.
"I have to say, you really know how to make a girl feel special." She said, turning her head so that he could see her smirking.
"In fact, I have been praised for my skills on more than one occasion." He grinned, stretching his arms out and then resting them underneath his head.
"I mean, who knew you could pull off such a romantic night? The intimate company of twenty strangers, some wasted, passed out in the bathroom or throwing drinks all over me, and the fine dining of Doritos and keg stands. I was hoping you'd pull me into the bedroom while your friends cheer you on and spill more drinks on me in the process. But, sadly, tonight was only two for three." She said wistfully.
"Pork grind?" He said, he brandishing an open bag under her nose.
"How could I forget about the pork grinds?" She said, glaring at him. "Another delicacy of the night."
Piz chuckled sheepishly. "I really didn't mean for so many people to show up. I guess the guys stopped listening after I mentioned 'coming home' and 'empty cottage'. There isn't much to do in town and…"
Veronica crossed her arms and raised a brow.
"My friends are idiots." He admitted. "Sorry."
Veronica patted his arm, wrapped her arm around it, and dug into the bag that he rested on his stomach. "We're in college. We're bound to endure enough drunken parties for it to become commonplace." She said, shrugged, and then popped half of a larger piece of pork grind in her mouth.
"Still." He said. "All I wanted was for them to meet you and hopefully end the night without embarrassing themselves, but—"
"C'mon Piznarski. Give me some credit here. These eyes have seen things, things that are a bit more significant than your average drunken Joe." She said.
"I guess…"
"It's safe to say that I've become somewhat immune to it. Thanks, or no thanks, to Dick Casablancas." She said as if his name was enough explanation.
"Well, the last of them have left. The so-called 'empty cottage' is finally free and at our disposal…" He said slowly, hoping his message was as clear as he was making it out to be.
"Look at you." She said, covering her slack-jawed mouth, mocking bashfulness. "Mr. Big Shot, who do you think you are? Are you suggesting that we move this party into the bedroom?" She nudged him a couple times near his ribs.
Piz chuckled lightly, averting her gaze and bowing his head. "We could. Or we could take a trip down the lake and—"
"Talk about our feelings and carve our names into a nearby tree." She said dreamily.
"Well—"
"Pull out your guitar and sing our Kumbayas 'til the sun comes up."
Piz shook his head and smirked. "You don't fool me, Veronica." He said. "This front that you keep putting up, I'm not buying it." He repositioned his head against his hands that cushioned it over the truck's front window pane as he fixed is sights on the night sky. She could see his smirk growing wider as her silence extended, free of any quick quips or comments of any kind. "Yup, sticks and stones." He added.
Veronica sat up with her fists resting on either side of her hips. "Really?" She replied, lamely, glaring down at him. It bothered her that she couldn't think of anything else to say instead. He wouldn't look up at her, so she continued to glare at him.
"I'm not slick or smooth or anything close to what you're used to. But, whether you want to admit it or not, I think quaint, small-time Beaverton works for you too. " He explained. "That's why I let all the teasing you do slide. In fact, it's how I know I still have a chance with you. Really, your defence mechanisms are cute."
Veronica lay back down and grinned timidly, feeling her cheeks slightly warm up. "I need to start using harsher critique on your hair or instil doubt in your masculinity. At the very least, bring down that confidence a notch." She plotted, chewing on her bottom lip. Moments later, she excitedly shot her index finger in the air. "You drive a chick car and…and…you listen to really, really bad music."
Piz grabbed the front of his shirt, imitating a pained expression on his face. "Oh!" He moaned, wincing.
Veronica idly pulled at the hem of her shirt and as Piz's laughter subsided she decided to speak again. "You think I put up a front a lot, huh?" She said, suddenly sounding starkly different from her previous perky tone. She sounded concerned.
Piz's gaze left the night sky to look over at her. He shrugged his shoulders. "I get it." He said simply. "Sometimes you need to protect yourself."
"I'm not trying to protect—"
"You are and it's okay." He said, smiling calmly.
Veronica opened her mouth to retort but suddenly and inexplicably stopped herself. She decided that he didn't know what he was talking about and that he was reading too much into things.
