All of the Stars

“Peanut butter toast does not count!” Veronica cried, throwing a piece of zucchini.

Jamie ducked, as much to bend over with laughter as to avoid the flying vegetable. His fingers reached across the distance between them, capturing Veronica’s fingers with his own.

“Does too,” he said, laughter mixing with a sigh, as Jamie fought to catch his breath. Veronica rolled her eyes. “You wait - I’ll make it for you, someday.”

Someday. The word fell heavy on her shoulders, as Veronica’s eyes caught the sight of their fingers intertwined, her stomach flip flopping as Jamie’s thumb ran over her wrist.

He watched her carefully, for the telltale signs of fight or flight: darting eyes, tensing muscles.

She only looked up at his eyes, caramel in the fading light of his balcony. Between the look on her face and the memory of what had happened in the kitchen, Jamie could still taste Veronica on his lips.

Like now, holding her hand, she hadn’t pulled away. It had been everything opposite to their first kiss - the very first one, when Veronica had woken in Jamie’s arms. Even the kiss the other night, after the emotion of her first night back at the arena, felt different than this one.

Mouth pressed against hers, Jamie had cheated: his eyes skimmed open, hoping to get a glance of her beautiful face. Veronica’s eyes were shut, gold eye shadow swept along her eyelids; freckles dotted across her cheeks.

Like losing a sense, the rest were heightened: Jamie was hyper aware of the feel of her sweater under his fingers; the floral perfume Veronica wore; the sound of her giggle, as she had pulled away. Those emerald green eyes had danced across his face, before glancing downward.

“You got sauce on your shirt,” she smiled, finger pointing into his chest. Her touch brushed against the soft white cotton, splatters evidence of Jamie having dropped the sauce before Veronica arrived.

Jamie’s heart had twisted hard, right where she touched him.

It came back to him now, as he finished the last scraps of his dinner. Pulling apart from the kiss, they had finished what was started: draining pasta; stirring together sauce and vegetables and cheese; plated onto dishes.

Jamie had suggested it, that they take their dinner out onto the balcony, where a small table and two chairs sat. Overlooking the downtown Dallas skyline, the breeze had blown over them, the first hints that fall was arriving.

Two plates in of pasta primavera, and Veronica was barely scraping her plate clean.

“Has it been days since you ate?” Veronica teased, smirking at him while she twirled spaghetti onto her fork. He only blushed, embarrassed as he pushed the plate away.

“Aw, c’mon Benn. I’m just kidding,” she smiled, pushing the remnants of her dinner towards Jamie. “I know you guys eat like like ten thousand calories a day.”

“How’d you know that?” Jamie replied with a mouthful of pasta, surprised. That was a closely guarded secret, the amount of food hockey players needed to consume to keep their muscular physiques during the season. “Who told you?”

“Jeremy.” Veronica laughed, leaning back in the patio

It made Jamie pause, the sound of his name falling from her lips with such ease. Of course he was under no illusions to think that Veronica might have moved on, that she would have been over the loss that had devastated her, but…

The way she said it made him freeze, fork in mid-air. The adoration was clear, matched by the happiness on her face. Jamie wondered if there might be a chance, a possibility, that he could someday make Veronica smile like that.

“What--” he blurted out, intending to ask the words that seemed forbidden: what will it take? Veronica stared back, blinking as he once again fell silent.

“What?” she smiled, encouraging him to go on. If she hadn’t just spoken her fiance’s name with reverie, if Jamie hadn’t seen the engagement ring hanging from a chain around her neck, it would have been hard to believe she was in love with someone else. Her eyes danced in delight at Jamie’s discomfort.

His gaze drifted, towards the view overlooking the Dallas skyline. Along with the wind, the trees blushing golden were the first sign of fall arriving in Texas. The start of the season, the change in the real season itself, left him feeling like turning a page. The things that were often left unsaid, spoken aloud instead.

