Planning Your Future

Do This Thing

December 22, 1993

Veronica's POV

I pull my suitcase out of my car. I'm so happy to be home again. Even though it's only been a month since the last time. Christmas itself has been pretty boring the past few years, but I've enjoyed the other parts of the holiday break. "Hey honey!" My dad comes outside. "Hey." I smile. "How's the band?" He hugs me. "Good." As of now, all but two of our songs have played on the radio." I tell him. "That's amazing!" He smiles. He helps me get my stuff upstairs.

We talk about our lives for a while until the doorbell rings. "I'll get it." I get up and open the door. "Hey!" Alyssa smiles. "Hey." I kiss her cheek. "So JD told me to collect you and bring you to his house." She says. "Oh. Okay." I wonder what this is about. "Bye Dad!" I turn to him. "Bye." He waves.

As soon as I walk into the house, JD shoves a piece of paper at me. "Ow." I hit his arm. "What is this?" I hold it up. "Look at it." He points at it. "'Join us for a Christmas Festival at twelve o'clock on Christmas Eve. Looking for musical talents for entertainment.' You want to do this?" I ask. "Yeah. It'd be fun." JD nods. "What about Owen and Sam?" They couldn't fly out for this on such short notice. "We could do a duet. Like it was at the beginning." JD suggests. "Okay. Sounds like a plan." It sounds fun. I love Sam and Owen, but sometimes I just want to jam out with my best friend.

We spend all day messing around and trying to choose a Christmas song to sing. We decide on Baby It's Cold Outside, one of my favorites. Well, one of my favorites to sing. I understand why some people don't like it. The lyrics are a bit creepy. But it's a great choice for a duet.

December 24, 1993

JD and I sit in my attic, going through the song one more time. "The more we sing this song, the creepier it gets." I laugh. "Yeah, it is a bit disturbing when you really listen to the lyrics." JD smirks. "Well we should get ready. It's already ten o'clock." I stand up and stretch. "Okay. I'll see you there." JD gets up and goes downstairs. "Dress nicely!" He shouts from downstairs. "I will." I shout back. I play the piano part through before going down to my room. I don't know why I'm suddenly nervous. I've done so many shows, this one shouldn't be nervous. I try to stay calm as I get ready. I focus on deep breaths.

When I get to the park, I find JD and we walk to the stage. We're after a full band singing We Wish You Merry Christmas. "Are you ready?" JD whispers. "Let's do this thing." I smile at him. JD and I take the stage and sit at the piano. As we sing, I see Alyssa at the front, smiling. I try not to smile at her. As we finish the song, the audience claps. We exit the stage and I finally take a breath. "Are you okay?" JD asks, turning to face me. "Yeah. I was just really nervous for some reason." I say, "I'm gonna go meet up with Alyssa." JD nods, "Okay. Have fun."

I go over to where Alyssa is standing and hug her from behind. "Hey." She smiles. I see a few people give us a look, but I ignore it. "You know, it's weird that this town suddenly thought it should start holding festivals now." Alyssa says. "Yeah. It is weird." I laugh. "Do you want to walk around? There's some vendors with cool art if you want to check that out." She suggests. "Sure." I say. We walk around for about an hour before we decide to go back to my house. "Hey Dad!" I yell as we walk in. "Hey honey!" He calls from his room. Alyssa and I relax on the couch for the rest of the day. We watch It's A Wonderful Life, which causes me to have a flashback to back when JD and I were in high school. Back when I was living with him and his mom. That feels like so long ago. Probably because it was a long time ago. Alyssa leaves right before dinner so her mom doesn't freak out and go out looking for her. I stay in and eat dinner with my dad.

December 31, 1993

Dear Diary,

It feels like it's been months since I've written in my diary. A lot has happened. Alyssa and I are back together and JD are in a good place. But things between us had felt weird to me this week. We were together for so long and our love story was this crazy ride. So it feels odd that now we're only friends and with other people. We fought so hard to be together so many times, but we ultimately gave up and chose other people. I love Alyssa a lot, don't get me wrong. But how did her and me become a thing after everything that happened between JD and I.