Planning Your Future

Moving Too Fast (Part 2)

June 11, 1993

Veronica's POV

"Thank you everyone!" I say into the microphone. All of them start to leave. "What a night." I sit down on the edge of the stage. "Yeah, it was so awesome." JD takes the spot on the right of me. "Someone's coming to talk to you." Owen leans down to whisper. Alyssa is walking over. JD pushes me off the stage so I have to jump down. Luckily the stage is only a foot off the ground. I shoot him a dirty look.

"Hey. You were really good." Alyssa puts her hands in the pockets of her jeans. "Thanks." I look at the floor. "I heard about you and JD. I'm sorry you guys broke up." She says. "How did you hear about that?" I doubt Harvard spreads a lot gossip with the other college. "JD told me last night." She bites her lip. "Oh." I run a hand through my hair. She looks like she wants to say something. "Well I just wanted to tell you how good you were." She leaves.

June 18, 1993

"Get dressed. We're going out." JD sticks his head in my room. "Why?" I ask. "Because we are." He shuts my door. I put on a dress. I'm assuming he means we're going to a club. "Okay why are we going out?" I come downstairs. "We need to have fun. Especially you and Owen. You two are way too uptight." JD gets his keys from the entry table. "I am not!" Owen and I yell at the same time. "Also you three can actually let loose and dance with anyone, lest you forget, I have a boyfriend." Owen says. "Owen, I have no intention of dancing with anyone. We can sit together and get hammered. Or do you want to stay here?" JD starts walking out the door. "Fine." Owen groans. "Then it's settled. We'll go party and you two can be boring together." I joke. "Shut up." Owen pushes me.

We get to the club and wait in line. When we show the bouncer our IDs, it feels nice to not have to use a fake one. We sit at the bar. "So, what made you want to go out so suddenly?" I ask JD. "I don't know. I was bored and you guys, with the exception of Sam, are so boring." He says. "Whatever." I roll my eyes. "I'm glad to not be boring." Sam smirks. I give him a dirty look. "Sorry." He laughs.

Someone sits on the other side of me. I look over at them. It's Justin from the bachelorette party. "Hey! Funny running into you here." I smile. "Hey. How have you been?" He lightly hits my arm. "I've been good. What about you?" I hit him back. "Good. But is your friend Heather okay? We were talking and then I never heard from her again." He asks. "Oh, no she's okay. She might have stopped talking to you because she started dating someone." I say. "Well then." He looks slightly embarrassed.

"Wait this is Justin?" JD leans over to see him. "Who are you?" Justin furrows his brows. "JD. Heather's stepbrother." He introduces himself. "Hi." Justin waves. "Hi." JD says back. Justin looks back at me, "Veronica, would you like to dance?" He holds his hand out. "Sure." I take it. JD gives me a smirk as I follow Justin.

"So who were those other guys with you?" Justin asks as we dance. "Oh they're friends from college. They came here for the summer." I explain. "That's cool. I figured one of them was your boyfriend." He says. "Well JD is my ex." I say. "What happened? If you don't mind me asking." I shrug, "We just didn't work like we used to." There's no other way for me to explain it without giving away too much.

"But you're still friends?" He asks. "Yeah. It was kind of weird at first, but now we're really close. Now he acts like my wingman. Even when I don't want him to." I love him but he needs to stop doing things like inviting Alyssa to things. "What do you mean when you don't want him to?" He tilts his head slightly. "He keeps trying to invite my ex to things. But I've told him I don't want to see her-" Shit. "I mean..." I don't know how to get out of that one. "Oh you're... hold on." He backs away and goes over to his friend group. "What happened?" JD comes up behind me. "I may or may not have not it slip that I have an ex that's a girl. I said 'she' by accident." I explain. "Well if he stops talking to you because of that, then that's his loss." He starts to take me back over the the guys. Well by guys I mean Owen. Sam is over at the end of the bar talking to some girl.

