January 12, 1998

JD's POV

I walk into Dr Holleran's office. "Jason! It's nice to meet you." He says, sitting in his chair. "JD." I correct him. "Ah yes. Sorry. Please sit." He motions to the couch across from him. I sit down, my leg bouncing up and down from nerves. He asks me a bunch of basic questions but then he really gets into it. "So when you called, you mentioned that your friends were concerned about you. Why don't you tell me about that?" He looks at me over the top of his glasses. "Well for me it's very annoying. They think I'm drinking too much. And my friend Owen compared me to my father." I lean back. "And why did that hurt so much?" He asks. "Because my father was a horrible person. He abused me and my mom. My ex girlfriend had to take us in to get him away. But that still wasn't enough. It took me accidentally killing him to get him to go away." I try not to tear up. "Oh. I see. And what are you doing to cope with that trauma?" He writes in his notebook. "Nothing. I don't have trauma." I'm fine. "Jason- JD. That is a deeply traumatic event." He stops writing. "I don't even know why I'm here. I mean, I'm only here because my fiancé begged me to come." I roll my eyes. I love Eva, but I find this whole thing a little stupid. "Well I'm glad you're here. I think after what you've told me, therapy is definitely something I recommend you do." He tells me.

"I just- I don't drink as often as they say I do." That's a lie, JD. Don't lie to this man when you're meeting him for the first time. "I'm sorry. That's not true. I do drink often." I look down. "Well I'm happy you're being honest with yourself. Because lying about that kind of thing doesn't hurt me. It only affects you." He says. "Okay. I do drink quite a bit but I don't see the issue. I'm not hurting anyone..." Not physically but I am hurting people verbally. I probably destroyed the trust between my mom and Hank. And I hurt Veronica when I separated her and Alyssa at the New Years Eve party. He must have noticed my face change. "What happened while you were drinking?" He asks. "I got drunk on Thanksgiving and accused my stepdad of cheating. It wasn't true. And then on New Years, my best friend was kissing her girlfriend and I separated them." I explain.

"And why did you do those things?" He taps his pen on his notebook. "Because I was drunk. They know I wouldn't do those things sober." I say. "I also may have kissed my best friend." I admit. "I see. Were you drunk when this happened?" He does the thing again where he looks at me over his glasses. "Yes. But lately I've been wanting to do it sober. But I don't think I have feelings for her. I mean, I'm getting married in three months. I love my fiancé. I want to marry her." I really do. I don't know why I'm doing this to myself. And I know that's technically a lie since I did tell Eva I had feelings for Veronica but I'm starting to think they aren't really feelings."Have you ever had those feelings for her before?" He asks. "Well, yeah. We dated in high school and in college." I tell him. "Oh. Okay. But you don't have feelings for her now." He nods. "Yeah. And besides, she's in a happy, healthy relationship. We were good for each other until we weren't." I don't know why but it's what happened. A timer goes off. "Well that's all the time we have. I certainly hope you'll come back in one week. Can I schedule you for then?" He picks up a different notebook. "One week? Isn't that a bit soon?" I raise an eyebrow. "Just for our first few sessions. Then we can push it to two weeks." He says. "Sure." I shrug. Why not? This wasn't as bad as I thought it'd be. "Great. I'll see you then Jas- JD." He corrects himself.

I show up to rehearsal. "Hey. How was therapy?" Veronica approaches me. "It was fine. I told him I'd come back." I shrug. "That's good." She smiles. We go through "Don't Go" and then move on to "Lavender Haze." We have a sweet sixteen on Saturday to prepare for. "So when JD shushes me on that one part, I want all of you to do it." Veronica looks at Sam and Owen. "Okay. Cool." Sam nods. "Awesome. I can't wait to shush you and not get yelled at for it." Owen jokes. "Whatever." I roll my eyes.

We wrap up and go our separate ways. "Hey wait." Veronica runs up to me. "Yeah?" I turn around. "So about therapy... I know you weren't really happy about going. But I'm glad you decided to do it anyway." She smiles. "Yeah. Well I'm just hoping it'll work." I run a hand through my hair. "It'll work if you let it work." She says. "Okay. Well I'm going home. I'll see you tomorrow." I go to my car. "See you tomorrow." She walks to her car.

January 13, 1998

I go to Veronica and Alyssa's. Alyssa is at work. We rehearse a little bit before starting a movie. It's a movie called Clueless. "You know, she dresses a lot like Heather did in high school." Veronica says. I look at the TV. "Oh my God. You're right." The yellow blazer and yellow skirt are so much like Heather's. She laughs. I watch her as she slowly stops laughing and goes to just a smile. Her attention goes back to the movie. "It's weird to think I ever joined the Heathers. Y'know?" She continues to watch the screen. "What do you mean by weird?" I ask. "Just... weird. It's strange to look back on. I hadn't even intended on joining. They somehow convinced me to join." She looks over at me. "I know I said this when it first happened, but thank you for getting me out of that situation." She puts her head on my shoulder. "You're welcome." I put my head against hers.

"You know what's also weird?" She says. "What?" I move my head to look down at her. "How quickly we started dating. It was like... a day." She chuckles. "Yeah. But what can I say? We were young and in love." Those were good times. "Now we're with other people. I swear. If we could go back and tell our past selves what our lives are like now, they wouldn't believe us." She sighs. "Especially about you dating a woman." I say. "She'd have a heart attack." Veronica leans forward and grabs her glass of wine. She takes a sip and returns the glass to its spot. "She definitely would." I nod.