“What was it like?” Jamie murmured, finally brave enough to look Veronica in the eye. At her confusion, he continued. “This summer….when you were gone.”

It hit like a punch to the gut: his caramel eyes, wide and uncertain; the scar above Jamie’s lip, evident even through his five o’clock shadow. He watched Veronica like she might drop a bomb, like the unknown was completely terrifying.

She sighed, holding her wine glass in both hands. Leaning on her knees, Veronica could avoid Jamie’s eyes, keep him from the hurt that cut like a knife when she recounted the last few months.

“‘You’ll get through this.’ That’s what people say, don’t they?” she asked, glancing at him. “They said it to me and it pisses me off."

She knew it was true; even if Jamie himself had never uttered the words, never forced the comment on her, his teammates had. Hell, everyone at Jeremy’s funeral had.

“What’s it supposed to mean...to get through this? Through what?” she muttered, pain running through her veins like ice. Tears crept at the corners of her eyes. “What’s on the other side? I didn’t want to get through it, I wanted to die in it.”

Jamie froze, not expecting Veronica’s reaction. “Vee--”

“My grandfather told me that grief is like a suitcase that sits at the bottom of your bed, and no matter what you have to pick it up, every day, take it with you,” Veronica interrupted, needing to get the words out. She needed Jamie to know what she’d been through, that she hadn’t up and left for no good reason. “Some days it’s filled with rocks, and you won’t think you could carry it.”

He bit the corner of his lip, hands around his own drink. The cool of the bottle was the only sensation he could feel, as Veronica poured his heart out to him.

Until, she reached between them, the softness of her fingers wrapping around his wrist, where the dark lines of tattoo ink ran out.

Jamie looked up, meeting her eyes.

“And then other days...light as a feather,” she smiled sadly, finally meeting his eyes. “That, he said, is getting through it.”

He could almost feel the wisp of her voice, the way her lips had curled against his. Veronica’s eyes were nearly emerald in the late light of the evening; Jamie could hardly breathe.

Light as a feather.
__

“Get out of here, you turkeys!” Veronica cried, pretending to chase her students out the door.

The giggles of two dozen eight-year-olds drowned out her own laughter, as the filed out single-file, organized chaos underway.

Finally lunch arrived, a moment of reprieve amidst a day of insanity. The morning had been dedicated to homonyms - what they were, how to use them. The students’ confusion had been alleviated by their science class, studying the jars of praying mantises growing day by day.

The classroom suddenly fell silent, the students having embarked for the gymnasium where they ate lunch. Today other teachers were holding down the supervision, allowing Veronica a moment to catch her breath, to step out of the heeled boots she’d donned for the day.

Sinking into the chair next to her desk, Veronica’s eyes ghosted over the computer screen, yet again. The page had been loaded and reloaded; she couldn’t keep away.

Austin City Limits. It’d been the namesake festival of her previous city, before coming to Dallas. As she had while living in both New York and Chicago, the big music festivals had drawn her year after year, and moving to Austin had been no different.

She shook her head, thinking of the time she had brought Jeremy to ACL, just after they’d started dating. His out of place Oxfords, shirt with too much starch had just been the beginning of his juxtaposition. One look around at the hipsters amalgamating at the festival grounds, and Veronica had known it was a mistake. She and Jeremy had spent the entirety of Father John Misty’s set miserable, not talking to one another after a fight about porta potties.

It had been years since Veronica had been to the festival - since that very trip, in fact. It seemed to fade from importance, that connection to the music community, once she and Jeremy got together.

Even the importance of music itself, how she’d moshed to the front of sets to be closer to the artists, how she’d crazily traverse the grounds of festivals to see as many bands as possible, had faded from memory.

Until Veronica had unpacked her old life in a new house, boxes that had sat in the attic for years. Tucked away were the scores of records she’d collected over the years, the record player coated in a fine layer of dust. Jamie had been the first one to hear it played in her home, unaware Veronica had been such a fan, the other night at dinner.

