Chapter Text
Veronica hardly ever had time to read for fun anymore. Law school was so much work that by the time all the assigned reading was done she barely had the energy to even follow a TV show, let alone start a new book. But she had become a sucker for local bookstores and liked to browse, always buying more books than she knew she would have time to read. Today she’d ended up in a part of the city she wasn’t familiar with, and the sign advertising books drew her right in. It seemed like part a used bookstore, part new sales, with old, well-worn copies mixed into the stacks with the latest bestsellers. She took a deep breath, that particular aroma of books calming her, releasing a bit of the stress she always seemed to carry now that she lived in New York.
She moved further into the store, the tall shelves creating small alcoves every which way. Tables held even more stacks of popular bestsellers or recommendations. Veronica stopped at the Staff Pick’s table, looking to see what she could learn about people based on their preferences. To her surprise, picking up one of the books, she recognized the author’s name.
Breaking Point: An Echolls Family Story
By Logan Echolls
Veronica could only stare at the cover for a few seconds. It must have recently come out, it was still in hardback. She opened it to the inside of the dust jacket. It started off with a pull quote:
“A new kind of celebrity tell-all, Echolls addresses the public’s craving for the salacious details of his parents while weaving an intricate love letter to the city of Neptune and the path to healing. Come for the drama, stay for his musings on trauma and the way forward.” -The New York Times
Veronica was surprised, the New York Times didn’t just review any old book, this must have been a wider-release than she had realized.
“Logan Echolls, son of action star Aaron Echolls, has given the public what they have demanded: a tell-all of his young life with two celebrity parents. He uncovers the mystery surrounding his mother’s tragic suicide, the tumultuous trial against his father for the murder of Logan’s own girlfriend, and his father’s murder. Echolls weaves together the memories of growing up adjacent to celebrity, allows us a peek behind closed doors, and fleshes out a portrait of life in a Southern California community. Part setting the record straight once and for all, part a philosophical and psychological examination of his experiences, this isn’t your average celebrity memoir.” -LA Times
Veronica flipped to the first page and found a disclaimer of sorts.
“Some names have been changed for anonymity, particularly among my high school classmates where appropriate.”
Veronica felt like the room had gotten warmer. If he was talking that much about high school, it was impossible that he could have left her out right? She wondered if she was being vain, but she wanted to know if he talked about her, what the world was reading about her. She pulled her phone out of her pocket and glanced at the time; she needed to leave now to get to class, but she was feeling so rattled she wasn’t sure she would even get anything out of the class if she were to go. She paid for the book and went home instead, walking a bit quicker than usual in her anxiousness to get home and dive in.
She lived in an absolutely tiny studio apartment pretty far from campus, all she could afford. She settled in at her small table that doubled as a desk, pulled off the dust jacket and set it aside safely, and stared at the book for a moment. She supposed she mostly felt nostalgic, in that particular bittersweet way, varying degrees of sadness for what she had lost and left behind. And maybe a little bit of love still there, underneath all that pain she had left Neptune with, undisturbed and hiding for so long.
His first few chapters talked about him growing up, before Veronica had even known him. Logan remembered his mother beautifully, and was judicious in his discussion of the abuse they both faced at the hands of Aaron. Veronica’s heart broke; it had started even earlier than Veronica knew, he was so young. He talked about Neptune, the class tensions that came to light early, with the clarity that a poignant childhood memory can distill, where the naivete clarifies what the adult mind perceives as grey areas. He talked about the ocean, and surfing, and his early love of the waves, being outside to find clarity. And then Veronica started to recognize the people he talked about. Duncan’s name came up early, it wouldn’t have made sense for Logan to try to protect his identity. Logan had fond memories of their early friendship, and then he began remembering Lily. Veronica teared up seeing her friend come to life with Logan’s words. Some of the incidents he recounted she remembered or had heard many retellings of, and there were new ones that Logan and Lily had kept to themselves. They dredged up other memories Veronica had, and the pain still felt as fresh and new as it had in high school. She didn’t often feel like she did when she was young, it had been so long since she had lost her best friend, but Logan made her feel like it had been just last week. He described how he felt after Lily’s death, how he acted out. His true remorse shone through the prose, acknowledging the hurt he had caused others, knowing he couldn’t truly make up for some of what he did and said. She had come to accept that all the pain he had caused others came from his own, and now everyone else in the world could start to understand him like she did.
Her name had been changed. Veronica knew it would be easy enough for someone to discover her identity from the clues in the book, but she was thankful nonetheless that Logan had saved her from the majority of people knowing the pieces of her business that he shared. Logan referred to her as Betty, one of the many aliases she had used along the way. She realized the strange position she was in, being inside Logan’s head for what he chose to share, particularly when he lost his mother, when he truly recognized her death.