"You don't have to do it around me though. Protect yourself, I mean." He said. "I don't want you to around me."
Veronica looked over at him, meeting his eyes and regretting it. She hoped he didn't notice how nervous she felt under his scrutiny, successfully exposing her for the phoney she was. She was vain to think that someone so seemingly harmless could draw insecurities and certain truths out of her. But, he managed this on his own and whenever he deliberately chose to. When she looked away he moved closer to her, moving the arm she clung to under her head and resting it around her shoulder.
"I really don't need to be that way around you, do I?" She said as she rested her cheek on his on shoulder, staring at his jaw line.
"No." He said, looking down at her. He traced his fingers along her arm closest to his stomach until he met her hand, lacing his fingers with hers. "Listen, I hope you're not taking all of that too seriously, I just meant to say—"
Veronica let out a low chuckle. "Don't worry about it. You're right, you're right." She said casually.
"Really. I didn't want you think that I was being mean about it. I mean, you know that I would never intentionally say anything mean or make you uncomfortable, because, really, I was just joking around. In fact, I—"
"Hey!" She yelped, grabbed his jaw, and brought him to her eye level. "You're seriously rambling, Piznarski."
Piz sighed and elicited another chuckle from Veronica whose hand was still holding the side of his face. "I'm always ruining the moment." He said, grimacing.
Veronica released him and rested her head on his shoulder again. Suddenly, everything around her seemed to inflame her senses. It was the way his thumb began drawing circles in her palm, the Oregon air at night, the knowledge that somewhere in Neptune she was not perpetuating a clue, and that for a moment or two and a moment longer than two, she forgot who she was entirely. It felt incredible even if a lie that was by omission had been hanging over her head since she arrived to this point. As she saw things, there were only so many moments like these, moments that were as simple as they should be, until he realized who she really was.
"You're not ruining anything." She told him. "Everything's perfect now."
-
"This is perfect, right?" Keith Mars said, putting his arm around his daughter. "A long over due daddy-daughter time with popcorn and…couldn't you have picked a better movie?"
Veronica turned in his arm, giving him an indignant stare. "Dad, I'm in college now. I have to start being more politically aware."
"Grown men playing with puppets?" He asked, sceptically.
"I happen to think Team America is the first step towards political enlightenment." She grinned widely at him.
"Quality viewing." He grumbled dryly, dipping his hand into the popcorn bowl in his lap.
Veronica shook his head, smiling widely, pushing the play button in the direction of their DVD player. The player gave a low whirling noise before the screen began to play some trailers, ones they skipped for the movie to finally to start. Keith, throughout the movie, couldn't help but steal secret side glances her way. It wasn't his fault. She failed to explain why she decided to come home several weeks before her original return. However, it would have been an opportune time to press for a reason for her coming home when she called him to pick her up from Oregon very early in the morning two days previous. It was a moment he postponed because she seemed more concerned with coming home than with details. Even when Logan showed up at their doorstep, talking in hushed, vague references to her return, and leaving as quickly as he came, Keith didn't disturb her. All he knew was that things didn't work out with Piz and the summer she planned with him. He refrained from questioning the two of them when it was painstakingly clear, when he was close enough to examine the tension, evident in Veronica's tone over the phone, calling him at five in the morning, for himself. From the bouts of deafening pauses, Piz's one word answers, and the hand squeeze Veronica shared with Piz when she thought he was not looking, it seemed as though there was an unspoken rule against speaking about things that were already resolved and too fresh to be reminded of.
When the movie ended, Keith dared to prod. "You okay? I mean, you're okay with staying home this summer and working. The reason I ask is…Well, I thought a part of the college experience was trying the freedom thing, finding every way possible to stay out longer and farther away from home. Don't get me wrong, honey. I love that you're not as easily persuaded but—"
"I'm fine." She said with much certainty, looking into his wary eyes.
"I mean, are you going to be okay." He clarified.
"Yeah." She said slowly but with more conviction than her last reply.
"Really?" Keith wrapped his arm more tightly around her. "And it doesn't bother you that you're staying home on a Saturday night with your old man?"
Veronica turned to face him, smiling. "I couldn't think of a better place to be."
The End.