Now, her eyes hovered on the link market “tickets,” knowing the festival was just a few days away. She’d checked the schedule, compared it with her calendar, and was tempted to pull the trigger--

Veronica’s daydream was interrupted by the ringing of her phone, tucked away in a drawer. The device’s vibration against the wood construction was loud enough to startle Veronica, nearly knocking a cup of coffee over her keyboard.

Her reflexes were quick: drawer opened, phone grabbed, eyes registering the caller’s name.

On any other day, she would send it to voicemail. On any other day, the caller would have sent her into a tailspin of self-doubt, misery and despair. But after the evening at Jamie’s, kissing him in the evening light of his kitchen, there wasn’t anything that could ruin Veronica’s day.

“Hey, mom,” she said, smiling whilst saying the words.

“Sweetheart,” her mother’s sugary voice came down the line, nearly a thousand miles away. “I wasn’t sure if I’d reach you.”

“Lunch hour,” Veronica confirmed, sipping from the coffee she’d nearly tipped over. “What’s up?”

“Don’t sass me, young lady - I just got off the night shift and am in no mood,” Sharon said, a touch of hurt in her voice. “Can’t a mother call her daughter when she pleases?”

Veronica rolled her eyes. It took only a woman to pick up the passive-aggressive tone her mother gave off, the victim act well in hand. “Of course, mother.”

“It’s just…” her mother trailed off, silence between them. “It’s just been a while, since you left.”

Sighing, Veronica’s eyes fell shut. Leaving Dallas to go home; leaving home to come back to the city. It felt like lately all her leaving had done nothing but cause others pain, after Jeremy’s leaving had caused the most hurt of all.

The family ranch outside Denver had been a solace to Veronica in her greatest time of need. Like in the days when she’d slipped away to Jamie’s condo, avoiding the real world had done her good. Like the day she had spent on the family farm, on what would have been their wedding day. Holed up in her bedroom, bottle of booze in hand, Veronica had only woke from fitful sleep to take another sleeping pill, medication that would keep everything away on the worst of days.

“I know,” Veronica sighed, remembering the look on her mother’s face when she announced her departure for Dallas. It revealed her worst fears: that Veronica’s mother never wanted her to leave, wanted her daughter to remain in sight, in mind, in Colorado. “I’m sorry.”

A clucking of her mother’s tongue meant apology or not, they weren’t done. “How are things?” Sharon asked, her voice tight.

The most complex of answers lay before Veronica: she’d have days like the one with Jamie, and think she was moving on, that her grief was finally starting to subside; only to wake on another morning, feeling like she’d been hit by a truck. Or times when sifting through Jeremy’s belongings felt manageable, and then she’d run into a situation like the one with the house, where his parents were laying claim to everything they’d built together.

In short, two steps forward, one step back.

“I’m fine,” Veronica answered. The relationship she’d held with her mother over the years wasn’t one where she could share all of that, the feeling that Veronica wasn’t sure she would ever get over Jeremy. “Work is good, I’m settling into the new place I got--”

“And that boy?”

Veronica raked a hand through her hair, auburn strands catching the afternoon light. She knew the conversation would end up back here, along the same lines of judgment her mother had cast upon meeting Jamie all those months ago.

“James, was it?” Sharon asked. “Jack?”

“Mom…” she sighed.

“The one who’s in love with you.”

“Mother,” Veronica hissed, slamming a palm on the wood desk. That shut her mom up. “I told you before...it’s not like that.”

Sharon clucked, the same way she had in all the times of accusing Jamie of feeling that way for Veronica: in the days after Jeremy had died, when her daughter had arrived unannounced in Colorado, throughout the summer.

“Whatever you say, Veronica,” her mother said, silence falling between them. “Well?”

“Well what?” Veronica asked, confused at what her mom was waiting for.

“How is he?”

“Jamie?” Veronica asked, feeling a flutter in her stomach even just by saying his name.

