#THE THINK PIECES grown ass men and women @ a 17 year old girl OVER A HIGHSCOOL RELATIONSHIP AND HAVING BOUNDARIES

[sprnklersplashes]

burning the memories

AO3

On a trip to visit her grandparents and Aunt Veronica in Ohio, Janis comes across her Aunt's high school memories and learns more about her than she thought she could. Veronica's past comes back to haunt her and she realises she can't outrun it unless she lets it go.

Words: 7k

(Set in a universe where Veronica is Janis’ aunt)

Janis is convinced her Aunt Veronica is the coolest person on the planet. From living on her own with her two cats in her New York apartment to being a kick ass social worker to somehow always knowing exactly what Janis wants every birthday and Christmas, there is no one like her. Her style still seems stuck in the 1980s; she’s almost always wearing a blue blazer and a skirt but she makes it work. She still turns heads and despite a few flings with men and women here and there, she doesn’t seem to want to commit to anyone. She just flies above it all, not caring about what anyone else has to say, stating simply that she ran out of fucks to give in 1989.

So of course, when her mom proposes that they go to his childhood home in Ohio during the summer to meet up with her and her grandparents, Janis has her suitcase half-packed. Aunt Veronica is the one thing that can make these reunion trips worth it. It’s worth the four hour drive in her dad’s car and people asking if she has a boyfriend yet and having that awkward conversation (how many times can people “forget” that she’s a lesbian?), casting eyes at the tips of her hair and her clothes and fake nails and heavy make-up, the rolling eyes and fake smiles when Janis tells them about her plans to study art. She has to fight the urge to flip them off until she can get home and vent everything to Veronica in private over coffee.

They get into her grandparents’ place first, with her grandma remarking how much she’s grown and asking about school and giving her cookies and her grandpa handing her a ten dollar bill and asking if she’s keeping her hair like that and mentioning how her outfit (graphic tee shirt, ripped black shorts, fishnet tights and an oversized blue shirt) is very creative.

“Creative is one word for it,” a voice says from behind the stairs. She turns and sees a thin, dark haired woman in a blue blazer and grey skinny jeans leaning on the banister, smirking.

“Aunt Veronica!” Janis laughs, running up for a hug.

“You got tall,” she remarks, throwing her arms around her and squeezing her tightly. “Though that might the boots.”

Within half an hour they’re all sitting around the kitchen table. It’s more cramped now than it probably was when her mom and Aunt Veronica were living there, but her grandpa insists on sitting on the armchair in the corner to make room.

“So Janis how’s school?” her grandma asks, pushing her pasta bake around on her plate.

“Fine,” she says. “I won a prize at this art expo.”

“Oh my god, Janis, that’s awesome!” Veronica says, nudging her with her elbow. “What was it?”

“It was this portrait I did of me and Damian and Cady,” she explains. “Cady’s new, she just joined this year.”

“She moved there from Kenya, right Jan?” her dad adds, refilling his glass of Coke. “Janis stepped in to help show her the ropes.”

“Well that was sweet of you,” her grandpa remarks from the chair.

“What brought her from Kenya to Illinois?” Veronica asks, snickering slightly.

“She said her parents were researcher zoologists until they lost their funding,” she explains. “But yeah, Cady’s pretty cool. I mean, she’s a little weird, but she’s awesome.”

“And… how is Damian?” her grandma asks, twirling her fork around, and Janis suppresses the urge to groan.

“Damian’s great, Grandma,” she says patiently. “He just started dating this boy from his drama club, so that’s great.” Beside her, she swears Veronica laughs before disguising it with a drink.

“And what about you, Janis? Any girls making your head turn?” she asks, looking over at her grandma.

Coolest. Woman. Alive.

“Not really,” she says, looking down at her plate. No girls had really caught her eye-except for the girl Damian took to calling ‘Danny DeVito girl’ after that one episode in the bathroom, but she knew her name was Gianna. Still, she barely sees her outside of history class.

“Oh, Ronnie, before I forget,” her grandma said. “We found a bunch of your old high school stuff in your old room. It was all boxed up, we didn’t know what you want done with it. It must have been left here when you moved out.”

“Oh, thanks,” Veronica says. “I’ll take a look at it tomorrow.” She stays quiet for the rest of the meal, making small, three word comments on whatever comes up in conversation, even about her own job, which is weird, as well as supremely disappointing. There’s few things Janis loves more than hearing about how she took another kid off shithole parents, and Veronica loves talking about it. Still, she shakes off whatever was bothering her when the apple pie is rolled out, sliding second helpings onto Janis’ plate when no-one’s looking.

“You know,” Veronica says in a low voice while the rest of the adults are stuck in conversation about the traffic on the way up. “If you don’t have any plans this summer… maybe you could come up to New York for a bit?”

“Are you serious?” Janis asks, feeling her heart begin to pound.

“Sure,” she says. “I know there’s art galleries around where I live that you’d love, and I’d get some quality time with my favourite niece.”

“Your only niece,” she reminds her, but she can’t supress the smile on her face. If she were Cady, she’d probably start squealing. “Thank you, Aunt Veronica!”

“Let me talk it over with your parents first,” she reminds her, placing her hand over hers and draining her glass.

“You’re the coolest person here,” Janis says, and Veronica blushes, laughing. “When and how did you get to be so cool?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” she says, her voice quiet.

Janis leans on the doorframe of her Aunt Veronica’s old room, having snuck away from the brunch discussions of what their neighbours were growing in their garden. She knocks on the wood, holding a plate of French toast, fried eggs and bacon in one hand. Veronica looks up from the box sitting on her bed. The bed is covered with all sorts; photos, books, clothes, all from her aunt’s high school years.

“I come with gifts,” Janis says, waving the plate in front of her. “You wouldn’t want to miss Grandma’s French toast, would you?”

“Of course not,” she says, taking the plate from her with a grateful smile.

“Is it cool if I hang here?” Janis asks, sitting on the bed like the question was already answered. “I’ll go insane if I spend any more time down there.”

“Sure, kid,” she says, placing the plate on her nightstand and taking a piece of bacon in her hand. There’s something in her face, how her smile doesn’t quite meet her eyes, how her eyes look kind of… well, scared. “Feel free to check out the Westerburg High memorabilia.”

