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The trouble was that she had to admit that being exposed to treachery and fickleness of love - or what claimed to be love - and being hurt beyond repair by some of those she used to trust, had made her selfish in a way. Not of the "I'm the center of the Universe" kind but of the "at the end of the day we are all alone so do what you must to survive and the rest is collateral damage" variety. Except, for all the awfulness and all the losses, Veronica knew she had never been truly alone. She always had at least one person she could turn to, lean on. At the worst, loneliest time of her life, there was her father. An outcast like herself, trying to rebuild a life on a shaky ground, but there for her: Strong, invariably cheerful, fiercely protective and always loving. Even if she couldn't bear to tell him most of what she was going through, just having him around - steady and unflappable - helped. It was an island of light in the sea of blackness, a solid land of hope, decency and warmth to hang on to while everything around her shifted: Values, perceptions, relationships, loyalties, realities and feelings. No, she was never as alone as she used to consider herself. Logan was, though, Veronica thought with a pang. For most of his life. How old was he, she wondered, when he first realized that no one would protect him from harm? Five? Eight? How young did he have to be to accept the "all alone" status and live with it? She knew he tried to tell. Trina let it slip. He wasn't believed; that was obvious. Who else had he tried to appeal to? Who else had dismissed, ignored, sympathized-but-did-nothing? She remembered with the chilly vividness of an unrelenting nightmare what it felt like to realize no one was coming to your aid and no one was going to punish your transgressors. That you were by yourself with your pain, your devastation, your fear and your shame, and the people whose responsibility it was to stand up for you were either too weak or worse, didn't care. Veronica remembered well what it did to her at sixteen. She also remembered retreating home to her father for a shelter. She could not imagine what it did to Logan at such a young age, at home and with the people that were furthest from any kind of shelter. It bothered her that she hadn't asked. How old was he when he made his defeated peace with the realities of his life? Realities like an unstable father, semi-catatonic mother, self-absorbed sister and various impersonal staff paid to mind their own business? How old was he when he realized his best friend either knew or suspected enough, but didn't say or do anything? That the girl he loved preferred to ignore the signs and dismiss his pain because these things were such downers and she was all about the fun? And that if he loved her and wanted to keep her, he would have to act as if fun was all he had? This had to be alone as alone got. And maybe Logan could have found other friends, other, less self-involved, less casually cruel, less happily oblivious (she thought guiltily), but probably by that time he had learned that this was the norm. That most people were like that. That he was a freak for getting attached too deeply and too unconditionally. And that emotions such as these were better hidden or downplayed if accidentally revealed because the Universe was filled with "it's-all-about-me" Kanes and "love-is-pain-and-you're-on-your-own-kid" Echolls'. Not for the first time Veronica wondered how he survived. Did he survive?