“Starry, Starry Night”

By: Jamie Sommers

Email: jamiesommers23@hotmail.com

Rated: PG13

Synopsis: This is the story of what happened during Landon and Jamie’s night in the cemetery.

They sat in silence for a few minutes. He kept thinking about her number one--to get married in the church where her parents got married.

She sighed with content as she snuggled deeper into his chest. “Landon?”

“Hmmmm?” He placed a light kiss against her ear.

“Thank you for naming a star after me.”

“Your welcome.” He nuzzled her neck and kissed her lightly on the shoulder.

“Mmmmm.” She tilted her head away from his, enabling him to have better access to her shoulder and neck. She inhaled deeply and relished the feeling of his thrumming heart beating against her back.

“Have you ever seen anything so beautiful?” She asked about the sky above them.

“Never,” he looked at her, “I’ve never seen anything so beautiful in all my life. Mmmmm, very beautiful,” he whispered in her ear.

She turned her head slightly placing a soft kiss against his cheek then his lips. Her hand lifted to stroke his cheek as she pulled away from him. Resting her head against his forehead she closed her eyes and thought about telling him. She knew she should, but not tonight. Tonight was too special. She had finally told him she loved him and she didn’t want to ruin the memory of this night for him.

“Jamie?”

“Hmmmm?”

“I love you.”

No. She couldn’t ruin this night for him. “I love you too.”

They sat for almost an hour without talking. They just sat back and watched the stars, occasionally sharing a soft kiss. Just being next to one another seemed to be enough for now. He would stroke her hair lightly. She would run her hands over his arms causing him chills.

They watched as a shooting star streaked through the sky. He closed his eyes and did something he hadn’t done since he was in grammar school. He made a wish. He wished that this night would last forever, that they could spend their lives like this. Happy, content…in love.

She wished she didn’t have to tell him. She wished that they could have this one night for an eternity. That she would never have to hurt him, but she knew tomorrow would come and with it, pain.

“So…did you make a wish?” He asked.

“Yes.”

“What for?”

“Nuhhhh, uuuhhhh. Can’t tell. Won’t come true.” She said with a slow shake of her head.

“Oh, come on. I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours.” He gently prodded.

“Okay…you first.”

“All right.” He cleared his throat and told her, “I wished this night would last forever.”

“Me too.”

“Now, you. What’d you wish for?”

“I told you. Me too. I wished for the same thing. That tonight would never end. That we could just spend eternity like this.”

His gentle smile caused her heart to flutter as she leaned in for a kiss. She knew she shouldn’t be doing this. She shouldn’t be letting him kiss her so intimately but she couldn’t help herself. She wanted him to know how much she loved him. She wanted to feel his love for her. She was a bit startled as she felt his tongue flick against her closed mouth, but she opened her lips just a bit and flicked back.

The jolt from her returned kiss went through his system like a bolt of lightening. He knew he had to keep it light, but it was getting harder and harder to do so. Especially when she did things like that. She didn’t pull away when he deepened their kiss, but settled into it even more. He shouldn’t have deepened it to begin with, and he knew that, but it just felt so right. To be honest it wasn’t even that much of a kiss. He had gone a lot further with some of his old girlfriends but with Jamie things were different. Every kiss, every touch meant something to him. Something good. He pulled away from her, searching her eyes for a sign of regret and found none. He had to get off of this blanket; he had to stop touching her before he crossed that line.

“Why don’t you show me your star?”

“Okay.” She stood up and placed her hand in his. “I still can’t believe you did that. Named a star for me.”

“It’s no big deal.” He said as he shrugged his shoulders.

“How did you know?”

“Know what?”

“That it was on my list.”

“It was?” The shock in his voice confirmed her suspicions that he didn’t in fact know, that he had just thought of it on his own.

“Mmmmm hmmm. Number forty seven to be exact.”

“Wow. I had no idea. I just…I don’t know…I wanted to get you something and I thought you would really like that.”

“When did you do it?”

“Does it matter?”