"So I have a question. It's a little personal so you don't have to answer if you don't want to." I twist my body to face her. "Okay?" She does the same. "Do you and Alyssa ever fight?" I ask. "Yeah. I mean we fight as much as every normal couple does. It's always over stupid stuff." She answers. "What about you and Eva?" She asks. "We fight a lot. Well we didn't until we moved back. Now we fight all the time. But it's okay. Everything will be fine. We love each other and I think it's just pre wedding stress." I say. "Well I hope you stop fighting. You two are so cute together." She turns her attention back to the movie.

January 17, 1998

We all arrive at the banquet hall where the sweet sixteen is taking place. The people hosting clearly have a lot of money. I've never had a birthday party. But that was never really because of a lack of money. It was a lack of care from my father. My mom wanted to throw me a party every year but my dad refused to spend money. Even after he died, I didn't find my birthday important enough to warrant a party. I usually just do a nice dinner with my friends. That's what we did last year. Well Veronica wasn't there. I wish she had been. But I was an idiot who started one of the stupidest fights ever.

"Hey guys! Welcome. I've set up an area for you. Follow me." Mrs. Duncan says. She's the mother of Abby, whose birthday it is. The area is behind the stage. It's small but it'll work. "Okay. We're opening with 'Lavender Haze,' right?" I ask. "Yep. Then we'll go to 'Don't Go' and 'Midnight Rain.'" Veronica says. "Got it." Owen nods. "Then we get into the covers." I add. "Yes." Veronica pats me on the back before pulling out her water bottle from her bag.

We get on stage once the party starts. "Hey everyone! We're Edge of Great! Up first, we have a new song for you. It's called 'Lavender Haze.' Hope you enjoy." Veronica says into the microphone. We sing the song, all of us doing the shush as we planned. The crowd is loving it. When we finish, Veronica smiles at me. We go into the next two songs, the crowd giving us the same amount of energy as they did during the first song. Then we go into some of the covers from the list we were given. Two of which are our songs. "Bright" and "Edge of Great" are on there.

We get a couple breaks but we sing for most of the party. Mrs. Duncan motions to us while playing a cover of "Sweet Caroline." We finish the song and Veronica goes to talk to her. She comes back up on the stage and walks up to me. "She says one more song and then we can leave." She tells me. "Let's do 'Flying Solo' to wrap it up. I haven't sung that in a while." She turns to Owen and Sam. "Okay." Owen nods. We sing "Flying Solo." Veronica smiles at me. "Thank you so much! Have a great night! Get home safe."

We all go back to Veronica's. We drink wine and watch a movie. This time we watch a horror movie. The movie is called Scream. Alyssa and Veronica snuggle on the couch. I try not to get weird and jealous when everyone is here. But why would I get jealous? That's stupid.

January 19, 1998

I walk into Dr. Holleran's office again. "JD! Welcome back. See? I got your name right this week." He smiles. "That's good." I sit down. "So last week we talked about this behavior towards your best friend. How has your relationship with her been this week?" He asks. "It was good. We got to hang out and watch a movie. I think everything is fine between us. We don't have any romantic feelings that could hurt our respective relationships." I shrug. "And how are things with you and you're..." He flips through his notes, "fiancé?" He looks up. "They're good. We've been fighting a lot but I think it's wedding stress. We're getting married at the beginning of May. May 9th to be exact." I tell him. "Oh that's coming up. So you said there's stress surrounding the wedding? What about the wedding is stressful to you?" He puts one leg on the other and sets his notebook against it. "Honestly all of it. The ceremony, especially the reception. There's just a lot of planning. Amanda, Eva's best friend has apparently been calling Alyssa, the maid of honor, a lot. Alyssa's decided to just let Amanda do the work since she's already so determined to do so." I say. "Weird question: why is Alyssa the maid of honor if Amanda's the best friend?" He stops me to ask. "Well Eva wanted to make Veronica's girlfriend her maid of honor since Veronica's my best... man." That's not the full story but it's not a lie. "Oh. Okay." He says.

I tell him some of the wedding plans we have like the venue and stuff like that. "I'm not really religious, never have been, but doing it in a church means a lot to Eva so I'm willing to do that for her." I say. "That's nice of you. Let's explore that a little. The religious part. And I'm not asking because you should or shouldn't be religious. I just like to understand people's beliefs. I believe it tells me a lot about someone. What about religion hasn't appealed to you?" He asks. "I
don't know. My parents never really took me to church. My dad was a firm disbeliever in God. My mom just never wanted to go because she knew it would start a fight. Then she started to go to church once she got remarried to my stepdad. He's a big believer in God. But I just... I never really got into it. I understand why other people do, but it's just not my thing." I say. "Okay. That's absolutely a valid position to have." He writes for a little bit. As he's writing, the timer goes off. "Alright. Now do you think next week is too soon or do we want to keep it like it is for now?" He turns off the timer. "I think it's too soon." I tell him. "Okay. Understandable. Well I'll see you in two weeks from now." He smiles.

As I drive home, I start to realize that therapy isn't as bad as I thought. When Veronica started going after the Aaron incident, I thought it was mainly just something for working through actual, bad problems. But I think it's actually good for me. And Dr. Holleran is really good.

Hey guys! Hope you enjoyed! Just to let you know, I will be starting another book soon. This one will be an original. It's an idea I've had for a while. But I'll still be working on this book until we reach its end. Bye!