This Is How We Grow (Mac) R
Title: This Is How We Grow
Author: absfabulous1
Characters/Pairing: Mac, with appearances by Veronica, Wallace, and Logan
Word Count: 3,300
Rating: R for some language and adult themes
Spoilers: Everything, just to be safe. Some parts are set post-series.
Summary: Many of her relationships, from kindergarten to college, were fun but ultimately fleeting. Yet Mac had a feeling that these people, these friends, were somehow going to be tied to her forever.
Author’s Notes: This was written for vmfic_gameon's Round #3 Character Challenge. Many thanks to annie_oakley for some help with one of the storylines and her beta work.
When Mac was five-years-old, she met Jessie Connor, her first friend. It was the easiest relationship she would ever cultivate, one set during a time when geographical convenience was the cornerstone of most connections. Jessie sat next to her in the story time circle, and that was all they needed.
Jessie moved away the summer before third grade, and for years Mac was content to meander along her elementary school’s social hierarchy, gently bouncing between friends like a bumblebee at a flower bed. She was liked, but not popular, and more prone to flying under the radar than anything else. Mac was always invited to birthday parties and sleepovers because she was as innocuous as they came, and well, there was no reason not to have her around.
Then one year everything was different, like all of the kids in her class had decided it was time to grow up but they never let her in on that secret. The still preteen girls traded in their Barbies for lipstick, and suddenly the bathroom sinks were the cool hangout spot. There was no longer even the faintest interest in what Mac still held dear- stuff like computer games and Goosebumps books, all of the things that were once a common thread that tied them all together despite things like their parents’ income or skin color or name brand shoes.
Mac grew introverted, more content to write anime fanfic or her own computer programs than to hold hands with a boy as they roamed the hallways, declaring a love that would last only during school hours. She thought it was ironic that others would look at her derisively for being such a kid when the truth was that she didn’t want much to do with any of them because she felt years ahead in terms of maturity.
Okay, so maybe there was a little bit of longing there, sometimes. She always kept her eyes and ears open so she knew just as much about everyone as anyone else did, and so occasionally she wondered what it would be like to travel in cliques with the rich and cool and loved. But it was easy enough to push those thoughts away. She could be content with most of her human interactions being online. She could be okay with being alone.
Then came along Veronica Mars…
~+~
“I. Am. So. Bored.” Mac was lying on the floor near Veronica’s bed and staring up at the ceiling.
“These background checks aren’t entertainment enough for you?” Veronica asked from her desk, her eyes still on the computer screen.
“Maybe if you let me in on a little of the dirt you’re digging up…”
“I am bound by the laws of confidentiality agreements,” she replied. Mac stared back at her with a raised brow, and Veronica sighed. “Okay, fine, you win.” She turned her laptop around to reveal the screen, though Mac didn’t move from her spot to get the better view. “This guy had two speeding tickets and defaulted on a credit card back in college.”
“Positively scandalous,” Mac muttered, unimpressed.
“There’s the rub. See, that’s the thing about PI work, Mackee- the life and death stuff is just the glitz and glam, but the boring jobs are our bread and butter.” Veronica’s smile slipped from her face when she caught Mac’s annoyed expression. “I’m almost done.”
“Then maybe we can go somewhere with a working air conditioner?”
“We could always go to your house.”
“The parentals are home, so…no.”
“We could go to the mall. Meet the girls, get a mani/pedi.” She stuck her leg out and playfully wiggled her foot in Mac’s direction. “Shop for shoes.”
Mac grinned, then closed her eyes and thought of nice, cold places as Veronica went back to her work.
“Um, Veronica?”
“Hm?” She looked up from her screen to see Mac holding out her little handheld fan like an offering.
“It’s dead. And now I’m dying.”
Veronica smiled and returned to the laptop. “There’re some batteries in my bedside drawer.”
Mac groaned from the effort of rising off the floor and then she lumbered over to Veronica’s nightstand. She had just pulled open the top drawer, her mouth dropping open in shock at its contents, when Veronica yelled, “Not that one!”
She slammed it closed, spinning around to face Veronica. “I didn’t see anything!”
Her friend’s face was bright red in embarrassment, an emotion that Mac had never before associated with her. “Uh. That’s, that’s just a massager.”
Suddenly Mac couldn’t contain the laughter bubbling up inside of her, and she guffawed, nearly doubling over.
