F A N F I C T I O N > V . M A R S
Picture of a Sunny Day by Amberina
My baby loves me
I'm so angry
Anger makes me a modern girl
Took my money
I couldn't buy nothin'
I'm sick of this brave new world
My whole life was like a picture of a sunny day
- Sleater-Kinney
*
Junior year is that much closer to graduation, Veronica thinks as she stands on the edge of the parking lot. Students are milling about, as they do. There's a sort of energy that's evident as her classmates shout and laugh, giddy with excitement. It's the kind of energy people only have on the first day of the school year. It's a hopeful energy, one that yearns for a clean slate. A new start.
Veronica closes her eyes and tries to remember what that sort of hope felt like.
*
Veronica snuggles into Duncan as he flips through a college brochure. In front of their spot on the floor there is a big stack of catalogs, brochures and campus guides.
"I don't want to think about this shit yet," Logan says petulantly.
Lilly and Logan are on their stomachs on the bed itself. Lilly has one leg over Logan's as if she's pinning him down. They have their own selection of college literature haphazardly spread out around them.
"Then don't," Duncan says, "but our dad requires that we have a future."
"Logan will be a male model," Lilly says brightly. "That way he doesn't hurt his pretty little brain thinking."
"My brain may be little, but it can go all night," Logan retorts and then there are kissing sounds that Veronica doesn't really feel the need to investigate.
*
Veronica opens her eyes and for a second -- just a second -- she thinks Duncan Kane is walking towards her, smiling. She thinks maybe her heart stops for that moment. Then everything is back to normal and she realizes that, of course -- of course -- Duncan wasn't walking towards her.
Logan passes her and it's very clear that he was who Duncan was smiling at. Logan smirks back at her, and gives her a thumbs-up sign. "Nice hair," he says, but his comment is dripping with contempt.
Duncan doesn't acknowledge her presence.
*
Veronica stares glumly at the gallon of ice cream Lilly has set on the kitchen table. Stuck deep into it are two giant-sized spoons.
"I don't even like rocky road," Veronica says softly.
Lilly shakes her head and forces a spoon into Veronica's hand. "It doesn't matter. This is what people do when going through a bad break up."
Veronica takes the spoon and reluctantly dips it back into the ice cream. It tastes better than she remembers.
"It could be worse," Lilly says, a thoughtful look in her eyes. "You could -- "
Veronica cuts her off. "It could not be worse." She is feeling a tiny bit melodramatic.
"You could be ugly. Or fat. Or ugly and fat," Lilly points out and Veronica can't help but smile. "Anyway, I totally saw Dick Casablancas checking you out."
"Ew, Lilly," Veronica says with an unintentional shudder. She shoves a big spoonful of ice cream into her mouth.
*
Veronica continues what feels like her walk of shame through the parking lot. People turn and look at her, as they used to do, except it's completely different now. Now, people either look uncomfortable or hateful. They advert their eyes or attempt to stare holes through her. A freshman she's never seen before whispers to his friend. She thinks she hears the word "slut."
Before, people looked at her with awe. She had felt kind of like a princess. Duncan's girlfriend. Lilly's best friend. Popular by proxy.
*
Veronica rubs her rag against the car in circular motions. It's not even dirty, but Aaron Echolls gave "good money" to the pep squad so she and Lilly must pretend to clean it. That was the thinking, anyway.
Lilly has another idea entirely. She's bouncing around and posing. Once, Veronica catches her rubbing her breasts against the car in a circular motion.
"Lilly!" Veronica chides in a hushed whisper, her face uncontrollably red.
Lilly just shakes her head like she does when Veronica just doesn't get it. "They came for the show, Veronica Mars." She mimes squeezing a sponge out on her shirt and then wiggles her chest.
Veronica looks down at the spot she's been cleaning on the car and smiles, just a little.
*
She's a slut. She's a traitor. And now she's that freak with the pocket knife. She can deal with that, though. It's given her... Wallace, who she can't figure out. He's not like Lilly, that's obvious.
Veronica doesn't know how to act. "Did I say you could sit here?" had rolled off her tongue so easily, she's afraid of what she might say to scare him away. For the first time in a while, she cares what someone thinks of her.
