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She should feel something. But she just, doesn’t.
She used to be afraid of fire. She never told anyone that. She wasn’t exactly a fan of a lot of things that she never told anyone. Small spaces, parking garages, the list goes on. No one needed to know that. She’s tough. She’s strong. She doesn’t need to be saved. Except all the times when she does.
But fire. Something about that one would get her more than the others. Make her pulse spike and her hands sweat and her breath catch. Make her back away.
She used to be afraid of fire until….until.
She tried to get to him. Her hands burned but it didn’t matter. Someone pulled her back. Some stupid fucking good samaritan who didn’t understand that her husband was in there.
And she needed to save him. And she needed to burn with him.
She’s never been self-destructive in the typical ways. She didn’t drink too much or get addicted to drugs. She didn’t cut herself or sleep with people she shouldn’t. But there was a part of her, always, reaching into the fire. Proving she could. Pushing boundaries. More. Again. Thinking she can fix something that’s already broken.
It never works. All her guilt turned into steely resolve amounted to jack shit. She caught the rapist and so what. It didn’t take back what happened to Parker. To her. There was always another rapist. She caught the murderer and what did it matter. It didn’t bring back Lilly. It didn’t bring back Meg or Gia. It didn’t bring back…
What’s the point?
She should feel something, now. She looks at the scars on her hands. Her arms. Burns. The ones from her teenage adventure in a freezer had never quite faded. The new ones are darker.
She’s never been self-destructive in the typical ways. But then her husband got blown up and it was all her fault and she can’t feel anything anymore and she thought she’d try something different.
It hurt. But she still doesn’t feel anything at all.
Of course not. Because wherever he is now, that’s where her heart is. It’s stupid poetic bullshit. But the evidence adds up. He’s dead and so is she. Her body just hasn’t figured it out yet.
She hopes it’s a comfort to him, her heart. She hopes it doesn’t weigh him down. That he finds it enough.
A lighter. A cigarette. Lungs full of smoke. Pain. A round scar. Matching scar. He would be so disappointed. Unhealthy coping mechanisms and all. But it doesn’t matter. Because he’s not here.
She breathes it in. The pain that she can control.
Control. Sure.
More. Again.
Addictive personality. She’s known that for a long time.
She’s too old for this shit. Shoulda stayed in therapy. She snorts with emotionless mirth.
She wants to get in her car and press the petal all the way down and drive until she falls over the cliff like she was supposed to all those years ago. She wants to walk the plank off the roof and hope and pray that instead of Cassidy, there would be him. Logan.
There’s a dull something when her arm brushes up against the sleeve of her sweatshirt. It stings for a moment and then fades. It shines clearly against her pale skin. More. Again. Why not. Why not. Why not?
Logan. Logan. Logan.
She sees him still. She sees him all the time. She doesn’t tell anyone. Depression and sleep deprivation can induce psychosis. She’s always been prone to both, though she would never admit the former. It’s alright. She’s fine. Maybe she can just see ghosts. Whatever. Lilly’s saved her life once. Logan’s just, watches. She doesn’t like to hurt herself if he’s watching. So maybe he’s still saving her too. Stupid jerk.
She’s sitting on the beach late at night smoking when it happens. Her skin has healed over so it has finally been enough time for her to open the wound again. She has these rules for herself. Like it makes it better. Look how much control she has. Look how she only hurts herself after she’s sufficiently started to heal. She has never been particularly aware of her own emotions. But the metaphor is not lost on her. She just doesn’t care.
“Veronica?” He appears in front of her. Partially hidden in shadow.
“You’re talking to me now?”
“I, Veronica, it’s me.” He steps forward. As if it could be anyone else. His ghost has the monopoly on her brain thank you very much.
“No shit.”
“I, you’re mad. Okay. I get it. It’s been a year.”
“And five days. But who’s counting.”
Veronica has always delineated her life into clearly demarcated events. Before Lilly. After Lilly. Before Shelly’s party. After. Before the rooftop. After. Before leaving. After. Before the miscarriage. After. Before the explosion. And then. And then…Because as it turns out, there is no after Logan. If it’s been too long since she’s seen him she will stay awake for days until he comes back. She is always waiting for him to come back.
Always.
She stands up. Lets the cigarette fall into the sand. She can’t do it if he’s watching. She’s littering now too. He’d hate that. She goes back to the apartment. He follows her. She’s reached the limit of how long she can go without sleep. That means he will be gone soon.
She goes though her night routine silently. Her dad has Pony still. One less thing to worry about. She curls up under the covers. Her ghost steps forward then.
“Veronica, you’re kinda scaring me.”
She closes her eyes and exhales. “I know you’re gonna be gone in the morning. But tonight, can you just, tell me you love me?”
“I love you.”
She smiles then, content for the first time in three hundred and seventy days. “I love you too. I hope you knew how much. I hope you felt loved.” Her voice trails off and she falls asleep.
Veronica blinks awake. Something has changed, but she doesn’t bother worrying about it. The world always looks different in the morning. She pretends to be a real person in the mornings. It’s been a year and six days. They expect her to move on so they’ve even started to believe her bullshit. She is very good at pretending. She’s been doing it her whole life.
She goes to the kitchen to get coffee. All on autopilot. Her dad is here. And her ghost.
“Morning Dad.” She avoids looking at Logan’s ghost. She’s fine. It’s alright. It’s alright. It’s alright.
“Veronica? Honey?”
“Yeah?”
“Um, don’t you think we should talk to our unexpected visitor here?”
Veronica blinks. Freezes. Her dad is looking back and forth between her and Logan.
Her dad is looking at Logan.
Her dad can see Logan.
Her dad can…
“You, you can see him too?” She is holding her breath.
“My formerly dead son-in-law. Yeah, yeah I see him standing in your kitchen,” he says concerned.
“Logan?” she breathes out.
“Veronica.” And he’s making that look. That ‘she just kissed me for the first time’, ‘she just agreed to marry me’, ‘is this really happening’ look.
She steps towards him without even noticing. Drawn into his orbit, always. “You, you’re really here? You’re alive?”
“Yeah. Yeah I am.”
“I, I-” She gasps that turns into sobs. She doesn’t register that she is on her knees but she feels Logan, wrapping his arms around her. Solid. Warm. Real. Alive.
“I missed you,” she chokes out.
He somehow holds her even tighter. And she doesn’t even care that he has been alive for a year and hasn’t told her. Not right now. Later the anger will come. But now, it’s all she can do to hold him. Touch him. Breathe him in. She pulls back just enough to stare into his eyes. He is crying too.
“I’m sorry,” she manages. She can’t get the whole thing out. How it’s her fault he died. How she she knows she treated him like shit. How she didn’t get any better after he was gone. How she completely lost control and when he finds out about her year it will hurt him all over again. She can’t process anything except that she is in his arms and she doesn’t deserve him but she swears she will do anything to become a person who does. How she will be better.
But Logan, beautiful warm real Logan just says, “I love you.”
And would you look at that. Her heart, it started beating again.