Janis picks up a pile of polaroids and starts looking through them.

“You know these are back in fashion now,” she remarks, waving the photos. “This girl… my friend Karen, she loves them.” It’s odd, referring to the Plastics as “friends” now that they’ve disbanded. She’ll never in her life refer to Regina as one, but Gretchen’s not too bad and Karen is actually kind of fun, in a lost kitten kind of way that makes Janis want to protect her for the rest of her life. “Is this you?” The girl in the photo has to be Veronica, same cheekbones and wild dark hair and brown eyes and cheesy, wide smile (Janis kind of feels like she’s looking in a mirror), but she looks way different. She’s wearing a long red dress and denim jacket, a far cry from what she wears now. She looks like she didn’t even look in the mirror before leaving the house.

“Yeah, that’s me. March 1989,” she reads. “I was a junior.” She chuckles under her breath. “God you’re the spitting image of me at that age. I think that was my best friend Martha’s 17th birthday.” She points at the other girl in the photo, dark haired with glasses and a pink sweatshirt. “Yeah, she was my best friend from diapers.”

“What’s she doing now?”

“Kindergarten teacher up here,” she says with a soft smile. “Martha loves Sherwood so much she couldn’t leave if she tried. We’re still close though.” Janis hums and continues looking through them, finding more photos of Veronica and her friend Martha, sitting at school, in the park, in what she guesses is Martha’s room, all while Veronica keeps looking through the other stuff.

Suddenly, she finds one in which her aunt seems to have done a complete metamorphosis. Gone is the frumpy, slightly too big clothes of the ones before, in this one she’s in a fitted blue blazer and grey miniskirt, her eyelids blue and lips red, standing in someone’s backyard with a croquet mallet on her shoulder with three other girls; a tall, blonde girl in a red blazer and shoulder pads, a bright red scrunchie in her hair and a smirk that echoes Regina George on her face, a smaller blonde girl in yellow whose hair is in curls and an Asian girl in green with her hair pinned back. They’re all wearing the same style of all-American preppy blazers and miniskirts, and all have croquet mallets matching the colour of their clothes. While they all stand in a cluster, Veronica distances herself slightly from them, but still leaning in and still smiling at the camera. Along the bottom, someone wrote ‘Heather, Heather, Heather and Veronica-September 12th, 1989’.

“Woah, Aunt V,” she remarks. “What happened in September 1989?”

“What?” Veronica asks hastily. She comes over and looks at the photo in Janis’ hands and her face turns red.

“Aunt V?”

“It’s fine,” she says, not clarifying what ‘it’ is. “For a while… I was friends with some popular girls.”

“You were a plastic?” she asks in disbelief. No way. She refuses to believe that Veronica was ever a Regina George.

“Plastic?” she repeats, wrinkling her nose.

“It’s what we called this trio of megabitches in my school,” Janis explains. “Gretchen, Karen, and Regina George at the centre of it all.”

“Oh, that bitch Regina,” Veronica says. When her life fell apart after the “space dyke” incident, it was Veronica who had sped like crazy down the freeway to Illinois and took her out for ice cream and movies until she could smile again. She had even offered to pay for her to go to a private school in New York when her parents pulled her out. She could never be a Regina George. “We called them the Heathers. There was Heather Duke…” She points at the green one. “Heather MacNamara…” The yellow one. “And… Heather Chandler.” Her finger lands on the red one. She takes in a deep breath.

“I take it Chandler was your Regina,” she says. “Why were they all called Heather?”

“Universe is weird like that,” she answers off handedly. She’s staring at the photo so intensely she might burn a hole through it.

“Aunt V… you okay?” she asks.

“Fine,” she says, shaking her head. “We weren’t friends for that long anyway. We were at this homecoming party and they wanted to do this really bitchy thing to my friend. So….” She twirls a lock of hair around her finger. “I puked on Chandler and told her to lick it up.”

“Oh my God!” Janis laughs. “You’re such a badass, Aunt V!” Veronica chuckles and shakes her head. She looks around at the stuff around her, two cardboard boxes worth of high school memories.

“I’m going to get some trash bags. At least half of this stuff I want to throw out.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. It’s just junk now,” she says. “Be right back.” She runs out the door, her footsteps fading as she went down the hall. Janis keeps flicking through the photos, mainly ones of her and the Heathers.

The she finds another one. Veronica, still in the “popular girl” look, sitting on a wall, staring up at the sky, laughing. Then the next one, a dark-haired, brown-eyed boy is on the wall with her. The camera is so close that he must be holding it. The old school selfie. His arm is around her and the other holds the camera. She rests her chin on his shoulder, her smile easy and open, her eyes sparkling. The boy is smiling too. The writing on the bottom reads “September 30th, 1989, Our Love Is God”. The next one is them cuddling, him standing behind her with his arms wrapped around her, kissing the back of her head while she laughs. Someone else must have taken it for them or they set it on a timer. “October 3rd, 1989, You’re in my heart like a Madonna on a pedestal.” And another one of Veronica standing against a brick wall, her hands flat against the wall and one foot leaning against it “October 10th, 1989, We love the things we love for what they are”. And another of the boy, who clearly doesn’t know he’s having his photo taken, drinking a red slushie. “October 15th, 1989, JD doesn’t know I’m taking a picture and still looks good”.

“Holy shit, Aunt V,” Janis mutters. Who knew she had a thing for bad boys? She flicks through more photos, all of her and Mysterious Trench Coat Kid (JD, she assumes), until she finds herself back at the start. She puts the pile down and keeps sorting through stuff, finding a yearbook and older class notebooks and a small, black book with 1989 written on the spine in gold lettering.

Holy shit. Her diary.

She looks over at the door and back at the book. She knows it’s wrong. She knows she shouldn’t look through her aunt’s private stuff. But then again, it’s from 1989, what could she have done as a teenager that she’s so scared of people finding out? And… Okay, she really just wants to know who the mysterious JD was.

“September 1st, 1989, Dear Diary,

I believe I’m a good person, you know I think that there’s good in everyone, but here we are, first day of senior year. And I look around at these kids I’ve known all my life and ask myself…. What happened?....”