*
No one makes eye contact with her. They probably think she's being a bitch, wearing red satin to a funeral. Maybe she is, but it's fitting, she thinks, to wear red satin to Lilly's funeral. Lilly would have wanted her to, anyway, and that's all Veronica cares about.
Or maybe they just don't see her without Lilly by her side, even in red satin. That would be fitting, too.
Veronica stands in the back as they lower Lilly's body into the ground. After a while, she's scarcely aware of her surroundings. All she can think of is that night Lilly was found. All she can see is Lilly's body, lying lifeless by the pool. She can't understand how it could happen to someone like Lilly, so full of life.
Old people die. Sick people die. Not 17-year-old girls like Lilly. Not her best friend.
Veronica is jarred out of her thoughts by the sound of angry shouting nearby. Logan, wearing grass-stained khaki pants and a half-untucked shirt, is yelling at her father but Veronica is too stunned to make any sense of his words.
*
Logan's words are designed to cut through her defenses and leave her a shivering mess. Of course, they don't quite have their intended effect on her. It's nothing she hasn't heard before, nothing she won't hear again.
What really hurt were the events he's mocking. This is nothing. He's nothing but a petty jackass.
Veronica tries to convince herself of this, but she remembers when things weren't like this. She wonders if he does.
*
Veronica hates her mother. Scratch that. Veronica wishes she could hate her mother. Instead, she sits on the couch beside her father and she's keenly aware of the emptiness of the space mom used to occupy in the living room.
"It'll be okay, honey," her dad says, as if reading her mind. Damn those police skills. "We'll figure things out." They're hollow words that even he doesn't believe, but Veronica is comforted. If only by the reminder that there's one bona-fide Good Parent sitting next to her.
"I love you, dad," Veronica says, because it needs said. It can never be said enough.
Veronica hugs her dad and it's just father-and-daughter. For a brief, fleeting moment it doesn't matter that her mom's not there because her dad is.
*
Standing next to Wallace and stifling a fake yawn, Veronica feels strangely empowered. She's Veronica Mars, dammit, and she will not be fucked with. Or something like that, anyway.
Logan shouts at her, telling her that it isn't over. Of course it's not, it never will be, not really. Their histories are too intertwined, twisted up in bitterness and Lilly.
*
"Hey, V, you should know," Logan begins, leaning in conspiratorially, "when I think about you? I touch myself."
His breath smells like weak breath mints attempting to cover whiskey. Veronica can't force herself to move or to respond.
"He has to touch himself," someone says but Veronica's too lost to place him even though she knows him. She knows them all. These are -- were, were her friends. "Otherwise, he'll get AIDS and die."
Someone else chimes in, "That's never fun."
Veronica takes a deep breath and she squeezes her eyes shut. She decides then and there that she's not going to cry anymore.
*
"Why do we hate him anyway?" Wallace asks a little belatedly, as he grabs a brownie off of Veronica's lunch tray. Apparently inquisitiveness isn't his strong suit, but Veronica can work with that.
"Three words: obligatory psychotic jackass," Veronica replies stiffly, snatching the brownie back.
Wallace gives up on the brownie and grabs her apple instead. Veronica lets that one slide. "Okay, but you said that about Russell Crowe. I think you just like saying 'obligatory psychotic jackass.'"
*
Veronica's eyes are focused on her clock in the dark. It's past three A.M. and she can't sleep. Memories float through her brain and she really doesn't want to go to school tomorrow. Why can't summer last forever?
Finally, Veronica rises and she turns on her light. On pure impulse, Veronica searches in her desk for some scissors and then she finds -- hidden in the back of her closet, underneath shoes and purses -- a pretty white dress with a broken strap.
When the dress is reduced to nothing more than what seems like a million tiny pieces of white fabric, Veronica stands in front of the mirror. The girl staring back at her is Veronica, but it's not her. It hasn't been for a while.
Veronica gathers a handful of hair in her hand.
*
Standing on the beach, watching Weevil hit Logan, Veronica realizes something. She realizes that she doesn't blame Logan. She hates him with every fiber of her being -- she thinks that comes with the territory -- but she thinks she might understand a little something about what he's gone, and is still going, through.
"I don't want his apology," Veronica says, but it's inconsequential. She wouldn't have gotten it anyway. She doesn't blame him for that, though. She's not sorry either.