Found Your Shooting Star
“If love were what the rose is, And I were like the leaf, Our lives would grow together, In sad or singing weather, Blown fields or flowerful closes, Green pleasure or grey grief; If love were what the rose is, And I were like the leaf.”
― Algernon Charles Swinburne
eightyeight88: have you even seen him since he got back from college?
blue x skye: no, but i haven’t seen you for weeks either
eightyeight88: you know you won’t see me for a few more weeks. we’re going out to la and sundance
blue x skye: yet it still feels like i spend more time “with” you than i do jacob, and he’s only two hours away
eightyeight88: food for thought, i would say
blue x skye: but what to make of it?
eightyeight88: that he’s not treating you the way you deserve, and you know it. no thought required.
blue x skye: so i should leave him for you?
eightyeight88: you need to ask? you know i would treat you so much better than he has
blue x skye: you’ll be even farther away most of the time
eightyeight88: i don’t have to be near you to trust you and respect you
blue x skye: no, but it helps. not with the trust and respect, really, but it just… helps
eightyeight88: i can’t change the distance, i just want to change your mind
blue x skye: it’s not that i don’t… i don’t know, tay. i just can’t picture it. you and me.
eightyeight88: i can, and i promise you it would be perfect. we would be so good
blue x skye: maybe you’re right
eightyeight88: i know i am
blue x skye: i’m just so scared, tay. leaving him is fucking terrifying.
eightyeight88: is it really leaving him or is it being with me that scares you so much?
blue x skye: what would you say if i said both?
eightyeight88: that i understood
blue x skye: then yeah, it’s both
Every instant message conversation with Taylor left me in tears. I was glad that I had received a laptop as a Christmas present. It was supposed to be for college, but it was infinitely useful for keeping this thing with Taylor a secret. I would sit up late at night, sometimes really late when he was in a different time zone, sobbing in the dark as he told me over and over all the reasons why he would be better for me than Jacob.
I was pretty certain my mom was beginning to notice how many boxes of tissues I was going through, but she hadn’t said anything.
Every night, after crying my eyes dry, I would go to bed resolute that the next day would be the day I broke up with Jacob. And every morning, I woke up and discovered that I just couldn’t do it. I had been with him for over a year. I had a plan with him, amended now to fit the fact that I would not be joining him at OSU. I had a future with him. What did I have with Taylor but pretty words on a screen?
I had one rule for myself. I couldn’t chat with Taylor while I was on the phone with Jacob. The opportunity presented itself a few times, because Taylor’s schedule was unpredictable and we’d just gotten cable internet to go with my new laptop, but I always resisted. I knew I would just end up a teary mess and I couldn’t explain that to Jacob.
That day, though, it was Jacob who made me cry.
“We had dinner last weekend. I thought that was your Valentine’s Day present.”
“I thought there would be an actual present, too,” I replied.
I felt childish for caring so much about a stupid holiday, but I couldn’t help it. It just seemed like further proof that he was only phoning the relationship in – literally. A lack of flowers and chocolate was a lot more petty than my choice of college, I knew, but it still mattered to me. Jacob never seemed to care about the things that mattered to me, I realized. He always found some reason to put them down.
“I really don’t have time to fight about this,” he said. “I have a biology test tomorrow and I can’t get below a B on it.”
“Yeah, fine,” I replied. “Because it doesn’t matter what I want, right?”
“Did I say that?”
“You didn’t have to.”
He sighed. “Ade, I don’t even know what you’re talking about now.”
I took a deep breath. This was it. “I can’t do this, Jacob. I can’t do four more years of this before we can really be together.”
“It’s your choice not to come to OSU.”
“That’s not what I mean. I can’t do this. It won’t be any different once we are together. How could it be?”
“How couldn’t it be?”
Tears were streaming down my face, but I barely even noticed them falling until they hit my lips and I tasted the salt. “I don’t want to take that risk. I don’t want to fight every week for four years and then find out we’re just going to keep fighting. I can’t do it.”
“So you’re breaking up with me.”
“I guess I am,” I replied. “I guess that means you probably won’t be my prom date, huh?”
“No, I won’t.”
Taylor didn’t wait for me. After he got back from his travels around the country, I rushed to tell him about breaking up with Jacob and he seemed far less impressed that I expected. Honestly, I don’t know what I really expected from him. Why would someone like him, with thousands of girls to choose from, wait around for me to make up my mind? He had seemed so persistent, though.
Too soon, he was gone again, off to New York for lots of meetings with people he didn’t give a shit about and promotional events with people he gave even less of a shit about. When he came back, all he could talk about was some girl named Hannah. He didn’t talk about her the way I thought he might talk about me, but it was obvious that she meant something to him. The breakup with Jacob had broken something in me. I didn’t feel any hurt at the thought that Taylor was with someone else. I didn’t feel anything but alone, and I was pretty sure I deserved to be.