“September 22nd, 1989, Dear Diary

It’s been three weeks since I became friends with the Heathers. Well, friends isn’t exactly the right word. It’s like the Heathers are people who I work with and our job is being popular and shit.”

“Still September 22nd, 1989, Dear Diary,

Why when you see boys fight does it look so horrible, but feel so right? I shouldn’t watch this crap, that’s not who I am, but with Mr No Name Kid here… damn.”

“October 2nd, 1989, Dear Diary,

JD’s dad will not be speaking at our wedding.”

Holy shit, she thinks. Wedding? She was planning a wedding already? Calm down there, Aunt Veronica. So JD. It had to have been a nickname. It suits the boy she sees in the photo-the rebellious bad boy apparently sweeping her off her feet. She imagines some sort of Bonnie and Clyde style love affair, or a Romeo and Juliet whirlwind where Veronica’s dad had been desperate to keep his squeaky clean girl away from the troublemaker?

She hears her footsteps in the hall and quickly closes the book, dropping it back in the box. Aunt Veronica comes back in with two trash bags in one hand and a coffee mug in the other.

“Sorry, got sidetracked by coffee, although I did bring you a cookie,” she says, handing her over one.

“Thanks,” she says, taking a bite out of it while Veronica starts tossing bits and pieces into one of the bags. “So… who’s JD?”

Something changes in her. Janis expected her to blush or laugh off the bad boy she seemingly had a little affair with as a teenager; instead the bag falls from her hand, her eyes look up at her, wide and fearful, her breathing gets faster, her face paler. She looks so much younger now, like the seventeen year old she saw in the photos.

“JD?” she repeats weakly. “Where… how did you hear about JD?”

“I found some pictures of you and him.” She slides her hands into her back pockets, regret pounding in her chest. Veronica picks up the photos and Janis can see them shaking in her hands. She feels like she opened up Pandora’s Box, unleashing all the terrors inside. Another terror sits heavily in her chest, fighting its way up her throat and out of her mouth almost against her will. She could never keep stuff from Veronica. “And… I may have peaked in your old diary.”

“My diary?” she asks sharply. “My 1989 diary? You looked in there?” Her voice gets more frantic and Janis gets more scared and even more guilty. She can feel her ‘favourite niece’ status slipping away.

“I know, I’m sorry I shouldn’t have looked in there!” she apologises. “I’m sorry, Aunt V.”

“What did you read in it?” she asks. If Janis didn’t know better, she’d have sworn she was scared. No, she is beyond scared. Terrified is a more accurate term. Veronica looks like she’s struggling to catch her breath, her fists curling and uncurling. “Janis I need to know; what did you read in it?”

“Nothing important,” she says. “Just… like the stuff about the people in your senior year and the Heathers were people you worked with and how JD’s dad wasn’t going to be speaking at your wedding!” She feels her lip begin to tremble and she swears to herself she won’t cry. “I’m sorry, Aunt Veronica, I know I shouldn’t have look in it.”

Veronica sighs and lowers herself on to the bed, burying her face in her hands.

“It’s okay,” she says. “It’s okay, Janis. I’m sorry I got so worked up.” She pulls Janis’ hand and gets to her sit down next to her. She lets out a breath and laughs slightly, running a hand through her hair. “JD was my boyfriend in senior year.”

“That much I gathered,” she jokes. “I mean…Our Love Is God isn’t something you’d say to your friends.”

“He said all kinds of stuff like that,” she tells her. She pulls her jacket tighter around herself, her eyes filling with tears. Janis puts an arm around her.

“It ended badly?” she asks softly. Veronica stays quiet, looking at her hands.

“He killed himself,” she whispers after a while.

“Shit,” Janis says. “Aunt Veronica, I’m so sorry.” Veronica threads her fingers in Janis’.

“Kid, it was nearly 30 years ago,” she says. “I’m not… I’m not over it but, I guess I moved on.” She reaches over with her free hand and takes the pile of photos, looking at the one of him and her at the 7/11. “And yeah… it wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows when he was alive. His dad was an ass, for starters. He messed JD up pretty bad. And that’s…” She wipes tears away from her eyes and Janis’ heart breaks. She wishes she’d never looked at the damn photos. “I guess that’s why I try so hard now. Try to take kids off bad dads like that. Stop future JDs in their tracks.”

“Aunt V,” Janis protests. “You know it’s not your job to stop people, right? If people are bad, then they’re bad.”

“I know,” she says. “I just never stopped thinking what if his dad had been good? Or if someone had looked out for him.” Janis wants to shake her head and tell her that his problems don’t matter if he hurt her (and she can tell that he did) but she keeps her mouth shut. “I’m sorry for getting mad, Jan. And for unloading all of this on you.”

“It’s fine,” she says. “I’m sorry I read your diary.” Veronica shakes her head and pulls her into a hug.

“You know, you’re the only one in this family who knows he was my boyfriend?” she asks. “My mom and dad thought that we were just friends and your mom was away at college while it was all going down.” Janis smiles, feeling small sense of pride amongst all her guilt. Sharing a secret with her aunt, even if it’s about her bad boy former flame. Though she does wonder how her grandparents missed the fact that they were more than friends.

She knows there’s more she’s not telling, and she’s more than okay with that. First things first, she knows she doesn’t want to know exactly what went down between them. She’s not sure she can stomach the details. And she knows that it’s probably better if Aunt Veronica keeps them to herself.

By Veronica’s count, it’s been twenty one years since her last JD related nightmare. Her and her partner Anna had just started getting serious, and Anna was staying over at her house. That night, while curled up next to her, Veronica had dreamed about Anna pounding on her closet door while she barricaded herself inside, telling her about after and destiny and how they were meant to be together, the words “meant to be yours” being repeated over and over again until the voice turned into something different. Into him.

She had woken up screaming and she broke up with Anna the next week.

Still, after that episode, she went twenty one years nightmare free.

Until she bolted up in bed at 2:30 am, muffling her scream with her hands, an old trick she learned in college, feeling her heart in a frantic rhythm against her ribs.

