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Veronica Vreeland is one of the world’s busiest women.
“Bruce, tell me…” she starts. It catches his attention but hers remains focused on the city below the skyline.
She doesn’t have much time to think, much time to introspect, much time to regret. It isn’t often she finds herself with the good fortune to come to terms with the mistakes she’s made.
She does, eventually, accept them. A woman like her can’t afford to wallow in self-pity or it will eat her alive. And that absolutely cannot happen. She has too much to do to fall victim to every skeleton that threatens to escape.
But there’s one she can’t quite forgive herself for. There was no learning experience, no bright side, no silver lining. There was no way she could rationalize it. Justifying it was impossible. Veronica wrestles with it every day of her life. No one thinks much of it now, except for her. Though it’s likely he can’t forget it either.
She ruined a man’s life for her own selfish gain.
“Am I a bad person?” she finishes. She knows the answer.
For all his airheadedness as Gotham’s most eligible, Bruce has never been one to pull his punches. His face grows stern. He’s really thinking about it. Not half as hard as she has, but it makes her much more doubtful.
Whatever he says, she’ll try to believe. She does value his opinion. But she knows the answer he just might be too nice to give: “Yes, Veronica. You are. You're rotten to the core.”
“I don’t know all the details, Ronnie, but I know you,” he says, after torturous deliberation. She knows where it's going as soon as he opens his mouth, but she resolves to hear him out anyway. “It was a mistake. One that you have to live with. One that I don’t think you can fix. But it doesn’t change who you are inside.”
“There’s really nothing I can do… is there?” It’s a rhetorical question, but she looks at him like she expects him to answer it anyway.
He nods. “It’s probably for the best if you stay away from him.”
“You’re right. I have too much to do anyway.” That’s both the truth and a lie. “I can’t chase after wild geese. I can only try harder to not make such a big mistake in the future.”
“It’s all anyone can do.”
Veronica believes him. She doesn’t quite believe she’s not despicable for what she did to him. But she believes she can get better. And maybe he can too, one day. Maybe he'll even forgive her.
Ah, well, she's not dumb enough to believe that, unfortunately. Even if he does gets better, this is not a romantic comedy where the love interest forgives the protagonist despite it being the worst thing to do. She ruined her chances with him.
Seeing the man she destroyed in the papers brings a tear to her eye every time, but she hides it well behind big glamour and smiles.
No one cares about it, really, except for her. Well, he does, she's sure, but only two people caring about one thing is the same as nobody caring at all.
She left Bruce to the kittens a while ago to return home. As she enters her lonely home, she wonders if she truly had been growing fond of him or if it was just pity at seeing him then. A last-ditch effort to fix what she broke.
It doesn’t matter now, she concludes, and she’s far too busy to worry about it.