Maybe it shouldn’t have surprised her that Veronica was laughing now, too, her face still flushed. Soon they were both gasping for air, cackling so hard that their stomachs tightened painfully.
As they were both starting to recover, their giggles slowly subsiding while they wiped at the tears in their eyes, Veronica tried to sputter more lame excuses, which only set Mac off again, her shoulders shaking. Then Veronica would lose it, too, and it was another round of raucous laughter.
It felt amazing. Mac couldn’t even remember the last time she had laughed like that, and later she realized how much she needed it.
~+~
After everything that went down with Cassidy, Mac spent most of her summer locked in her room, just trying to deal in her own way, or at the various counseling sessions her mother booked, convinced that Mac needed help in order to cope. Veronica was always a sympathetic ear, and she had confessed to Mac that her own mother had made her do something similar in the weeks following Lilly’s death.
“I went because it was easier than fighting her on it, you know?”
“Yeah.”
“But it didn’t really help. Nothing did. It’s just something you’ve got to deal with on your own.”
Mac had nodded in agreement, but the truth was that she was disappointed. Mac wanted it to work. She had gone in with an open mind, praying that it might be a quick fix. Mac was terrified that she was going to feel like this for the rest of her life, that now she was nothing more than damaged goods.
She wondered how she could ever open up to another guy again. As silly as it sounded, and maybe as insignificant as it was compared to everything else Cassidy had done, (God, he was a killer!) Mac feared that now she was going to be frigid and alone forever. After getting a taste of how nice having a boyfriend could be, back when she thought what they had was actually real, she didn’t think she’d be able to go the rest of her life without that ever again.
It wasn’t something she felt like she could confide in Veronica, either, because Veronica had Logan, and even though Mac thought Logan was kind of a dick and personally didn’t get the appeal, she did understand that it must be nice to be with someone who had been through it all too. Logan and Veronica were kind of like comrades in war, and Mac could only imagine how nice it would be to have that sort of built-in understanding of each other’s fucked up history and emotional shortcomings.
As much as she wanted to be okay again, there was something inside of her that screamed in panic whenever any guy got near. The fear and distrust only grew when she got to Hearst, and what should have been a shiny new beginning was destroyed the second they found out Parker was raped.
She found herself snapping at any unassuming male who approached her, even if they were just another lost freshman as confused by the campus layout as she was. She had glared in return when one poor guy actually had the nerve to ask for her number in class, and she didn’t care that he was only trying to put together a study group.
After almost one semester at Hearst, Mac was sure that she had thrown away any chance of ever having a normal, functioning social life of any kind. Her anxieties about the opposite sex were only reinforced after everything that went down with the Hearst rapist, Veronica once again being the one getting in the crossfire. Mac had been ready to give up, but an unexpected close friendship with one guy helped change it all…
~+~
Wallace Fennel had his own set of problems early freshman year, as he found himself struggling to stay afloat in what he thought was his choice field of study. But when he wasn’t getting his ass kicked by the engineering curriculum, he was keeping up with his first year requirements, including the freshman composition course that he had with Mac.
“Seat’s taken,” she growled when a boy tried to claim the desk next to hers.
Wallace just shook his head. “I’m surprised you let me have the honor of sitting near you,” he told her as he opened up his brand new notebook.
“You’re different,” she replied.
“Hey, don’t be fooled by my all-American good looks now. I’m a dangerous player. Ladies beware.”
“I somehow doubt that.”
He slumped in his seat. “Yeah, I get that a lot.”
Over the months, Mac found herself spending a lot more time with Wallace. With Veronica usually busy working cases or being with Logan, and Parker getting very involved with a lot of the campus committees, Mac and Wallace would often find themselves as lunch partners.
One day, after yet another incident with her acting skittish around one of the boys in their class, Wallace outright asked her what was going on. He knew about Cassidy (everyone did) but he didn’t know the details, and Mac wasn’t ready to go there yet with anyone, let alone a guy, no matter how well intentioned he may be.
But Wallace had a way of being there for her without it getting overbearing or intrusive. The boy had mad support skills, and Mac slowly found herself opening up.
“It doesn’t have to be serious. Guys always want the girls to call the shots on that stuff anyway, so you get to say how far it all goes, in every way.”
“I’m not so sure about that.”