She had dreamed about him blowing himself up again up again, except this time he was taking her down with him. She still feels her arms wrapped around him, the bomb digging into her chest, her fingers fisting in his coat as he tells her again “I worship you” and she just numbly nods, Heather Chandler pressing against her, whispering “see you in Hell, biotch” just before the bomb goes off and rips her to pieces.

After senior year, she had stashed everything into a box and hid it under a pile of other stuff in her room, hoping to never have to look at it again. She had almost forgotten about everything that was in there. It’s everything she wishes she could erase from her memory about her time in high school. Everything she regrets and misses the most.

She kicks the blankets off her, feeling suffocated by them, and looks at the bags of trash filled with all her high school memories. She had just wanted to get rid of all of it, clean the slate, to use JD’s turn of phrase, act like those months had never existed, but now she’s not so sure.

She gets up and opens one, looking at its contents from the lamp on her bedside table. She still can’t sleep in the dark, even now. Inside there’s her old notebooks and clothes that haven’t fit since she was a teenager and her old yearbook. She pulls out the yearbook, running her finger down the spine. She somehow opens it to the last page she wants to see; “In Memory Of Heather Chandler”. Heather’s photo beams out from the middle of the double page, all red lipstick and blonde curls. Words from students crowd around it “Always In Our Hearts”, “Rest In Power Heather”, “Drinking Rum and Coke With The Angels” (because there’s plenty of that in Heaven), “I’m Sorry I Didn’t Know” “You Deserved Better” (well maybe that’s not an unfair statement). And pride of place, close as possible to her picture “Best Friends Forever-Heather M” and “Miss You Forever-Heather D”.

She turns the page and finds Kurt and Ram’s memorial page, adorned with rainbows. She bites her lip as tears well in her eyes. More messages from the students are scattered around the page, promises to make the world a better place, to stamp out bigotry and prejudice. Apparently their dads did that until the day they died.

When she turns the page, there’s one more memorial page; Jason Dean. It’s blindingly different from the other two. One picture of him in the middle, God knows where they got it because it wasn’t taken at school. A little blurb explaining how he came into the school in September and died in November during the pep rally. The official explanation was that he had killed himself during the rally by blowing himself up in the football field.

Veronica had forged a pretty great note for it.

Hardly anyone had any words to say about him, though a couple of well-intentioned kids on the yearbook committee added some. “I Wish I’d Known Him” (trust me, she had thought when she first read it, you don’t), “Rest In Peace, Jason”, “Your Time With Us Was Short But Wonderful”. In the corner, there’s her handwriting, “I wish you’d stayed around a little longer”, then scribbled out so violently the page tore. She wishes a lot of things, but not that he had stayed around. Not in the way he was anyway.

She puts the yearbook aside and keeps looking through it, finding an old videotape. No title, except a white label with “Halloween, 1989” written in her handwriting. She wracks her brain for what happened then, and she draws a blank. Thankfully, her old TV and video player are still in her room, so she pulls them both onto the floor with her and slides it in, turning the volume low enough so that only she can hear it.

The picture comes into view and it’s her, wearing a long sleeved black minidress and tights and a pair of cat ears, raising her eyebrows and laughing, putting candy into a large orange bowl decorated with black cats and spiderwebs.

“Are you filming this right now?” the 1989 version of her asks.

“Yeah of course,” JD replies, taking a step closer. “Look at this folks, pure Halloween commitment right here.” The camera zooms in on her dress, on her cat ears, the whiskers drawn onto her unimpressed face with eyeliner.

Her heart stops at the sound of his voice. He sounds so different to what she remembers. His voice is higher, softer. He doesn’t sound like he does in her nightmares. He doesn’t sound like the kind of person who would storm into her room, tell her he wanted to kill her, tell her he was blowing up the school. He doesn’t sound broken or damaged. He sounds normal, happy, relaxed and it cuts her deep.

“Oh, okay,” the younger version of her says. “Now, look at this.” The picture shakes as the past version of her tries to take the camera off him while he makes tiny noises of protest. “No, give it, give me the camera.” Her voice is high pitched and nearly whiny, but she’s laughing, the same loud, dumb laugh she always used as a teenager. She used to complain to him about it and he assured her he loved the sound of her laugh.

“Or what?” he replies.

“Or you don’t get candy,” she teases.

A different fight plays out in the back of her mind, when they fought over something much more sinister. The two teenagers in the video didn’t deserve that. They didn’t know how it would all play out. The girl didn’t know the monster she was creating. The boy didn’t know just how broken he really was.

The younger Veronica wrestles the camera off JD with a triumphant laugh and turns it on him, snickering.

Her breath catches at the sight of him. He’s just like he is in the photos, except he’s moving. He’s more alive, laughing and twirling to show off his full costume. He’s even discarded his trench coat, she can see it sitting on the couch behind him, instead wearing a puffy white shirt and leather pants and an eye patch of all things.

“He’s a sexy pirate,” past her sings, zooming in on him. He leans against the wall dramatically and pouts at her, making her laugh.

“I’m a regular pirate,” he corrects her. “I just happen to always be sexy.” She laughs again, the camera tilting slightly like she’s leaning back.

“Yeah you are,” she agrees. The camera is place on the counter and she goes over to him, wrapping her arms around him and kissing him. He wraps his arms around her, tilting his head to deepen the kiss. She moans as he pulls her closer, getting rid of whatever space there was between them. Her hands get caught up in his hair while his trail on her legs, but never lifting her skirt.

It always got heated between them. Simple goodbye kisses turning into him letting her push him up against the wall and tongues and teeth clashing while hands were running along waistlines and through hair. He always let her take the lead, set her pace, be in control. It used to make her feel empowered. Having him underneath her, being willing to do anything she wanted, to obey her wishes. She never took it too far, asked if he was okay with it too, and he always was, looking at her with wide eyes and nodding enthusiastically.

She wonders now how much of it was real and how much was just him letting her get comfortable with him. Comfortable enough to be clay in his hands. It’s all so confusing to her know, love or infatuation, how much of her memories are viewed through the rose coloured lens she uses to make it hurt less, was he broken and damaged or just bad?

“Okay,” the younger Veronica breaks away, sounding breathless. “Movie time.” JD joins their hands as she lifts the bowl from the counter. Her eyes fall on the camera and realisation dawns on her. “Shit!”