“Yesssssssss, that's his name,” Sharon said, sighing with exasperation. “How is he, this Jamie?”

Veronica froze, caught off guard by the question. Her mind raced to the obvious corners: gorgeous, gentle, sensitive. Then there’d been the way he’d kissed her - twice now - that belied that shy persona, the one that had held fast as his lips had pressed over hers.

Beyond what had happened between them in the last week, there was the unknown. Jamie had left two days before on a week-long road trip, the kick off to the season. He didn’t owe Veronica anything, and she hadn’t asked him of anything either.

Which meant their communication had been limited - a text here and there, a like on her recent Facebook status. The sudden absence of his voice, that breathy tone and slight lisp, made Veronica miss it all the more.

“He’s fine,” Veronica answered her mother, as much to end the conversation, versus telling the truth: I don’t know what we are. Or how I feel about it. Or if I’ll ever feel anything about it.

Sharon dropped it, satisfied in the vagueness of her daughter’s answer. She changed the topic, telling Veronica all about her garden in Colorado, the fall hues she was missing by living down in Texas.

Veronica blanket out, not hearing anything her mother said. Her eyes cast back to the computer screen, more confused than ever. In the purgatory setting she was in - one foot in the life she’d led with Jeremy, one half out - where did that leave her and Jamie?

She had no clue.
__

Jamie clutched the phone in hand, his fingers itching to check it again.

Staring out the bus window, he chastised himself for being such a loser. They’d been gone less than forty eight hours, with another week to go, and she was all he could think about.

From the sweep of Veronica’s breath against his lips, to the way her fingers had curled around his wrist, he couldn’t get it out of his mind.

Worse yet, it left him with pathetically little to talk about, to call her with - if he’d had the balls to even do so. The few texts Jamie had sent since leaving Dallas had been the lamest of all: announcing they’d arrived in their destination city; updates about the weather; asking about Clarence, her terrorizing kitten.

Jamie wasn’t able to say what he really wanted to. What do you use on your lips to keep them so soft? he’d wondered. Or - is it him you still think about when you fall asleep at night?

He was still hovering between self-loathing and figuring a way to ask Veronica the questions, when Tyler dropped into the empty seat next to him. Jamie glanced up, unaware the bus had been filling after morning skate, while he’d been in his own world.

“Chubs,” Tyler announced himself by declaring the team’s nickname for Jamie. The centre slid down in his seat, crossing both arms over his chest. “Jesus, I could use a nap.”

Jamie silently agreed. While he didn’t mind road trips, starting the season off with a long haul was particularly challenging, tough to get his head around. Places like Phoenix, where they were tonight, didn’t rub him the wrong way, but for some reason this time, it did.

Morning skates were the worst: dragged out of bed at an ungodly hour, bag skated for an hour, attempting to catch up on the expelled energy with an afternoon nap.

Seguin didn’t leave the silence between them, turning to his captain. “What’s with you?” he frowned at Jamie.

The Stars captain again looked out the window, knowing there wasn’t anyway he could explain to Tyler what was going on. Or rather, not going on. Or how he felt about the whole damn thing.

“Nothing.”

“Bullshit,” Tyler laughed, pulling the hood of his sweater up and over his head. He nodded at the phone in Jamie’s hand. “You’ve been clutching that thing for dear life since we left Dallas, you’re moody all the time--”

“Shut your mouth,” Jamie hissed, only half kidding. It was par for the course that Seguin - and every member on the team - teased him relentlessly, but there was a chance of it veering into dangerous territory, and quickly.

He tucked the phone into the front pocket of his hoodie. Out of sight, out of mind.

That is, unless you were Tyler Seguin.

“You even gonna say anything about the flowers?” Tyler asked.

Jamie’s head whipped around, facing his teammate’s. Where he expected a lecherous grin, the twinkling eye that came with making fun of his captain, there was none. Seguin was serious, his brows furrowing in worry.