Wallace looked offended. “Am I not a dude? I’ve got some experience in this area.”
“Guys can be pushy. I’m not ready for pushy.”
“Not all guys are pushy.”
Mac winced, thinking about how passive Cassidy had been in their physical relationship and how she always had to be the one to try and go further. All while still attempting to walk that line girls are forced on, the one between slutty and frigid.
As good as the good times were, Mac didn’t forget how awful it was to feel like Cassidy didn’t want her, to feel like there was something about her that turned him off.
“But I need someone to be proactive, too, you know. I don’t want to be the only one in the relationship.”
“Whoa, who’s talking about relationships? I’m just trying to get you to talk to a guy. Maybe go out the movies or something.”
“Movies are good.”
“Or you could go out to eat, get a free meal.” He stabbed one of her fries with his plastic fork and then shoved it in his mouth. “Wish I could get some free meals on dates.”
Mac chuckled, already feeling a little bit better about things. She remembered then what Veronica said to her once, about the trauma being something you have to deal with on your own. Now she wondered if Veronica realized that with a friend like Wallace, she never had to deal with anything alone.
“Thanks,” she told him with a soft smile. “For everything.” After all, guys couldn’t be that bad if there were ones like Wallace out there.
“You’re welcome. You gonna finish those?”
She grinned as she pushed the rest of her fries toward him.
~+~
The one thing Mac really loved about college was that she could feel herself growing and changing, slowly evolving into the person she ultimately wanted to be. In many ways she was proud of herself for opening up and taking chances. If anyone had told her last summer that she’d lose her virginity freshmen year and have not one but two boyfriends, she would have said they were crazy. But that was exactly what happened.
It was a little disappointing that both of those relationships ended rather quickly, but Mac had decided not to dwell. Bronson and Max were both good college boyfriends, worth some good times but ultimately nothing serious. She knew they probably wouldn’t keep in touch, and that she may very well completely forget them altogether one day, but that was all part of the appeal; after everything she had been through before, sometimes it still felt like Cassidy was burned into her soul, and she hated that.
She broke up with Max at the end of spring semester, when he told her he had decided to dropout and get an off-campus apartment in order to focus on his “business.” Mac knew then that she could no longer deny their incompatibility, and that it’d be relatively easy to cut ties. They ended their relationship over simple, seemingly common issues, just like how it went down with Bronson, and it was such a damn relief for things to be that normal in the end. It was nothing like finding out you’ve been dumped when your boyfriend tries to kill your best friend and then jumps to his death.
She really does try to not think about Cassidy.
Now that she was single, and sure that it was by personal choice and not because she was some sort of freak, Mac had decided that she wanted to focus more on her classes. Boys would come and boys would go, but degrees in computer science and business administration would last forever.
When Mac had scheduled her classes the first year at Hearst, she only focused on CS. Although she knew that she had a head for business, she never gave it much thought.
Then Logan Echolls called her and made her an offer she couldn’t refuse…
~+~
It was one week into summer vacation, and Mac was spending most of her time working at a local bookstore, trying to clock enough hours to help offset some of her college expenses.
She was at the front counter, looking over an inventory sheet, when the door chimed to signal a new customer. She glanced up to see Logan entering the shop. He froze for a second when he saw her, then smiled tightly before awkwardly waving hi. She returned the gesture and then watched as he headed to the fiction section, ducking behind a display of the newest releases.
Things were weird between them now, because things were weird between Logan and Veronica, and Logan and Parker, and given his history, probably Logan and that 80-year-old man now standing next to him near the magazine rack. In some ways Logan always seemed like a loaded gun, one who could shoot tension and uncomfortableness and uncertainty wherever he went. He was intimidating by himself, but all of the insanity that still continued to haunt him made him almost unbearably so.
She bit her lip thoughtfully, watching him as he read over the back cover of Khaled Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns, oblivious to her scrutiny. Part of her wanted to laugh at his selection, because it seemed so unlike him, but then she remembered that he has surprised her before. Logan Echolls was living proof that you can’t live by first impressions.
Her mind wandered a minute as she thought about Veronica, who Mac used to think represented the same kind of chaos she now associated with Logan, even though she found Veronica much more relatable. Now the girl who was always wrapped up in something, the one who everyone talked about, was her best friend.