“What?”

“We left the camera on,” she laughs, burying her face in the crook of his neck. “Oh we filmed that!”

“Oh my God,” he replies, laughing too. “Oh my God we filmed that. We filmed us making out.”

“Do not even talk about that,” she laughs.

“It’s your camera, right?” he asks as he wraps his arms around her. “So your parents will never see it?”

“They might!” she squeaks, wriggling out of his arms. “Okay, go get the popcorn started, I’m going to turn this off.”

Her face fills the camera as she lifts it, still laughing. Still young. Not too many scars.

“Sex tape!” JD whispers in the background, and she laughs harder.

“JD I swear to God-”

The picture changes and they’re in her living room. JD holds the camera, tilted at an angle so a sleeping Veronica is visible, curled up and using JD as a pillow. He’s smiling, open, earnest. His arm is around her and he kissed her forehead gently. She murmurs and snuggles closer to him. The way he looks at her can only really be described as reverence. Like she’s the Virgin Mary and he’s the most devout follower there is.

“Hello, person who is watching this tape,” he whispers. “Probably in the year 2127, when we’re all dead. You might notice this, but Veronica Sawyer is currently asleep on top of me. It is 1am here in Sherwood, Ohio and she fell asleep on my shoulder.” He runs his fingertips up and down her back, losing himself in thought for a moment. “If you’re in the future you probably never got to know her. Which is sad for you, really, because she’s the best damn thing humanity has to offer. And nothing that comes after her will really compare. And I am in love with her. I will love her until I die and even after that, I’m going to keep loving her.” Veronica shifts in her sleep and JD looks worried for a moment, but she just stretches her arm across his chest and settles down again. His face breaks out into a smile once more. “She’s the only thing that’s good in this world. I’m going to turn the camera off now so I don’t wake her up.”

The picture turns to black and he’s gone.

Veronica presses her hands to her mouth to muffle the sound of her crying.

This shouldn’t be happening. This was nearly 30 years ago. While she couldn’t get help with everything, she got counselling after JD’s death. She shouldn’t be sitting on the floor of her childhood bedroom, trying not to cry over a 29 year old video. She shouldn’t be falling back in love with a dead man, let alone a dead man who made her life hell for years and is the reason she flinches away from love even now, a man who was terrible and wanted to kill people and she shouldn’t even be thinking about because he’s been dead for nearly 30 years.

She’s reopened all her old wounds. All it took was one look from him and she’s back where she began.

Stupid heart. Holding onto someone who shouldn’t be allowed in there anymore. She used to think it would be better if she could just rip it out and stop herself from feeling anything again. But then she met people and made friends and reconnected with old ones and then Janis was born and took her heart in her tiny little baby hands. She would never stop herself from feeling all that. Even if it means she has to feel all of this too, the ugly and painful side of loving someone.

She keeps crying as she looks through the rest of the bag, Her fingers brush against something hard and she tenses. Her diary.

She kicks herself for keeping it. Putting aside every painful thing she put in here, it’s evidence. When Janis said that she’d gone through it, her heart had stopped and she had felt the world around her crumble. She only got as far as her first meeting with JD’s dad. But just one page later she wrote “Dear Diary…. Technically I didn’t kill Heather Chandler, I know that, but I still feel bad. But not as bad as I should. And that makes me feel even worse.”  And then just two pages after that is the amazing line “Dear Diary, my teen angst bullshit has a body count”.

The most incriminating lines she could have written.

Janis thinks she’s the coolest person alive. Wonder how she’d feel about her after knowing that she’d murdered three people.

“Not you,” JD had told her. She supposes he’s right. But she doesn’t like saying that she was just an unwilling accomplice. She handed Heather Chandler the mug of drain cleaner, she shot at Kurt, she let JD shoot Ram. She fell for the “Ich Luge bullets” lie. Their blood is on her hands just as much as it was his. She doesn’t know if she believes in Heaven or Hell any more, but she knows that if there is a Hell, then she’ll burn for that.

And besides, in the mortal world, accomplices still do jail time.

She knows what she has to do. She’s just far too scared to do it.

It’s still pitch black outside when she sneaks out of the house, key in the pocket of the coat she wears over her pyjamas. She keeps the diary clutched to her chest as she makes her way down her old street to the one place she’s sure no one will suspect her of going.

Westerburg High stands just as imposing as it ever did before her, locked behind an iron fence. She started her senior year desperate to leave it then two months later she was risking everything to save it.

And where was her damn gratitude?

After the news broke about JD, things changed for her. People gave her sad eyes as they passed in the hallway, whispers of “I’m so sorry” and “if you need anything, I’m here” and teachers offering support and then the newspaper offering her an interview.

Still, she finally saw the hierarchy fall. Heather Mac started eating lunch with her and Martha and, seeing that she can’t exactly lead a clique of one person, so did Heather Duke, eventually. Heathers and Marthas sitting at a table together. Heaven on Earth. Checkmate, JD.  MacNamara and Martha even dated until their second year of college. People stopped hating each other and it became beautiful.

Janis says that the same thing happened in her school. Her little jungle friend Cady broke the dance queen’s crown and shared it and told everyone they were beautiful. Now she’s braiding the former popular girl’s hair like it’s nothing. Everyone sits where they want and there’s no cliques or rumours or stupid bitchy girl fights. No one is afraid, all because one cute little mathlete made a speech. And yet for her school to get to that same kind of peace, she had to steal a scrunchie and four people had to die.

Outside the school fence, she finds an empty trash can, just like she hoped she would. She takes a look around the deserted street. No one’s around to see her. She’s completely alone and yet she still feels like all eyes are on her. Street lights glare down on her like an interrogation and she feels eyes on her back, even though she doesn’t see anyone when she turns around. She flips up the hood of her jacket, pulling it over her face.

She pulls the diary out of her pocket and drops it in the empty trash can, flinching at the sound it makes. It must be louder in her mind. Her shaking hand lifts out the matches. It takes longer than she would have liked to get them to light; her hands are trembling so badly she drops a few before she can get them to the matchbook, and others she can’t seem to strike hard enough.