He acted like we were just friends. He still wanted to hang out, and this time he decided to introduce me to his friends and family. I knew of his brothers, of course, and I was aware that there were several more Hansons, but I hadn’t met any of them. The few mutual friends we had were really little more than acquaintances on his part; this movie night he planned would be the first time he had brought me into his world. I thought it meant something important, but I reminded myself that he had a girlfriend.
On the drive to his house, Taylor explained to me that Zac’s girlfriend had just broken up with him. She was his first real girlfriend, and Taylor thought Zac probably loved her. Zac wasn’t a romantic like him, he said, but he could tell there was something special about Marion from the way Zac talked about her. The way he used to talk about her, Taylor amended. Now that they had broken up, Zac didn’t really talk about anything or to anyone.
He didn’t talk much to me, either. He barely even grunted a hello when Taylor introduced us and he didn’t budge from his spot on the couch to shake my hand the way Isaac did. He didn’t look my way when I found myself sandwiched in between him and Taylor, holding the popcorn bowl for the two of them.
There didn’t seem to be anything alive in Zac at all, until our hands brushed together over the last handful of popcorn. That at least managed to warrant a scowl, the first emotion he’d shown all night. It faded quickly as I let my hand drop and stared up at him, my face certainly somewhere between apologetic and scared. To my surprise, he gave me a genuine, apologetic smile of his own.
I held his stare for a moment longer, analyzing him. There was more to Zac than I’d seen at first, I decided. There was depth in his dark eyes, so different from the reflective surface of Taylor’s that seemed to only reveal the parts of you that you didn’t want to see. He was soft but masculine, an obvious strength hidden under childish fluff, while Taylor was all long lines, sharp angles and that feminine face that I sometimes hated.
He was different from Taylor, and I thought that maybe he was what I needed.
blue x skye: what movie are we going to see?
eightyeight88: i think everyone else agreed on along came a spider
blue x skye: i haven’t read the book
eightyeight88: it’s good. zac and i both read it
blue x skye: he’s still coming, right? he’s been pretty upset about marion. are you sure he’s ready to date again?
eightyeight88: who said it was a date?
blue x skye: isn’t it? you’re going with that emily chick
eightyeight88: only because she needs a ride there
blue x skye: so it isn’t a date? you’re not setting me up with zac?
eightyeight88: if you want it to be a date with him, then i suppose it is. i thought you weren’t ready either, though
blue x skye: i don’t know if i am, but how else am i going to find out but to try?
eightyeight88: can’t argue with that logic. i just don’t want you to go into this expecting more from zac than you’re going to get.
blue x skye: i’m not sure that i expect anything other than a movie
eightyeight88: then i guess you’re golden
I chickened out on the movie, and Taylor knew it. I think he knew it, at least. I called him the night before and put on my best sick voice, assuring him that my allergies were acting up too badly for me to go anywhere. The funny thing is, Zac did the same thing with a migraine. If it was really a date, it wasn’t for us. Taylor, Emily, Isaac and a few more of their friends who I had only briefly met at Taylor’s house went without us, and I only felt a little bit guilty for canceling. I couldn’t decide who to direct my guilt toward, though – Zac or Taylor.
I had a more important date looming in my near future to worry about, though. My senior prom.
If it had been up to me, I wouldn’t have gone to it at all. It didn’t interest me in the slightest. The sort of music I liked was the kind you heard in coffee shops and sketchy clubs, not the kind you danced to in a poofy, sequined dress. Unfortunately, I had bought a dress just like that a whole three days before ending things with Jacob, and my mom insisted that she wasn’t going to just throw those hundreds of dollars away. I was going to that prom even if I had to go alone.
Over lattes at the little coffee shop he had been dying to show me, I lamented my situation to Taylor, and he presented me with what he thought was a perfect solution.
“I’ll be your prom date.”
I stared at him, feeling my eyes widen in disbelief. “Aren’t you leaving for New York like the day before my prom? To see Hannah before you go to France or whatever?”
“I’m supposed to,” he replied with a dismissive shrug. “I could change that plan and fly out a few days later with everyone else. You need a date, right? Why can’t it be me?”
“Because you would be canceling plans with your girlfriend to do it? It’s not right, Tay.”
“Making you happy is always going to be right, Lady,” he said softly.
I asked every other guy I knew in Tulsa. It was hardly even an overstatement to say that. Most of my guy friends either already had dates or other plans that didn’t involve rented tuxedos. I couldn’t really blame them, and I wished I could join them for those other plans, whatever they were.
When all of my other options – besides Taylor, because he wasn’t an option at all – had been exhausted, I mustered up all of my courage and called Zac. He said yes.
Zac only had his learner’s permit, but I had my driver’s license, so we arranged for me to come to his house and leave in Isaac’s car with Zac driving. I’m not sure how we convinced Isaac to give up the keys to his brand new car, but I was glad we did. Otherwise, we were stuck with my mom’s Jeep or the old Hanson family van. I’m sure it didn’t matter to Zac; I got the distinct idea that he really didn’t have much interest in impressing anyone at Will Rogers. What did Zac care about high school kids, after all? We only talked once or twice before the prom so that I could tell him the color of my dress and how to get to my house, and he never seemed all that excited about the prom, but I was so grateful that he’d agreed to come anyway.
