Authors Note; This is my first ever LoVe (Or Veronica Mars, for that matter) fic. Its a one shot, and its set sometime pre-series, not long before Lilly was murdered.

Disclaimer; Unfortunately, I own nothing.

Big Girls Don't Cry

"I love you." Here I am, standing out in the rain, opening up my soul and bearing this totally cliche' worthy moment just for him, and he just gives me blank stare. Thats it. No 'I love you toos' or kisses and hugs. He's just standing there across from me, his shoulders slumped and his back against the hood of that hideous yellow junker. "I love you." I enunciate each word, just in case he hadn't understood the meaning of what I had said the first time. And yet I still haven't gotten any type of emotion out of him. No reaction. None at all. Its almost as if he isn't even here at all, just his body and nothing else. I try to reach out to him, mentally and phsyically, but he pushes my hand away.

"I think we should break up." I do a double take, not sure I've heard him correctly. Over the past months I've gotten so used to our hidden meetings, our secret hook ups and our shared feelings. I let down my barriers with him. I let him in. And now he's dumping me? Right after I told him that I loved him? "This," He waves his hand around, gestures towards himself and then towards me, "It just isn't working, V. I mean, don't get me wrong. You were a great fuck and all, but other then that? I'm just not feelin it. Sorry." Maybe if the words coming out of his mouth hadn't of been so cruel and maybe if the way he had said sorry hadn't been so cold, maybe just maybe... Maybe I wouldn't of felt myself reaching out and snatching back all of those blocks that I had used to so effortlessly tear down the wall that I used to keep out all of those unwanted intruders. Those intruders that tried so hardly to see into your soul and break down your emotions, those people who wanted you to talk and to feel and to just be. Logan Echolls had turned into one of those people for me. Except, instead of pushing him away, I had let him in. All of him.

"Your trying to break up with me and we're not even really dating?" I shaked my head in mock exasperation. "Typical boy drama."

"So you tell all the guys your not dating that you love them?" I wince at the reference to my earlier word vomit, angered at him for bringing that up after he just dropped the break up bomb.

"No, just the ones that I want something from." I siddle up to him, a seductive smile on my face, and place my hand out to him, palm forward. "I'll take the cash in hundreds. I'd even settle for a pony." I hated this. He knew I hated this. The way he was playing me, the way he was making me do a 180 from serious to sarcastic. He knew that inside I was hurting, and that I would never let it show.

"Whoops, fresh out of hundreds and ponies. Sorry." He simply shrugs his shoulders, and now we're just standing there, staring at one another. I think I see a flicker of emotion in his eyes, maybe a sign of sorrow, but then the jackass is back and the look in his eyes came and went so fast that I was stuck thinking I had maybe just imagined it.

"Why?" I state is flatly, simply, and try to keep my voice neutral and devoid of emotion. I know its no use and that he can see through my fascade, but that doesn't stop my trying to keep my real emotions hidden.

He looks baffled by my question, but that doesn't stop him from answering. If anything, the boy had balls. He never left a question unanswered. But that never stopped him from letting lies seep into his answers. "I told you, I'm just not feeling it anymore." I give him the eye that had convinced criminal master minds (okay, alright. Maybe not criminal master minds, but criminals, never the less) into confessing every sin that they had ever comitted. "Its just too hard. I'm over it."

"Your over it?"

"Yup."

"Over what, exactly?"

"You. Us. All of the baggage it brings. I've never met someone who could make me feel so horrible all the time." Now that really stung. I knew about his father, about the way he hurt Logan. To know that I hurt him more then that? Then anything in the world, and to have him tell it to my face? I felt the tears prick the back of my eyes, begging me to let them just fall. But I couldn't, wouldn't. I was Veronica Mars. I didn't cry. I didn't even feel pain. I was the painless, tearless, emotionless girl.

"Gee, thanks. Knowing that I come in first at something in your life just makes me feel all giddy inside." I fake a giggle and bat my eyelashes at him, the seriousness of the situation gone again and replaced with my faithful wit.

"I've got to go." He stands to leave, gives me a long, penetrating look, and then turns his back on me (and apparantly, on us). But then, suddenly, he turns back around and I get this tiny feeling of hope that he's going to say it was all a big act; that he didn't really want break up with me. Or not-break-up-with-me-but-still-end-whatever-it-is. Instead he ruffles through his pockets and takes out a crumpled bill. He tosses it at my feet. "There's a fifty, hope it covers last nights fuck." I shiver as he leaves, bend down and rip up the money as he drives off. I know its a dramatic and over the top move, that there's probably someone who could really use this fifty dollars, but I'm just hurting too much. I think having my sort of boyfriend spell out to me that he thinks I'm worth only fifty dollars gave me the right to cross over into the dramatic side.

That memory of that day is etched into my memory. Logan and I had a relationship that I never could experience again. Sure, everything about us had been kept in secret. He was with Lilly as I was with Duncan. We were both faithfully happy in our real life relationships. But then at night, when it was just me and him, I realized what real love was like. When we were at our best we tossed playful quips back and forth, and while at our normal we fought like never before. And at our worst? He dumped me or I dumped him. It was a usual routine, when things got too rough for him at home or when my mother started drinking herself into a stupor again. We ended things with one another to focus our pains on something else, something entirely different that could keep our minds off of all our other troubles.

Little did I know that that was the last time we would break up. Granted, each time we did I felt a little bit of pain, pain at knowing that there would never really be an us. That it was all just some big rouse. But not even a few days after that last break up was when the Lilly Kane murder happened, and I lost contact with the side of Logan I loved entirely. I knew he felt guilt for what happened between he and I, but I didn't. I couldn't. Lilly had been my best friend, and Logan had been the love of my life. It didn't matter that he was Lilly's boyfriend, or that at in our best moments we were at one anothers throats. But that never stopped the sight of him from causing my heart to clench tight in my chest. It never ceased the pain, and it never caused me to fully get over the Logan Echolls.