The ground is littered with matches rolling in the light breeze when she finally gets one to work properly. The flame dances in front of her eyes, bright against the darkness of everything that surrounds her. She looks down at the diary, lying dead, almost invisible at the bottom of the trash can. It has every good memory of her time with JD, every time he made her laugh, every time he made her smile, details about what she felt when he kissed her. But it also has evidence and that’s a risk she can’t afford to take.

She lets the match fall from her hand and set the book ablaze.

“No!” she yells immediately after watching it start to burn. She presses her hands to her mouth because she knows that if she doesn’t do something she’ll reach in and try to grab it out.

She feels like she’s burning him. Like she’s seventeen again and back on the football field watching him explode, feeling her heart get torn apart while her soul and conscience are knitted back together. Simultaneously finding it hard to breathe and being able to for the first time in weeks. Saying goodbye to the worst and best thing to happen to her. She's burning every good memory she had of him and wonders if she'll forget if she doesn't have it to look back on. Does she even want to remember it now? Maybe she shouldn't, but she does. She wants to remember the good but also the bad. The bad reminds her why she keeps going and keeps fighting now.

She stays watching it, silently sobbing until the fire burns out and it’s nothing more but a pile of ash at the bottom.

Her clock reads 3:45am when she gets back into her room, climbing in through her window, nearly falling over the empty trash bag. As quietly as she can, she moves her TV back to where it was and takes the video out of it. She kneels next to the trashbag and fishes out the pack of photos. She had wanted to get rid of them, act like that year never happened. But she’s never going to forget him, no matter what she does. He’s burned into her mind whether she likes it or not.

She places the photos and videotape on her shelf and reties the bag. Maybe if that’s all she has of him, she can pretend he was something else.

After waking up at 11 the next morning and missing breakfast, Veronica decides to take Janis out for pancakes and coffee in town.

“Late night, Aunt V?” she asks, watching Veronica down another coffee.

“Yeah,” she admits, pushing her hair out of her eyes. She predicts she’ll crash out at 9pm at the latest tonight. “Just… looking through some old stuff. Kept me up.”

“Some old high school stuff?” Janis asks quietly, her shoulders hunching. She looks small and it doesn’t suit her. Ever since Janis could walk she’s been unapologetic about how loud she is and how much space she takes up. Even though the Regina incident knocked her down, all she did the next year was come back louder and bigger. She doesn’t look at Veronica, keeping her eyes on her half-constructed pancake house.

“Yeah,” she says. “I found some more stuff of when I was with JD.”

“Aunt Veronica, I’m really sorry,” she says. “That I brought him up. I know he can’t be easy to talk about.”

“Jan, it’s okay,” she assures her. “I’m actually, weirdly kind of glad you did. I just sort of needed that kind of release, I guess. I needed to remember him.” Janis nods, but the confusion is visible on her face. “It’s complicated.”

“Are you going to be okay?” she asks. Veronica smiles and takes her hand.

“I’ve been okay for the past 29 years, Jan,” she explains. “And besides, you don’t need to worry about me. It’s my job to worry about you. You’re the kid here.”

“I’m seventeen,” Janis corrects her. Veronica nods. Seventeen’s a fun age. She felt so grown up when it started and then everything happened and all she needed was someone to hold her.

“That’s not as old as you think it is,” she tells her. “Go be seventeen. Go do dumb stuff and don’t worry about me. Trust me, you’ll have plenty of time for all that later.”

“How do you know all that stuff?” she asks. “How do you know what to say?”

“Easy,” she answers, taking another sip of her coffee. “I just say what I wish adults had said to me at that age.”

#veronica sawyer #heathers the musical #janis sarkisian #mean girls broadway #not sure why im putting this here but its here now #fanfic #character study #i guess? #barrett made me do it #long post for ts

[unbreakable--heaven]

WHEN TAYLOR SPOKE UP8/14/17

By Holly Gleason

When Taylor Swift took the witness stand in Denver, it seemed many people had forgotten—she was being sued. This public rehashing of an ugly breach-of-personal-space (a clinical term for gross sexual assault) was not instigated by Swift lashing out at a guy who lost all sense of courtesy, boundaries or couth. It was a result of a $3,000,0000 suit brought against her because his employer decided they didn’t cotton to that sort of conduct.

Swift—who countersued for sexual assault—had the “privilege” of retreading the experience of a man, an industry professional who should know better, sliding his hand under her garment, and grabbing her “ass.” When the picture-perfect star tersely hurled the term, she more than echoed the attitude of the kind of man who might consider such an action funny, a good story—or who just decided to act on his worst impulses. She’s not coming at him, people. On the day of the incident, she went back to the dressing room and told her mother—more than many victims of sexual assault or harassment get to do—and they had the gentleman escorted from the building. If they let his employer know, providing physical back-up, that’s only good stewardship: who wants someone repping their call letters who crosses those kinds of lines?

That the station said, “We don’t think so” is a victory for decency. In an industry where women are shushed or demoted—or promoted in exchange for their silence—a radio station stepped up and terminated the guy. Because beyond being bad for relations with Team Taylor, his violation sets a bad precedent across the board.

But what’s so egregious here is that we live in a world where this is a debatable, where an aggressor can just keep coming instead of taking responsibility for his actions. Where instead of apologizing he feels justified in suing the victim for the consequences of (as Swift pointed out in her testimony) his choices.

Andrea Swift, her mother, not only had to take the stand—and defend actions that in the momentum of a concert cycle in motion are locked in—but had to question her own parenting. After all, the mega-multiplatinum blond didn’t cause a scene; this was most likely to keep the incident from turning into a cyclone as people whipped out cell phones to tweet, snapchat or Instagram the moment. This, protector rues, “made me question why, as a parent, I had encouraged her to be so polite.” We live in a world where parents are forced to question the wisdom of teaching their children manners, courtesy, respect? Yes, the same world where a person saying “no” or “that’s not appropriate” (no matter how many people agree) is not acceptable.

As Karen Glauber points out with the title of her brilliant “In Other News, Today Is Wednesday” piece following the ouster of L.A. Reid, this sort of behavior is hardly unprecedented. Nor is perpetrator David Mueller’s allergy to consequences. What is news is an artist standing up for herself, digging in and saying, “No.”