She looked at him with a slight tilt to her head, as though she already knew the answer. “Well, don’t these things take a while? I mean you can’t do it overnight, can you?”

“Well…no. Not overnight.”

“So how long did it take?” She was looking through the eyepiece of her telescope adjusting it to get the best possible resolution of her star.

“A couple of weeks,” he mumbled.

“What?” She lifted her head and looked towards him.

“I said…” he licked his lips and looked out towards the road. It hadn’t taken him that long to get the star, all he had to do was pay for it. It was the paperwork that took a while. He had done it the night he looked through his yearbook. He had hoped he could tell her about it after the play but his dad showed up and she kind of got lost in the shuffle. They had told him that the certificate would arrive within 7 – 10 days but it hadn’t. It had taken longer. This was a problem considering he thought it very important to show her that he was sorry for all the things he had done in the past, for the way he treated her before he really knew her. “…it took a couple of weeks.” He stated clearly.

“So you did this before…”

“Before you agreed to go out with me? Yeah.” He looked down at his shuffling feet. “I wanted to apologize about that day by the lockers, I just didn’t know how. I thought that maybe you’d forgive me if I….” He trailed off. “Stupid, huh?”

“No. Not at all. I love it. It’s perfect. So, do you want to see it?”

“Yeah.” He walked over to the telescope and looked through the eyepiece. He saw it immediately. It was the brightest one in the bunch. It was her star…Jamie’s Star.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

“Of course it is. It’s yours.” He continued looking through the eyepiece as she sat back down on the blanket.

She was starting to feel the cold straight through to her core. She rubbed her arms attempting to generate some warmth in them.

He looked over at her shivering form and sat behind her grabbing the second blanket he wrapped it securely around her shaking body. “You okay?”

“Yeah. Just got a chill.”

“Well, why don’t you come here and I’ll keep you warm. So, tell me something. When did you know you loved me?”

She snuggled up in his arms again and laid her head back. “Are we reciting Thorton’s Way? Or are you serious?”

“I’m serious.”

“Do you remember when we were in the 6^th grade? It was Halloween and all the neighborhood kids were trick or treating except me?”

“Yeah…I remember going to your house. Eric dared me to go even though we knew your father didn’t approve of the holiday.” He hung his head, feeling a little ashamed of the way they behaved back then. “We were just stupid kids.”

“Do you remember what you did when you came over?”

He remembered but for some reason he didn’t answer her.

“You rang the bell, I was sitting on the porch playing jacks, watching all the kids go house to house, and my father answered the door.”

“I remember that. He looked at me like I was the devil himself.”

“Back then I think he did think you were the devil himself,” she laughed.

“Yeah, well after he saw me kissing you, I think he still thinks it.”

“You stood there and said, very calmly, ‘Trick or Treat Reverend.’ I will never forget my father’s face when he told you that he thought your little joke wasn’t funny--that you and your friends needed to heed the word of the Lord. I knew you didn’t believe, but I had hoped you wouldn’t react the way most of the kids did when he told them that.” She tilted her head to the side and looked out over the cemetery. “You didn’t. You just said, ‘Yes sir’ and turned around.”

“Yeah, I remember that.” He also remember what happened after her father had closed the front door.

“Jamie? Don’t you think it’s time you put those jacks away and come on in the house? Dinner’s almost ready.”

“In a minute Daddy.” She watched as her father closed their front door and as Landon made his way down the stairs. “Landon?” She called out to him.

“Yeah. What’d ya want?”

“Is it fun?”

“Is what fun?”

“Halloween?”

He had realized that in all the years he knew Jamie Sullivan she had never once participated in the yearly ritual of knocking on doors and pleading for candy.

“Yeah…I guess so.”

She smiled at him, a gentle smile filled with hope. “When I grow up, I’m gonna let my kids treat or trick anytime they want.” She whispered, “Just don’t tell my father.”

He grinned at her saying, “It’s Trick or Treat not Treat or Trick. Haven’t you ever done it?”

She shook her head in reply.

“Never?” He couldn’t believe it. Wow, he thought, being the reverend’s daughter must really suck.