"Veronica, wait." Justin comes back with a girl. "So Veronica, this is Alison." Alison has brown hair that falls just above her shoulders and brown eyes. "Hey." Alison smiles. "Hi." I'm usually not nervous to meet people, but I've never met someone at a club before.

We sit at a small table. "So where are you from?" She asks. "Sherwood, Ohio." I take a drink. "Oh my dad lives there. I would live with him during the summer and some holidays. I live in a small town about thirty minutes away." She says. "How do you know Justin? Did you two grow up together?" I ask. "No we met at college." She shakes her head. "He actually had a bit of a crush on me." She whispers. "Really?" I laugh. "I came out to him as soon as I found out he liked me." She smiles.

"So is that guy you were talking to your brother?" She asks. Does JD really look like my brother? "No. He's my friend." I don't think it's necessary to tell her that he's also my ex. "So have you come out?" The question catches me off guard. "Not really. My close friends know and one person found out by accident. My ex caught me with the girl I used to date and took a picture of it. He threatened to tell everyone." I still don't know if I've forgiven him. He definitely doesn't deserve it. "'He?'" She raises an eyebrow. "My mom made me date him. I didn't even like him. I don't even think he liked me. I was pretty popular in high school so he probably only liked me for that. But... I have dated a few guys in the last few years. I know that's..." I know being bisexual is hard to explain. Hell, it was hard to explain to me. "Oh." She nods. "But are you out?" I ask. "Yeah. I came out to my family recently. They didn't take it incredibly well, but not terrible." She shrugs.

"So the girl that you were dating, what happened?" Alison drinks from her glass. "That ex boyfriend's picture really scared her. She didn't want anyone finding out so she dumped me. Then my friend," I point to JD, "beat the shit out of him so he got rid of it. But we just didn't get back together. I don't know if we will...  But enough about my ex." I don't want to talk about Alyssa tonight. That's not why we went out tonight.

We end up dancing. We're both pretty drunk. This felt like that night with Amber except this time, I'm expecting it to go a certain way. JD keeps giving me looks. Just little smirks to say "look at you!" It's a bit annoying.

JD's POV

Owen and I sit together at the bar. "I thought this was to make me less uptight. I've done nothing since we got here." He takes a shot. "Well you can drink. That's not cheating, last time I checked." As usual, I'm the designated driver. I don't hate it. I forced them to come here so it's only fair.

I look over at Veronica again. She is full-on making out with Justin's friend. I'm glad she's doing what she said. She's not moving too fast like she used to. She's doing the normal college shit of getting drunk and making out with someone you don't really know. I haven't really done it. But it's definitely time. She's made that step, it's my turn. Obviously since I'm the designated driver, I can't start tonight.

"She's having fun." Owen looks at Veronica as well. "Yeah." I nod. "Will is the only part of home that I miss. Like I'm not tempted to cheat, but it's a little boring without him here." He sighs, turning back around. "That makes sense." I pat him on the back. I'll keep that in mind for later.

It's probably one in the morning when we leave. I see Veronica give Alison her number. She falls asleep in the car, Sam does the same. They're both passed out in the backseat while Owen and I are up front. When we get to Veronica's house, we get the both of them inside. I get Veronica into her bed. I put her blanket over her. Owen comes out of his room. "I'll sleep in the attic tonight. I'm not carrying him up there." He points up to the attic. "Fair." I shrug. "Goodnight." I wave. "Goodnight. Be here early so I don't have to deal with their hangovers alone." Owen leans against the ladder to the attic. "I promise I'll get here as soon as I can." I assure him.

I drive home and walk in. "Hey, how was tonight?" Heather whispers from her doorway. "Good. They had fun. At least Veronica and Sam did. I'm not sure about Owen. I hope he did." He's one of the reasons I wanted us to go out. "I'll pick up the hangover cure stuff with you in the morning." She says. "Thanks." I smile. I fall asleep, exhausted. The loud music and carrying a grown woman is tiring. But I'm glad they had fun. That's what I wanted. Especially Veronica.