And what’s especially heart-rending is even with witnesses, proof, a fairly clear pool of who did it, initially even the Swifts opted to keep silent. Again, Andrea Swift acted as a mother, concerned for the welfare of her child more than a clinical execution.

“I did not want this event to define her life,” she insisted in testimony reported by People. “I did not want every interview from now on to have to make her include what happened to her. I did not want her to have to live through the endless memes and GIFs that tabloid media and Internet trolls would come up with.”

We absolutely wanted to keep this private,” she added, “but we did not want him to get away with it. He sexually assaulted her.”

I’ve been there. Didn’t tell my parents for fear of the emotional damage it would do to them. I couldn’t face grown-ups asking questions, insinuating a tomboy from an all-girls school in baggy jeans and a t-shirt asked for it because I was in the teenage perpetrator’s home while the mother was at work. Even though I was kicked in the stomach and thrown into a wall. Because having to talk about it over and over with people who didn’t know me, care about me, would want to destroy me to save this football-playing jock who took my virginity, felt even more terrible to me, as a 15-year old girl, than everything else that had transpired. Did Taylor Swift or her people get the DJ fired? Doubtful. She’s got better things to do, and she trusts nature to take its course. Did Taylor Swift make it up,  as the DJ is alleging? Seems hard to believe in all the galaxies of meet-and-greets, scads of young girls, tons of music industry executives streaming through. Why would she single him out?

Our culture has come to a place where “reasonable doubt” often silences the ones who’ve been assaulted. There is no meaningful support for them, especially as they go through the judicial system. And for the defendant in these cases, it’s no holds barred because—as we saw in the Stanford sexual assault ruling—it would have a “severe impact” on the man.

So, we shut up and shut down. It’s a rare person who will stand up and speak out in the face of this glare. Maybe it’s because he sued her. Maybe it’s because she recognized that she had more evidence, more ability to tell. Maybe it’s because she has a platform and enough support that when she says enough is enough, Taylor Swift is unstoppable. Taylor Swift stood up, because so many of us couldn’t. And even more importantly than women, or anyone being pursued inappropriately, speaking up, it would be nice if men would check their game. Maybe the rule of thumb should be: Would I want someone doing that to my daughter? My sister? My assistant? My wife? If you wouldn’t want it done unto those women in your life, then don’t do it. Not to the cocktail waitress, the perky promo rep who hasn’t been through the ringer, the assistant who knows it’s her job to make you feel welcome. Here’s the deal: We want to be nice, friendly, helpful. Being interested in what you’re saying is not a license to grab someone’s butt—or suggest what someone ought to be doing to you later. It means you’re on the list, and “have fun at the show.” Rather than worrying about “standing up,” it would be nice to not have to worry at all. Let’s hang out. Be pals. Let’s leave the conjugal conjugations elsewhere. My Dad raised me not to poop where I eat—and it’s happened that I’ve had fiancées in my business – because when you work the kind of hours we all do, industry people understand.  Still, there’s a massive difference between mutual attraction and intimidation, even in this hook-up world.

So, think—about your daughters, sisters, assistants, friends. Then, as the Georgia Satellites once brayed, “Keep Your Hands To Yourself.”

#hdd #hits daily double #trial #really good article

[russellthornton]

What Do Men Want: 30 Things Men Just Don’t Want in a Relationship

One of the hardest questions to answer is what do men want? Complex creatures, they don’t always know themselves, but they do know what they don’t.

Do you ever ask yourself what do men want? They seem to say they want one thing, but when they have it, no longer want it. Like any creature, sometimes what we think we really want, once obtained, is not what we thought it would be.

That leads to disillusionment. The problem is women continually look to please that guy in our life, and sometimes it feels like no matter what we do, it isn’t right. That leads to feelings of failure and frustration.

Many guys have absolutely no idea what they want. It isn’t that they are keeping a secret from you. Or that they know, and they don’t want to tell you. They literally aren’t in touch with their own emotions enough to know what it is that they want from life, from their career, and even, yes, from you.

We know they want sex, but besides that, what do they want from us besides clean laundry and a hot meal?

What do men want – Well, here are 30 things he doesn’t want you to do!

There are days when I feel as if I could disappear and my husband wouldn’t even notice. The good and the bad news is I know I am not alone. Many women I know struggle with the same confusion about what it is that the men in their lives want.

Seemingly a hot bed of confusion and irritation, I may not know what they do want, but I can definitely tell you what they don’t.

By default, if you avoid doing these things, you will be giving a guy exactly what he wants whether he admits it or not. If he still isn’t happy, then it is all on him.

#1 Mother him. Guys already have a mother. Whether they like her or not, they certainly don’t want to live with her again *unless they actually do*. A guy likes to feel in control and powerful, and treating him like a two-year-old, is not what he wants from the woman he loves. [Read: How to be a good girlfriend – 10 things you HAVE to do]

#2 Meddle in every part of his life. Men like to keep some anonymity in the relationship. Not all guys are as self-disclosed as women. That leads to a lot of misunderstanding between the sexes.

If he keeps things from you, it feels like he isn’t honest or trustworthy, but he may just be trying to hold onto a little piece of himself for fear he is losing everything in the relationship.

#3 Try to control him. No men like to be led around by the nose or told what to do. Even if women thinks it is cute, the “honey do” list isn’t funny or something that guys like. They don’t like to be boxed in or pressured. Being a man means he is the king of his castle. He doesn’t want a queen to continually knock him off his throne.

#4 Make decisions for him. Once in a while they are okay when you plan a weekend for them, but on the whole, they like to make decisions for themselves. If they say “I don’t care,” what they mean is “I don’t want to deal with it.” Those are two very separate things. When possible, try not to make decisions for him that he can make himself.

#5 Try to change him. Although seemingly clueless, men are pretty intuitive creatures. They don’t like when you try to change them. Women have this need to shine our guys up and make them all polished. That is not what they want. They want you to love them for who they are, faults and all, same as you. [Read: 30 facts about guys that can help you read their mind]

#6 You set him up on play dates. No guy wants to hang out with your girlfriend’s boyfriend just because. I know it is hard to find couple friends you both get along with, but men don’t like to be forced together if they don’t have much in common.

