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“Veronica, wait.” Logan leaps up from his chair and follows her out the doors. She’s already across the foyer and almost outside before she turns around. “Are you leaving already?” he asks lamely, faced with her expectantly-raised eyebrows.
“Battery’s dead,” she answers, holding up her camera. “I was really only here for the photos. Not much reason to stick around now. It’s almost over, anyway.”
“So are we gonna… talk?” he presses, feeling lost. Veronica’s the only girl who’s ever made him feel uncertain like this. It’s not like he’s never been nervous before – when he really does fall for someone, it’s with everything he has, and that’s always scary – but Veronica… she’s not like Lilly, or like Hannah, or like anyone. The stakes always feel higher, and the outcome less predictable.
“About what, Logan?” she asks quietly, her arms falling to her sides.
“About back there,” he answers, taking a few more steps toward her. There’s no privacy here – there are students going in and out past them – but he doesn’t think, if he tries to pull her aside, that she’ll follow. “Us. Dancing. Didn’t that… wasn’t it…”
“That was just me saving Gia from your honest opinion,” Veronica answers, lifting her shoulders a little. “I know she’s a lot, but she’s a really nice girl. She doesn’t deserve you getting all cranky and mean on her.”
“Just that?” It’s barely audible, and suddenly he finds he’s forgotten how to be any louder. He remembers screaming at her, eight months ago, and wonders how he could ever have done such a thing. It hurts just to recall.
“Pretty much,” she confirms with an uncomfortable smile and a furrowed brow. There’s more than that in her eyes, he can see it, but she’s not going to share.
The question starts to slip out before he can completely stop it, and before he can decide where it’s going. “Then why did you…” Dance three songs with me? Lean in so our foreheads touched? Let me so close I could breathe the air straight out of your lips? Look at me like that without saying a word? He’s not sure which question is the least dangerous, but it doesn’t matter. Veronica sees all of them – and then some – on his face, he’s sure. That’s the thing with Veronica, maybe: she sees clear through him. Sees through the act (any act) to the boy inside, soft and vulnerable.
“Don’t read into it, Logan,” she tells him, as if she doesn’t know how impossible that advice is for him to heed. She looks… disappointed, or worried, or resigned, or… something. He wants more than anything to close the distance between them, to smooth the crease in her forehead with his fingers, to promise he’ll never make her feel like this again. But he knows he’d be lying. So he only holds her gaze, silently pleading for– for permission, maybe. Or forgiveness. Anything more than this sad, sad smile.
She lifts her hand again, this time just to wave slightly, a curl of her fingers. Then she turns and pushes out the door, hurries into the parking lot where he knows her beloved LeBaron awaits her.
He wonders if every step she takes hurts her as much as it does him.