Maybe she shouldn’t be so quick to write-off Logan now, either. Besides, she really did need to talk to him about their website. Maybe it was time to offer that proverbial olive branch.
“The Meg Cabot section is on the other side of the store,” she called out to him.
He looked up, at first surprised that she acknowledged him but then recovering quickly. “Oh, I buy her books online.”
The old man, the only other customer, wandered out of the store as Logan returned the book to its shelf and then started leafing through a surfing magazine. Mac almost felt bad. Maybe she had embarrassed him.
“It’s dead today, Mac. Why don’t you take off early?” said her boss, Michelle.
Mac nodded, but sighed internally. If business kept up like this, she’d be lucky to afford her textbooks.
Her car was in the shop, so she called her mother on her cell to ask her to come and pick her up now, but the call went to voicemail. She was about to dial Veronica when she stopped to look over at Logan again.
---
Logan’s Range Rover smelled like the beach, and Mac tried to inhale discreetly, enjoying the mixed scent of saltwater and sand. As he turned the key in the ignition, Sublime’s Santeria began playing from his iPod dock, and she relaxed a little in her seat.
“How’s your summer been?” she asked, feeling a need to break the silence.
“Not bad. I think I’m still recovering from finals.”
“How’d they go?”
“Okay. You?”
“Good.”
They grew quiet again as he rolled to the stoplight, and now that they weren’t moving, it seemed really awkward.
“I’m…I’m sorry, about what happened with Parker,” he said, glancing over at her. “I really didn’t mean to hurt her or anything.”
“I know,” she said, sincere.
They both exhaled as the light turned green and he pulled forward.
“Have you seen our site’s traffic stats lately?” she asked him. “Over 20,000 hits and like 600 unique users. That’s pretty good, right?”
He nodded thoughtfully. “If you say so.”
“Well it’s not like we’ve advertised or anything. How many kids were in your class? Thirty, maybe? That means they’ve been talking about it or linking to it, and word’s spreading.”
He shrugged, so she pressed further. “Actually, I’ve been thinking, and how do you feel about getting a Facebook account?”
Now he turned to face her, his nose scrunched in distaste. “We need to network,” she amended.
“You mean social network?”
“Well, that’s the best way to do it for something like Rate My Ass. You get an account, casually mention it once, and then your friends will tell their friends and so on. And you’d probably get a lot of interest in your Facebook, because you’re you.”
“Yeah, interest like TMZ? No thanks.”
“You don’t have to post pictures of you doing bodyshots off of strippers, you know,” she replied, grinning good-naturedly.
He recognized her teasing and returned her smile. “Then what’s the point?”
“But seriously, we could make some money off of this. Money I could really use right now.”
“I don’t know,” he admitted, sighing. “It might be hot for two minutes, but people would lose interest fast.”
“So we’ll cash in while it’s hot! That’s what I did with those purity test results back in high school. Nobody cared the next week, but when they did care, I made a lot of money.”
“That was you?” he said, looking over at her in surprise. She nodded proudly as he turned his eyes back to the road. Then he wordlessly held out his fist for her to bump, which she did with a grin.
“Thanks for the ride,” she told him as he pulled into her driveway. “And at least consider it, okay.”
“I make no promises.”
She grabbed her bag off of the backseat and opened the passenger door. “See you around?” she asked hopefully.
“Definitely.”
~+~
Mac was not a sentimental person by any means, but that didn’t stop her from organizing a farewell lunch for Wallace, two days before he was set to leave for Africa for the summer. Veronica would be heading to Virginia for her internship the following week, so Mac was trying to get in as much quality time with them both as possible.
They laughed and talked for more than an hour after the pizza was gone, before Wallace announced he had to go home and finish packing. After he left, she and Veronica had a chance to catch up one-on-one. They talked about Mac’s job and Veronica’s breakup with Piz, about the trip to the Grand Canyon Mac was being forced to take with her family again this year, and how Veronica wasn’t as excited about the FBI as she used to be.
They talked for hours, and sometimes they didn’t need to even say that much to really say everything.
Later, when Mac was at home, lounging on her bed as she surfed the Internet, she got a text from Logan.
Friends?
Smiling, she quickly logged on to her Facebook account, something she could admit to hardly ever doing. There at the top of her friend request list was Logan. She laughed at his profile picture, a close-up of his face and his forced, cheesy grin, and clicked ‘accept.’