“I am thankful to my friend Betty above all others for being at my side when I found myself faced with my mother’s death. For me to lose her and be alone with my father, when the hopes that there were mysterious circumstances around her suicide were dashed and I admitted that she was gone forever, I needed a friend. Betty was kind enough to be there for me even when she had no reason to. I had been horribly cruel to her, and she treated me with compassion when I needed it, and I will be forever grateful for that moment.”
The incident on the bridge, Logan being suspected for murder, his father’s trial, acquittal, and subsequent murder, being held at gunpoint on the roof by Cassidy, and witnessing Cassidy’s suicide, all of these incidents related back to back really brought back how traumatizing that all had been. So many things in a such a short span of time, they had gone through more sorrow than anyone should have.
Logan was discreet about their relationship for the most part, bringing Veronica up as necessary in those moments. Her departure from Neptune seemed to be have the most impact on him.
“When Betty left, I had to think about my time in Neptune, what it meant to me and whether or not I should leave the place where so much had gone wrong. She got away from everything, and I began to think I needed to get away too. I enlisted in the Navy to try to find something I hadn’t had in a long time, a sense of order, with the added benefit of being able to travel, get away from my past for a bit. I was really running away, but it made it all the sweeter when I returned home.”
Veronica was fascinated by the later chapters in the book, a glimpse into his life that she hadn’t seen, catching her up on what he had been doing since she said goodbye so long ago. It seemed like he had changed, he was more mature, definitely, and more understanding of himself and others. But the undercurrent of her Logan still ran through his words, he was traceable in the text. She was certain he hadn’t enlisted a ghost writer; this was him. She was proud he had done something as impressive as writing a book.
The last chapter was much more philosophical than biographical. He had a pretty heavy handed surfing metaphor going, but Veronica was willing to forgive it when she saw what he said after:
“Sometimes it was all so much, I thought I would surely drown, and sometimes things were good, perfect swells, or so calm I got bored waiting for the next big wave to strike. But I’ve been through it all, and out on the other side, more or less intact. People often ask me if I have regrets, if I wish things had gone differently in my life. And certainly I sometimes think how different my life would be if all of these things hadn’t happened to me. But they did, and I can’t change them, and I can’t regret what I couldn’t control. I can only say that there is one person I wish I had stayed in contact with, and that’s my one piece of advice out of all of this. Don’t let the perfect wave pass you by, keep the good people in your life. Bad things happen, and sometimes you can’t avoid that, but you can control who you surround yourself with.”
Was Veronica being vain, or was he talking about her? Was it arrogant to suppose that she had been that important to him, that he might think about her every now and then, just as she thought of him? Veronica wasn’t sure she could bring herself to have regrets, just like Logan; it wasn’t her nature. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t miss him.
She finished the book. Logan concluded it in a haphazard way. He seemed happy doing what he was, and happy endings are nice enough in fiction but after a tell-all autobiography it felt a bit anticlimactic. Veronica herself was glad it ended with him in a good place, but she knew most readers wouldn’t be so satisfied. She flipped past the last page and found that the dedication page was at the end.
“For V. Our story is epic.”
6 words. Well, 5 words and an initial. There was no denying that V was her, unless there was another V whom he had made a similar speech about epic love to back in the day. Veronica kept rereading the sentence, over and over. She parsed it out: he used the present tense “is,” not “was.” Did he think that their story was still in progress? Was she crazy to think that now she had to reach out, respond to this call he had put out into the universe?
It was late now, almost 1:30. Her neck ached from sitting in the chair reading. Maybe it was the late hour, maybe it was truly how she was feeling, but she knew she had to let Logan know she’d seen the book, at least. He’d basically let Veronica inside his head, it only seemed fair that he should know for sure it had reached her.
She skillfully tore out the dedication page from the book and grabbed a red pen. She wrote--well she wasn’t sure what she was supposed to write. “I got your message, come and sweep me off my feet?” That wasn’t her style. “Let’s catch up the next time you are in New York?” Too casual somehow. “Thanks for sharing the intimate details of your life with me and the rest of the anglophone world?” Not casual enough. She set the pen back down. If she wasn’t sure what to say maybe she shouldn’t be saying anything at all. After a moment she picked it back up, and in her imperfect cursive wrote:
“There are easier ways to get a girl’s number
-V”
She included her cell phone number, put her return address on the envelope, and scrounged up a stamp. Her PI skills occasionally still came in handy for such innocuous things as finding a celebrity’s real home address. Before she could lose her nerve, come to her senses in the morning after a much-needed night of sleep, she brought the letter down to the mailroom and stuck it through the outgoing mail slot.