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in the three days that follow jd’s death, veronica doesn’t leave her bed.
why would she.
her school is closed - surprisingly enough, someone found the remainings of a bomb (the bomb) in the school’s basement (an unusual spark of competence, in the bonfire of idiocy that are the adults in her town). the people she used to hang out with are either a for alive no more, b for busy or c for couldn’t care less (apart for Martha, but she still has regular medical visits to attend and the aunt who lives near the hospital suddenly insists on spending time with her).
whatever.
she doesn’t really feel like doing stuff, these days. her main activities have been mope, cry, read heather duke’s moby dick, then cry some more. every now and then, roll aggressively her eyes at her parents whenever they try to talk to her (because they were oh so useful when shit went down) (her mother still hasn’t recovered from the shock of seeing her hanging, lifeless and inert) (how do you explain that you needed to fake your own suicide in order to stop your evil psycho boyfriend) (you don’t).
truth is, she kinda misses jd. she kinda misses all of them (yes, even heather chandler) (or maybe the version of them jd and she created) (who knows), but she misses jd the most. which is irrational, and stupid, and down-right eugh. but she can’t really help it, can she? that’s what abuse victims do, they miss their persecutors even if they know. they know that they were nothing but assholes (that’s what miss fleming said once, and she’s too tired to question it).
so she reads some more moby dick. she cries. tries to update her diary, but somehow ends up writing “i’m sorry” and “i’m just seventeen” over and over and over and over, in some sort of religious loop.
(she feels so guilty. god. she knows she was manipulated, but at the same time she knows she could have stopped it. him. them. herself. sooner. god. she sounds like a fucking psycho again. maybe she is.)
i’m sorry. i’m just seventeen. i’m sorry. i’m just seventeen. i’m sorry. i’m just seventeen. i’m sorry. i’m just seventeen. i’m sorry.
and then the phone rings.
veronica stills, the sound foreign in its familiarity (how can it still be the same, when everything has changed so much?). she lets each of the ring echo in the tiny space of her room, and goes back to sleep when the phone is silent again.
-
«i called to your house yesterday.», heather mcnamara says. her voice easily overcomes the buzz of the students around her, and veronica is grateful for a second because all the humming whispering chattering is filling her ears and she wants to be anywhere but school.
then she remembers everything at once, and closes her locker with a loud bang. silence (bang. bang. bang. it echoes). more chatter. more looks. veronica closes her eyes.
heather’s hand (soft cheerleader skin and perfect cheerleader nails why is she fine) grabs her wrist, gently.
«how are you?»
«peachy.»
heather is the very first human contact she’s had in a week.
«i have to go.»
she misses and dreads the warmth she felt with jd at the same time.
-
heather kinda starts to feel like a ghost. a flesh and bones, beautiful ghost whose golden hair shines like a halo whenever light hits it. she's always near: she can catch a glimpse of her figure in the mirror when she's in the bathroom, she can feel her eyes carving matching holes in her back during all the classes they share, and she might be getting paranoid, but she could swear she feels heather’s steps right behind her when she’s walking home.
maybe, veronica thinks, she's an angel, and she's here on earth to punish her for all her sins (finally).
at night she dreams of a flaming sword tearing her heart in half, and heather above her, her beautiful, beautiful hair shining with the fire's warmth, and she wakes up with such longing running through her veins she feels like her lungs are gonna give in.
-
«stop it.» she says one day, when her steps are even heavier than usual and the sun hitting the back of her neck makes everything fuzzy and confused.
she hears heather’s steps get a bit faster, until she’s finally right beside her.
«hey.» she whispers (is she afraid of breaking her? veronica is unbreakable - she’s already been scattered in one thousand pieces, and cracking her again is gonna take a lot more work). «lemme carry that for you.» she feels, more than sees, gentle fingers lift the heavy weight of her bag from her shoulder, and she sighs in relief.
«how is it going?»
it’s not going at all.
«bitchin’.» she spits out instead. she turns to heather’s worried face and attempts a smile, but even the teeth in her mouth feel as out of place as she does.
they walk in silence for a few minutes.
«can i come to your house?» heathers asks quickly. «please?»
veronica feels a laugh bubble in her throat then, a sound so foreign and hollow it sucks all the air around her mouth.
«sure, why not.»
heather looks scared, but hopeful.