~Fin~
Author: absfabulous1
Characters/Pairing: Mac, with appearances by Veronica, Wallace, and Logan
Word Count: 3,300
Rating: R for some language and adult themes
Spoilers: Everything, just to be safe. Some parts are set post-series.
Summary: Many of her relationships, from kindergarten to college, were fun but ultimately fleeting. Yet Mac had a feeling that these people, these friends, were somehow going to be tied to her forever.
Author’s Notes: This was written for vmfic_gameon's Round #3 Character Challenge. Many thanks to annie_oakley for some help with one of the storylines and her beta work.
When Mac was five-years-old, she met Jessie Connor, her first friend. It was the easiest relationship she would ever cultivate, one set during a time when geographical convenience was the cornerstone of most connections. Jessie sat next to her in the story time circle, and that was all they needed.
Jessie moved away the summer before third grade, and for years Mac was content to meander along her elementary school’s social hierarchy, gently bouncing between friends like a bumblebee at a flower bed. She was liked, but not popular, and more prone to flying under the radar than anything else. Mac was always invited to birthday parties and sleepovers because she was as innocuous as they came, and well, there was no reason not to have her around.
Then one year everything was different, like all of the kids in her class had decided it was time to grow up but they never let her in on that secret. The still preteen girls traded in their Barbies for lipstick, and suddenly the bathroom sinks were the cool hangout spot. There was no longer even the faintest interest in what Mac still held dear- stuff like computer games and Goosebumps books, all of the things that were once a common thread that tied them all together despite things like their parents’ income or skin color or name brand shoes.
Mac grew introverted, more content to write anime fanfic or her own computer programs than to hold hands with a boy as they roamed the hallways, declaring a love that would last only during school hours. She thought it was ironic that others would look at her derisively for being such a kid when the truth was that she didn’t want much to do with any of them because she felt years ahead in terms of maturity.
Okay, so maybe there was a little bit of longing there, sometimes. She always kept her eyes and ears open so she knew just as much about everyone as anyone else did, and so occasionally she wondered what it would be like to travel in cliques with the rich and cool and loved. But it was easy enough to push those thoughts away. She could be content with most of her human interactions being online. She could be okay with being alone.
Then came along Veronica Mars…
~+~
“I. Am. So. Bored.” Mac was lying on the floor near Veronica’s bed and staring up at the ceiling.
“These background checks aren’t entertainment enough for you?” Veronica asked from her desk, her eyes still on the computer screen.
“Maybe if you let me in on a little of the dirt you’re digging up…”
“I am bound by the laws of confidentiality agreements,” she replied. Mac stared back at her with a raised brow, and Veronica sighed. “Okay, fine, you win.” She turned her laptop around to reveal the screen, though Mac didn’t move from her spot to get the better view. “This guy had two speeding tickets and defaulted on a credit card back in college.”
“Positively scandalous,” Mac muttered, unimpressed.
“There’s the rub. See, that’s the thing about PI work, Mackee- the life and death stuff is just the glitz and glam, but the boring jobs are our bread and butter.” Veronica’s smile slipped from her face when she caught Mac’s annoyed expression. “I’m almost done.”
“Then maybe we can go somewhere with a working air conditioner?”
“We could always go to your house.”
“The parentals are home, so…no.”
“We could go to the mall. Meet the girls, get a mani/pedi.” She stuck her leg out and playfully wiggled her foot in Mac’s direction. “Shop for shoes.”
Mac grinned, then closed her eyes and thought of nice, cold places as Veronica went back to her work.
“Um, Veronica?”
“Hm?” She looked up from her screen to see Mac holding out her little handheld fan like an offering.
“It’s dead. And now I’m dying.”
Veronica smiled and returned to the laptop. “There’re some batteries in my bedside drawer.”
Mac groaned from the effort of rising off the floor and then she lumbered over to Veronica’s nightstand. She had just pulled open the top drawer, her mouth dropping open in shock at its contents, when Veronica yelled, “Not that one!”
She slammed it closed, spinning around to face Veronica. “I didn’t see anything!”
Her friend’s face was bright red in embarrassment, an emotion that Mac had never before associated with her. “Uh. That’s, that’s just a massager.”
Suddenly Mac couldn’t contain the laughter bubbling up inside of her, and she guffawed, nearly doubling over.