While you ladies are chatting it up, the guys check their watches and resent you for parading them around like children in need of pity friends.

#7 Ask all the questions you do. Questions make men uncomfortable. Not the day-to-day, but those intended to get below the surface to feelings. They don’t want you to continue to question all the damn time!

 #8 Have a laundry list of all the things wrong. Guys don’t want to hear about all the things that went wrong, all the ways they screwed up, all the things broken and needing to be fixed, or all the things they did wrong.

Try to be less critical to make him happy and point out the good things he has done. [Read: 8 ways to less critical of the people around you]

#9 Treat him like one of your girlfriends. What do men want? Well, for starters, he doesn’t care if Jennifer was a total bitch today at work… save it for your girlfriends. He would rather you shh…

#10 Dress him. He is a grown damn man, let him dress himself. If you don’t let him feel accomplished enough to know how to look in public, then love him for looking like an idiot.

#11 Embarrass him or tell people things about him. Even if it was hilarious that he fell over in the tub drunk last weekend, and you found him in his own pee, he doesn’t want you to tell the story to other people… especially when he is standing right there.

#12 Text him passive aggressive messages. What do we do when we feel like we can’t talk to him or aren’t being heard? Yep, the passive aggressive text messages. Don’t do that, just don’t. [Read: How Facebook ruins relationships – 15 things to remember]

#13 See you so unhappy all the time. A guy wants his woman to be happy. He feels like it is his personal responsibility to make his woman feel satisfied like a caveman dragging his female back to the den. Even if you are going through a rough time try to explain that it isn’t him that is making you so unhappy.

#15 See a chick flick with you. I love The Notebook, you love The Notebook. Does he? If he’s a guy who’s in touch with his sensitive feminine energy, that’s great, but if he isn’t, don’t push him to watch something he doesn’t want to.

#16 Go shopping at the mall with you. Not all men are interested in this, nor do all me feel comfortable holding your purse, or some men even find it uncomfortable to compliment you on your new shoes.

#17 Wear sweatpants 24/7. You should feel comfortable with the guy in your life, but comfortable doesn’t mean you put on ten pounds and resign to your sweatpants uniform. He wants someone to at least try to look the way they did when they met you. [Read: How to be a better girlfriend – 30 relationship changers]

#18 Come to guys night out. If you weren’t invited along it was because it is for guys, you aren’t invited.

#19 Pressure him into a long term relationship. No guy wants to feel like they are forced into a long term relationship. If you want to know what guys want, they want to make the decision about where their own relationship is headed, not be led there. [Read: Want to be irresistible to men? 14 tips to hook the guy]

#20 Think he is thinking something. Can you imagine? You are quiet, but there is nothing going on upstairs. That doesn’t happen for us. If we are quiet, our heads are talking a mile a minute. Stop worrying his silence means he is upset, angry, or thinking about how bad sex was. He really cannot think anything at all, strange but true.

#21 Have vanilla forever. Even for a monogamous man, having sex the same way, with the same woman every night of his life, becomes old. A man wants you to be sexy and shake things up once in a while. They want you to be experimental, open, and sometimes a vixen. Sometimes they want both chocolate and strawberry. [Read: 12 ways to take your sex life from vanilla to OMFG!!!]

#22 Live with Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde. That week during the month is pretty brutal, isn’t it? It is for a guy too. As hard as it is for you to go through the roller coaster, at least you know what the date is. Most guys can’t remember your anniversary let alone keep up with your cycle. A guy doesn’t want to come home to Sybil once a month.

#23 Create drama. Whether it is with his mom, his friends, or his family, a guy just wants peace. Mind you, I completely understand that it is likely his relationship with his family that is driving the conflict and leaving your ass hanging out wide. When possible, step out of the drama and take the high road. [Read: 20 crucial girl code rules for a less drama-filled life]

#24 Disappointed in him. Underneath the tough exterior of every guy is the little boy hiding inside. Most of all, guys don’t want you to be disappointed in them. They want you to think highly of them, trust them, and think they are both competent and capable. [Read: 14 things you say or do that emasculates your man]

#25 Dote over them. Unless sick, guys don’t want you to be all up in their face. It is okay to make a big deal of them once in a while, but continually sacrificing yourself for their needs makes them feel like they are taking advantage, and no one can feel good about taking advantage of someone else.

#26 See you so angry. If you have crazy eyes that flip the switch, that is something that guys can’t handle. Want to see a guy run? Crazy eyes are a sure fire way. Unfortunately, it is a cycle in some relationships due to personality styles. If you want to know what he wants, it is a woman who handles her emotions and simply tells him to f*ck off without being so damn mad!

#27 See you cry. Men hate to see women cry. Just like a woman can’t stand to hear her own infant cry, his protective nature hates when you do it. Of course, you have to cry, but don’t use it against him, your cry is like kryptonite.

#28 Unconditionally love him. A guy wants what you do, unconditional love. Hey, we all mess up, we all do. A man just wants to know that as much of an asshole as he can be, as stupid as his decisions can be, and when he really f*cks up, you will still be there to love him.

#29 Overspend. Guys want to feel like they can provide. When you are out spending all the joint money on things like shoes, that doesn’t make him happy. What a guy wants is for you to think about how spending money puts pressure on him to work harder. [Read: How to fix a broken relationship: 15 tips to make it last]

#30 Peace. If men want one thing, it is peace. He doesn’t want to argue, fight, or to be confrontational. He just wants stability, security, and someone he knows will love him forever.

Men are very complex creatures. So to answer the question what do they want is difficult because they want something different at every stage and every age in life. If you want to know what they want, think about what you want, and likely they want the same thing.

[Read: What to look for in a guy: 20 things that matter beyond looks]

You both want to be appreciated, loved unconditionally, stable, and happy by being with someone who is happy. So what do men want in a woman, or from a relationship? Well, while there is no easy answer there, these 30 things are what men don’t want in their life.

The post What Do Men Want: 30 Things Men Just Don’t Want in a Relationship is the original content of LovePanky - Your Guide to Better Love and Relationships.