“Well, I’d better go in. Have fun Landon.” She picked up her jacks and walked into her house closing the door on a baffled young man.

“In the morning I left for school and sitting there on the porch was a brown sack with a bunch of candy inside of it. I knew you left it there.” She turned her head to see if he would deny his act of kindness. He didn’t. “I didn’t know it at the time but…that was the day I saw it in you. That certain thing you hid from everyone else. I saw it and I knew that when I went to school that morning you would pretend like nothing ever happened.”

“Look, Jamie…I’m sorry. I’m sorry about the way I treated you back then. The way I treated you….”

“Landon.” She put her fingers over his lips to stop him from finishing his sentence. “It’s okay. I forgive you. Now you’ve just got to forgive yourself.”

As she pulled her fingers away from his lips he grabbed on to her hand and kissed the tips of them. Closing his eyes, he tried taking it all in. “I thought I knew you. My whole life I thought I knew exactly who you were. I was so dumb.”

“Yeah you were, but you’re not anymore,” she giggled.

“No,” he chuckled with her, “I guess I’m not. So…you’ve loved me since the 6^th grade?”

“Well…sort of. That was the day I realized that you weren’t what you appeared to be. That there was more to you than that tough kid image you liked to portray. I didn’t know it was love until you kissed me on stage in front of everyone we knew. What about you? When did you know?”

“I’m not really sure. I knew I was falling in love with you, but I just kept telling myself that it was nothing. I just thought you were interesting…different.” He got a far off look in his eyes as he continued, “But that night…you took off that black cape and…I couldn’t think straight. I kept stumbling over my lines. I completely forgot them. I kept looking offstage, hoping that someone would come out and save me but that didn’t happen. I remember asking you to sing for me and then,” he paused, “I was so scared, Jamie. I watched you sing and I just kept thinking, ‘when the hell did I fall in love with Jamie Sullivan?’ By the time you were done with the song the hairs on the back of my neck were standing up. I knew I wanted to be more than just your friend but I guess I wasn’t sure…I mean really, really sure that it was love until our first date.”

“Our first date?”

“Yep. You were looking at the water and talking about the wind and I knew. I loved you. Now the first time I thought I was in love with you…well…that’s a different story.”

“Well, we’ve got a few hours until Pluto rises.”

“Yeah, I guess we do have some time to kill and since you’re not seducible and all…” He smiled. “It was the night I first saw you here. We had looked at the stars for a while, talked, argued, laughed. When I went home that night I couldn’t believe it was you I spent my night with. I was supposed to meet Eric and Dean but…”

“You stayed with me instead?”

“Yeah. They were pretty upset with me the next day at school.”

“And that was the day you said those things to me at the locker in front of all of them?”

“Yeah. After you closed the door on my face--when I asked you to run lines with me that afternoon--I started thinking about you. About me. About…everything I guess. That was the night I got your star named and the night I decided that I was going to try, really try to earn your friendship.”

“I didn’t make that very easy for you, did I?” She asked sheepishly.

“No,” he wrinkled his nose, “not really.”

“I’m sorry Landon. I shouldn’t have pushed you away.”

“No. No. Don’t apologize. You’re not the one that should be sorry. You had every right to be angry with me. I didn’t deserve your friendship, Jamie.”

“But you didn’t deserve my resentfulness either. Can you ever forgive me, Landon?”

“Forgive you?? There’s nothing to forgive.” He looked at her with a bewildered expression upon his face. “Tell me something. Is it really possible for someone to be this good? To have this big of a heart?”

She looked down at their joined hands, “I never thought it was until…” she looked into his eyes, “…until I met you.”

He took a breath and shook his head slightly trying to understand her logic. Did she really believe in him that much? Did she really believe he was a good person?

“Jamie,” he sighed. “I love you.” He leaned in placing a soft kiss upon her forehead and pulled her close to him as they waited for the rising sun.

He sat with her encompassed in his arms, listening to the soft hum of her steady breathing. She had fallen asleep. He thought again of the number one thing to do on her list and he knew deep within his heart that he would make this happen for her too.

The End