Maybe it shouldn’t have surprised her that Veronica was laughing now, too, her face still flushed. Soon they were both gasping for air, cackling so hard that their stomachs tightened painfully.
As they were both starting to recover, their giggles slowly subsiding while they wiped at the tears in their eyes, Veronica tried to sputter more lame excuses, which only set Mac off again, her shoulders shaking. Then Veronica would lose it, too, and it was another round of raucous laughter.
It felt amazing. Mac couldn’t even remember the last time she had laughed like that, and later she realized how much she needed it.
~+~
After everything that went down with Cassidy, Mac spent most of her summer locked in her room, just trying to deal in her own way, or at the various counseling sessions her mother booked, convinced that Mac needed help in order to cope. Veronica was always a sympathetic ear, and she had confessed to Mac that her own mother had made her do something similar in the weeks following Lilly’s death.
“I went because it was easier than fighting her on it, you know?”
“Yeah.”
“But it didn’t really help. Nothing did. It’s just something you’ve got to deal with on your own.”
Mac had nodded in agreement, but the truth was that she was disappointed. Mac wanted it to work. She had gone in with an open mind, praying that it might be a quick fix. Mac was terrified that she was going to feel like this for the rest of her life, that now she was nothing more than damaged goods.
She wondered how she could ever open up to another guy again. As silly as it sounded, and maybe as insignificant as it was compared to everything else Cassidy had done, (God, he was a killer!) Mac feared that now she was going to be frigid and alone forever. After getting a taste of how nice having a boyfriend could be, back when she thought what they had was actually real, she didn’t think she’d be able to go the rest of her life without that ever again.
It wasn’t something she felt like she could confide in Veronica, either, because Veronica had Logan, and even though Mac thought Logan was kind of a dick and personally didn’t get the appeal, she did understand that it must be nice to be with someone who had been through it all too. Logan and Veronica were kind of like comrades in war, and Mac could only imagine how nice it would be to have that sort of built-in understanding of each other’s fucked up history and emotional shortcomings.
As much as she wanted to be okay again, there was something inside of her that screamed in panic whenever any guy got near. The fear and distrust only grew when she got to Hearst, and what should have been a shiny new beginning was destroyed the second they found out Parker was raped.
She found herself snapping at any unassuming male who approached her, even if they were just another lost freshman as confused by the campus layout as she was. She had glared in return when one poor guy actually had the nerve to ask for her number in class, and she didn’t care that he was only trying to put together a study group.
After almost one semester at Hearst, Mac was sure that she had thrown away any chance of ever having a normal, functioning social life of any kind. Her anxieties about the opposite sex were only reinforced after everything that went down with the Hearst rapist, Veronica once again being the one getting in the crossfire. Mac had been ready to give up, but an unexpected close friendship with one guy helped change it all…
~+~
Wallace Fennel had his own set of problems early freshman year, as he found himself struggling to stay afloat in what he thought was his choice field of study. But when he wasn’t getting his ass kicked by the engineering curriculum, he was keeping up with his first year requirements, including the freshman composition course that he had with Mac.
“Seat’s taken,” she growled when a boy tried to claim the desk next to hers.
Wallace just shook his head. “I’m surprised you let me have the honor of sitting near you,” he told her as he opened up his brand new notebook.
“You’re different,” she replied.
“Hey, don’t be fooled by my all-American good looks now. I’m a dangerous player. Ladies beware.”
“I somehow doubt that.”
He slumped in his seat. “Yeah, I get that a lot.”
Over the months, Mac found herself spending a lot more time with Wallace. With Veronica usually busy working cases or being with Logan, and Parker getting very involved with a lot of the campus committees, Mac and Wallace would often find themselves as lunch partners.
One day, after yet another incident with her acting skittish around one of the boys in their class, Wallace outright asked her what was going on. He knew about Cassidy (everyone did) but he didn’t know the details, and Mac wasn’t ready to go there yet with anyone, let alone a guy, no matter how well intentioned he may be.
But Wallace had a way of being there for her without it getting overbearing or intrusive. The boy had mad support skills, and Mac slowly found herself opening up.
“It doesn’t have to be serious. Guys always want the girls to call the shots on that stuff anyway, so you get to say how far it all goes, in every way.”
“I’m not so sure about that.”