-
her parents aren’t home, which she’s grateful for. they used to watch over her like shadows on the wall, too silent and incorporeal to be really comforting, but too dark and oppressing to ignore. two months later, they’ve mostly given up, and she’s glad they're accusation-like looks aren’t heaving on her anymore.
«make yourself home.» she tells heathers, who’s still hanging by the door, fidgeting with the strap of veronica’s bag.
maybe angels, like vampires, need an invitation to get inside the house. or maybe heather is just heather, and veronica has finally lost her mind. either way, she wants to get this over with.
«orange juice?» she asks as casually as she can, entering the kitchen. the sun outside is already dulling, but she doesn’t turn on the lights. she hears heather follow her (she doesn’t turn on the lights either).
«lemonade? tea?» she shuffles around the cups and the glasses in the cupboard just to make some noise. «are you going to kill me?» she adds (almost like an afterthought, and not the single idea that’s been filling her entire skull, blowing it like air a balloon) (her head is gonna burst soon), as she grabs her favourite cup.
«what?» veronica finally turns around. heather’s eyes are big, and clear, and a worried shade of blue that makes her heart tighten.
«you’ve come to kill me, haven’t you?»
heather’s eyes become even bigger. the silence stretches.
«veronica… you’re scaring me.» heather stutters. her body goes tense, like she’s ready to fight. veronica doesn’t understand that - heather has her strong cheerleader body and veronica has sagging exhaustion and heavy limbs that weep and scream every time she gets out of bed.
«please, kill me.» veronica whispers.
her head goes heavy. she blanks out.
-
she wakes up to cold fingers touching her face, her chin, gentle thumbs grazing her cheekbones and eyelashes, nails scratching lightly the skin behind her ears (stop, she wants to say, i haven’t brushed my hair in weeks).
«are you back?» heather asks, voice soft and even, and veronica nods a little.
«sadly.», she croaks (how long has she been out? the room is pitch black). she realises she has her head in heather’s lap, whose legs are hazardly spread on the kitchen floor.
heather pulls her hair sharply (veronica ows).
«don’t say that.», she bites, and veronica feels one corner of her mouth go up in a crooked smile, because she sounds so much like heather chandler right now she can almost see the red scrunchie in her hair.
-
(it doesn't get much better, but it does get a bit better, which is more than she could've hoped for).
veronica stills panics every time a slushie is mentioned (which thankfully isn't very often, because they never hang out near the 7/11 anymore). that one time heather tried to open her room's windows, she broke down and they cuddled close in veronica's bed for the rest of the evening, the only sound heather's soft voice trying to break through the thick weight of the anxiety constricting veronica's lungs. heather seems to have developed a sixth sense for tuning off the radio whenever big fun or teenage suicide (don't do it) is mentioned.
(veronica feels guilty heather has to share her burden, when she did this all by herself, digging her own grave death by death, lie by lie, eye for an eye, tooth for a toot).
(after a while, veronica realises she's the only friend heather has left, and that heather needs her, too. it makes her feel relieved and guiltier at the same time, because, god, she killed them. she killer her friends and heather's friends and heather's enemies and her own enemies).
and veronica has one thousand regrets, but she doesn't regret the warmth of heather's hand in hers, or how she sees her and thinks friend.
-
veronica aces her sats, and sends applications to five different colleges that are miles away from sherwood, ohio. heather is there to hug her when she’s accepted to princeton, and during the following three hours where they do nothing but laugh and drink in heather’s room.
«i’m gonna miss you.» heather slurs into veronica’s ear at one point. her bottom lip trembles.
«you can come to visit me whenever you want.» she feels heather bury her face into her hair, and all the happiness in her chest fade when she hears soft sobs escape her lips.
«hey, hey.» veronica gently disentangles heather’s arms from the knot they form with hers, and takes her hand.
«i’ll call everyday.» heather’s eyes are still wet.
«c’mon, we’ve survived westerbourg high. we’re stronger than whatever it’s out there.» heather snorts through her nose. veronica can count her eyelashes.
«i really wanna kiss you now, veronica.» she says, eyes shining, lips red, her golden hair beautifully tangled.
«okay.»
heather’s lips aren’t cold and thin like jd’s, they’re warm, and taste like promise.
«we’ll make it beautiful.» heathers whispers against her mouth, and veronica feels more hopeful than she has in years.