“I, ugh,” Jamie stammered, blinking rapidly. Panic coursed through his veins, accompanied by a hammering feeling in his chest. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Tyler rolled his eyes, a finger pointing towards himself.

“You see this?” he asked, finger aimed inches away from his jaw. His expression was blank, devoid of the typical humour that graced his features. “You see this?”

Jamie frowned, confused. “What--”

“This is the face I make when I know you’re full of shit.”

Uttering profanity under his breath, Jamie again turned away, intent on not speaking to his linemate for the rest of their careers. Fuck him.

Instead, Jamie felt it: the buzzing of his phone, tucked underneath the fabric he wore. Instantly forgetting the words he’d just exchanged with Tyler, his fingers moved rapidly, whipping out the device and glancing at its screen.

“Ah, her ears were burning,” Tyler said, indicating he, too, saw the name on the screen. Jamie glared at his teammate, who simply elbowed the captain in the ribs. “Come on, Chubs. Open it.”

Jamie glanced around at the rest of the bus, the players, trainers and coaching staff engaged in their own conversations or enjoying a moment of silence. It meant no one was listening on the third row from the back, where two of the team’s most prolific players were nearly coming to blows.

Or at least, that’s how it felt from Jamie’s side.

“I hate that name,” he whispered pointedly, fist curling around the phone in hand.

Tyler’s grin fell from a jeer to a smile, dimming in brightness. His tone matched Jamie’s, a hand on his shoulder.

“That’s why I use it,” Seguin said, “to get you fired up. Because she needs someone like that, fired up, who will fight for her. After what she's been through, she deserves that, Jamie."

Jamie blinked at his teammate’s words. Again the phone chirped in had; he looked down at it, her name flashing again on the screen.

“Go on, open it,” Tyler said, nodding at the object that held both of their attention. “Your secret’s safe with me.”

Jamie's thumb slid over the screen, unlocking the message Veronica had delivered. Reading the words quickly, he felt the vice grip in his heart give way; the same dizzy feeling in his head as when he’d kissed her after the game the other night.

“That good, eh?” Tyler asked, laughing. He leaned back against the bus seat, closing his eyes in the process.

It didn’t last long. Jamie tapped the phone against his teammate’s arm, his eyes flicking open at the touch.

Benn’s entire face seemed to twist into a smile as he looked out the window, at the streets of Phoenix rolling by. Tyler glanced at the message he’d received, the reason for the sudden happiness.

Vee: Checked your schedule, took a chance. Be my date?

Tyler squinted at the photo attached with the message, pinching the screen so he could see the objects in focus.

Two passes to Austin City Limits, the music festival that girls he’d gone home with raved about. A standby in the entire state of Texas.

A laugh fell from Seguin’s lips. He punched Jamie in the arm, who barely reacted.

“Nice work, Chubbs,” Tyler grinned.
__

Leaves crunched underfoot, beneath the sneakers Veronica had donned for a hike in the woods.

It had been three days since she’d sent Jamie the photo, since she’d impulsively bought the tickets to the festival. Three days since he had immediately responded, his enthusiastic response making Veronica burst into laughter, in her classroom.

I’m all yours, can’t wait, he’d said, telling Veronica he’d never been to the festival. She only hoped it’d be a better showing than her turn with Jeremy.

Which led her here, to the Spring Creek Forest Trail. It was a hefty drive from her new place in the city; forty-five minutes each way, but just a few minutes from the home she and Jeremy used to share.

It was the place she would come to when life got too crazy, when Veronica wasn’t sure Jeremy’s job was worth it, for the evenings and days it took him away from her. When she’d been deciding whether to stay at the public school she loved, versus taking a teaching job at a private school minutes away from their suburban home.

Stepping out into the fresh morning air, Veronica closed the driver’s side door of the car behind her. Popping headphones into her ears, she set off across the parking lot, music helping to settle her racing mind.