Wallace looked offended. “Am I not a dude? I’ve got some experience in this area.”
“Guys can be pushy. I’m not ready for pushy.”
“Not all guys are pushy.”
Mac winced, thinking about how passive Cassidy had been in their physical relationship and how she always had to be the one to try and go further. All while still attempting to walk that line girls are forced on, the one between slutty and frigid.
As good as the good times were, Mac didn’t forget how awful it was to feel like Cassidy didn’t want her, to feel like there was something about her that turned him off.
“But I need someone to be proactive, too, you know. I don’t want to be the only one in the relationship.”
“Whoa, who’s talking about relationships? I’m just trying to get you to talk to a guy. Maybe go out the movies or something.”
“Movies are good.”
“Or you could go out to eat, get a free meal.” He stabbed one of her fries with his plastic fork and then shoved it in his mouth. “Wish I could get some free meals on dates.”
Mac chuckled, already feeling a little bit better about things. She remembered then what Veronica said to her once, about the trauma being something you have to deal with on your own. Now she wondered if Veronica realized that with a friend like Wallace, she never had to deal with anything alone.
“Thanks,” she told him with a soft smile. “For everything.” After all, guys couldn’t be that bad if there were ones like Wallace out there.
“You’re welcome. You gonna finish those?”
She grinned as she pushed the rest of her fries toward him.
~+~
The one thing Mac really loved about college was that she could feel herself growing and changing, slowly evolving into the person she ultimately wanted to be. In many ways she was proud of herself for opening up and taking chances. If anyone had told her last summer that she’d lose her virginity freshmen year and have not one but two boyfriends, she would have said they were crazy. But that was exactly what happened.
It was a little disappointing that both of those relationships ended rather quickly, but Mac had decided not to dwell. Bronson and Max were both good college boyfriends, worth some good times but ultimately nothing serious. She knew they probably wouldn’t keep in touch, and that she may very well completely forget them altogether one day, but that was all part of the appeal; after everything she had been through before, sometimes it still felt like Cassidy was burned into her soul, and she hated that.
She broke up with Max at the end of spring semester, when he told her he had decided to dropout and get an off-campus apartment in order to focus on his “business.” Mac knew then that she could no longer deny their incompatibility, and that it’d be relatively easy to cut ties. They ended their relationship over simple, seemingly common issues, just like how it went down with Bronson, and it was such a damn relief for things to be that normal in the end. It was nothing like finding out you’ve been dumped when your boyfriend tries to kill your best friend and then jumps to his death.
She really does try to not think about Cassidy.
Now that she was single, and sure that it was by personal choice and not because she was some sort of freak, Mac had decided that she wanted to focus more on her classes. Boys would come and boys would go, but degrees in computer science and business administration would last forever.
When Mac had scheduled her classes the first year at Hearst, she only focused on CS. Although she knew that she had a head for business, she never gave it much thought.
Then Logan Echolls called her and made her an offer she couldn’t refuse…
~+~
It was one week into summer vacation, and Mac was spending most of her time working at a local bookstore, trying to clock enough hours to help offset some of her college expenses.
She was at the front counter, looking over an inventory sheet, when the door chimed to signal a new customer. She glanced up to see Logan entering the shop. He froze for a second when he saw her, then smiled tightly before awkwardly waving hi. She returned the gesture and then watched as he headed to the fiction section, ducking behind a display of the newest releases.
Things were weird between them now, because things were weird between Logan and Veronica, and Logan and Parker, and given his history, probably Logan and that 80-year-old man now standing next to him near the magazine rack. In some ways Logan always seemed like a loaded gun, one who could shoot tension and uncomfortableness and uncertainty wherever he went. He was intimidating by himself, but all of the insanity that still continued to haunt him made him almost unbearably so.
She bit her lip thoughtfully, watching him as he read over the back cover of Khaled Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns, oblivious to her scrutiny. Part of her wanted to laugh at his selection, because it seemed so unlike him, but then she remembered that he has surprised her before. Logan Echolls was living proof that you can’t live by first impressions.
Her mind wandered a minute as she thought about Veronica, who Mac used to think represented the same kind of chaos she now associated with Logan, even though she found Veronica much more relatable. Now the girl who was always wrapped up in something, the one who everyone talked about, was her best friend.
Maybe she shouldn’t be so quick to write-off Logan now, either. Besides, she really did need to talk to him about their website. Maybe it was time to offer that proverbial olive branch.
“The Meg Cabot section is on the other side of the store,” she called out to him.
He looked up, at first surprised that she acknowledged him but then recovering quickly. “Oh, I buy her books online.”
The old man, the only other customer, wandered out of the store as Logan returned the book to its shelf and then started leafing through a surfing magazine. Mac almost felt bad. Maybe she had embarrassed him.
“It’s dead today, Mac. Why don’t you take off early?” said her boss, Michelle.
Mac nodded, but sighed internally. If business kept up like this, she’d be lucky to afford her textbooks.
Her car was in the shop, so she called her mother on her cell to ask her to come and pick her up now, but the call went to voicemail. She was about to dial Veronica when she stopped to look over at Logan again.
---
Logan’s Range Rover smelled like the beach, and Mac tried to inhale discreetly, enjoying the mixed scent of saltwater and sand. As he turned the key in the ignition, Sublime’s Santeria began playing from his iPod dock, and she relaxed a little in her seat.
“How’s your summer been?” she asked, feeling a need to break the silence.
“Not bad. I think I’m still recovering from finals.”
“How’d they go?”
“Okay. You?”
“Good.”
They grew quiet again as he rolled to the stoplight, and now that they weren’t moving, it seemed really awkward.
“I’m…I’m sorry, about what happened with Parker,” he said, glancing over at her. “I really didn’t mean to hurt her or anything.”
“I know,” she said, sincere.
They both exhaled as the light turned green and he pulled forward.
“Have you seen our site’s traffic stats lately?” she asked him. “Over 20,000 hits and like 600 unique users. That’s pretty good, right?”
He nodded thoughtfully. “If you say so.”
“Well it’s not like we’ve advertised or anything. How many kids were in your class? Thirty, maybe? That means they’ve been talking about it or linking to it, and word’s spreading.”
He shrugged, so she pressed further. “Actually, I’ve been thinking, and how do you feel about getting a Facebook account?”
Now he turned to face her, his nose scrunched in distaste. “We need to network,” she amended.
“You mean social network?”
“Well, that’s the best way to do it for something like Rate My Ass. You get an account, casually mention it once, and then your friends will tell their friends and so on. And you’d probably get a lot of interest in your Facebook, because you’re you.”
“Yeah, interest like TMZ? No thanks.”
“You don’t have to post pictures of you doing bodyshots off of strippers, you know,” she replied, grinning good-naturedly.
He recognized her teasing and returned her smile. “Then what’s the point?”
“But seriously, we could make some money off of this. Money I could really use right now.”
“I don’t know,” he admitted, sighing. “It might be hot for two minutes, but people would lose interest fast.”
“So we’ll cash in while it’s hot! That’s what I did with those purity test results back in high school. Nobody cared the next week, but when they did care, I made a lot of money.”
“That was you?” he said, looking over at her in surprise. She nodded proudly as he turned his eyes back to the road. Then he wordlessly held out his fist for her to bump, which she did with a grin.
“Thanks for the ride,” she told him as he pulled into her driveway. “And at least consider it, okay.”
“I make no promises.”
She grabbed her bag off of the backseat and opened the passenger door. “See you around?” she asked hopefully.
“Definitely.”
~+~
Mac was not a sentimental person by any means, but that didn’t stop her from organizing a farewell lunch for Wallace, two days before he was set to leave for Africa for the summer. Veronica would be heading to Virginia for her internship the following week, so Mac was trying to get in as much quality time with them both as possible.
They laughed and talked for more than an hour after the pizza was gone, before Wallace announced he had to go home and finish packing. After he left, she and Veronica had a chance to catch up one-on-one. They talked about Mac’s job and Veronica’s breakup with Piz, about the trip to the Grand Canyon Mac was being forced to take with her family again this year, and how Veronica wasn’t as excited about the FBI as she used to be.
They talked for hours, and sometimes they didn’t need to even say that much to really say everything.
Later, when Mac was at home, lounging on her bed as she surfed the Internet, she got a text from Logan.
Friends?
Smiling, she quickly logged on to her Facebook account, something she could admit to hardly ever doing. There at the top of her friend request list was Logan. She laughed at his profile picture, a close-up of his face and his forced, cheesy grin, and clicked ‘accept.’
~Fin~