She loved it here: the dirt trails that led to a forest of oak and walnut trees, their canopy cocooning one inside. Wooden bridges led her over a tiny creek; on its bed, a blue heron lifted off like a prehistoric creature, at the sound of her foot scuffing the wooden boards.

The trails meandered through the park, leading to the crown jewel of the park: a twenty-foot bluff overlooking rolling hills; long, tall grasses; towering trees, some of them more than a hundred years old.

Since Jamie’s acceptance of her offer, she’d slipped into near obsessive compulsion at every dull moment. What did it mean? Was she cheating on Jeremy by exploring the feelings she was developing for Jamie? Did he feel the same?

The long, quick tumble into craziness best be avoided, so Veronica crammed her calendar with as many activities as possible: redecorating her classroom for Halloween, barre class with Shannon, coffee with an old friend she hadn’t seen in years.

Sitting on the ground, Veronica crossed both legs underneath, sighing at the expanse of the view. Spring Creek itself was off in the distance, the slow-moving water stilling her heart rate. Finally, it felt like she could think.

I’m all yours, he had said. It had made her heart flutter, as it did now, followed by a searing pang of guilt. It was as much for feeling as if she was betraying Jeremy, as for what had happened in this very location.

The park Veronica had come to wasn’t simply a place where she got away from it all. Jeremy had loved it too. When he hadn’t been traveling on Sundays, the park was their first stop of the day, strolling along the weathered paths, enjoying the silence. It had been where he’d trained for a half marathon, the valleys providing prime opportunity for tempo runs and hill days.

And it’d been where he had proposed, a year ago.

In the exact spot Veronica sat, Jeremy had dropped to one knee on their Sunday morning walk, no hiding in what he was doing. The look on his face and the hope in his voice had made it easy to say yes, to slip the ring on her finger - the ring that now sat around her neck, a reminder of what Veronica had lost.

She still remembered the feeling, the joy she had felt at that moment, as the music in her ears changed. A haunting melody, and equally moody voice, started singing.

Take the worst situations
Make a worse situation
Follow me home, pretend you
Found somebody to mend you

The lyrics flashed the emotion that tended to accompany her feelings of guilt, anytime she thought of Jeremy: anger.

Veronica had said yes to his life - to his friends, his home, the promise to marry him. And then he had left, ripped away from her in the worst way possible. Shattered and broken, picking up the pieces meant starting from scratch. Without the person who she had said forever to, years of their lives twined together.

I feel numb, I feel numb in this kingdom
I feel numb, I feel numb in this kingdom

Veronica didn’t know how to do this: to move on after what had happened with Jeremy, to start fresh both in her life and with someone new. Whether or not that was Jamie, the terror of it happening again - loving, and losing - was overwhelming, keeping her from going all in.

Scratching hands 'round my waist, yeah
I wish my mouth would still taste you

She couldn’t deny it: her feelings for Jamie, the way everything he seemed to do seemed so genuine, so heartfelt. Veronica felt like she was constantly blushing, butterflies beating madly in her stomach, whenever she was around him.

You better, you better, you better
You better make me
Me better, You better make me better

The constant turning in her mind, as if a coin flipped back and forth, its sides worn, was interrupted. Fat, heavy rain drops fell on the ground around Veronica, along the windbreaker she’d donned for the walk.

She didn’t hesitate. The dinner with Jamie the other night, the soaked pizza that had been ruined by the downpour, was a fresh memory. Veronica knew weather in Texas could turn on a dime, so she got to her feet, legs carrying her into a run down the pathway.

As the sprinkling rain turned heavier, she raced onwards. The canopy of trees, beneath a stormy sky, made it hard to see the trail. Her mind flashed back to the same night with Jamie, at their clamboring to get inside and away from the rain.

What are you waiting for, Veronica had called to him.

Now she raced towards the sanctuary of her vehicle, away from the place where Jeremy had asked for her hand in marriage. Veronica wasn’t sure the answer to her own question.

Notes