We only danced once the entire night. For most of the night, we sat awkwardly at the table with my friends, dodging questions about whether or not we were dating. We weren’t. I liked him, I decided, but only as a friend. His personality was similar to Taylor’s in some ways, but different, too. I wasn’t sure what I liked better about him – how much he reminded me of Taylor or the ways they differed. We barely made more than small talk while my friends danced with their boyfriends and dates, and finally I’d had enough of it. Some country ballad started playing and I forced Zac onto the dance floor.
It felt wrong to be in his arms. There was an awkward distance between our bodies and it only served to remind me how much younger Zac was. I knew he had seen plenty of the world and probably experienced things I couldn’t even dream of, but in his suit and tie, swaying awkwardly on the dance floor, he really looked like a kid. I didn’t know what had ever made me think I could date him.
My least favorite thing about the prom was how no one even stayed that long. By eight o’clock, the room was practically empty. Zac and I hadn’t discussed where we were going to eat dinner, I realized. A lot of people made reservations for dinner after the prom, but we hadn’t even talked about possible restaurants. I noticed Billie and her date gathering their things to leave and I asked where they were going.
“Fleming’s,” she replied. “It’s probably going to be packed, though, but you can follow us there and hopefully we’ll all find a place to park and a table.”
I cast a glance at Zac for his approval, and he just shrugged. It wasn’t a ringing endorsement, but I supposed it would have to do. Fleming’s wasn’t exactly cheap, but I supposed that sort of thing didn’t matter to a Hanson.
Zac followed my directions there carefully, but I could see he was nervous about driving downtown. It was raining, and we nearly lost sight of Billie’s car several times before pulling into the maze-like parking lot of Utica Square where Fleming’s was located. He chewed his lip nervously as he searched the parking lot, looking for Billie’s red Mustang.
“I don’t see her,” Zac said. “Can you call her?”
“We’re not all rich enough to have cell phones,” I replied, trying to make a joke out of it so that I would stay calm. It only barely worked. “I don’t have one and neither does she.”
“Oh,” he said. “So I guess it wouldn’t even help to offer you my phone?”
“Afraid not.”
Zac steered the car into an empty parking spot – the only empty one, as far as I could tell – and put it into park. He turned to me and raised an eyebrow. “So, what do we do now?”
“I don’t know,” I replied, feeling my bottom lip quivering and hating it.
I really, really didn’t want to cry over something so stupid as this, but I had been ditched. There really was no chance at all that this prom would be perfect, but this was just the last straw, the final reminder that it was so far from perfect as to almost be laughable. That is, it might have been laughable if I hadn’t been crying.
“We could go somewhere else,” Zac offered.
“But where?” I asked, sniffling. “I didn’t even ask Billie where they might go if they couldn’t get into Fleming’s.”
“So? We don’t have to go where they’re going.”
I could tell Zac was getting annoyed with me just sitting there crying, no doubt getting tears and mascara all over my dress and the brand new upholstery. I realized that I couldn’t go into a restaurant looking like that, but there was no way I was going to go home so early without even eating dinner. I had to keep up some semblance of normalcy and pretend that this had been the prom night I wanted.
“What about…” Zac began, chewing his bottom lip and looking as though he would claw his way out of the car if necessary to get away from my sobbing fit. “What about Taco Bueno? There’s one a couple blocks from here… I know how to get there…”
It was anything but an ideal after prom dinner, but it had been anything but an ideal prom night. I pulled a tissue from my tiny, sparkly purse and tried to dry my tears before turning back to Zac. “Yeah, alright. Why not?”
“We can just go through the drive-thru,” he offered, with the tiniest hint of an apologetic smile.
“Yeah,” I said. “Alright. And umm… thanks.”
“No problem.”
It definitely wasn’t perfect, but I refused to let myself think about how it could have been different.
Prom night was the last time I spoke to or even saw anyone with the last name Hanson for over a month. Taylor and I always seemed to miss each other’s instant messages. That sort of thing was bound to happen, though, considering he was on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. I waited patiently for him to return, hoping we would have some quality time together before I left for college. I didn’t know what the rest of my summer would hold, but I wanted to see him before it was over and I moved away.
I went to Riverfest with Chelsea in hopes of seeing Taylor. I knew they were performing, but I hadn’t actually told him I was coming – the opportunity hadn’t presented itself – so I didn’t know for sure if I would see him any closer than from the audience.
Chelsea was an expert at wiggling her way through audiences to find the best spot; it was why I loved going to shows with her. Just before Hanson took the stage, she gripped my hand and practically ran through the crowd, squeezing in between people until we were situated right in front of Taylor’s piano. He glanced out at the crowd, but I wasn’t sure that he saw me. Zac, however, gave me a knowing nod when our eyes met.
They played a bunch of songs that I knew well – or well enough, for someone who had never really considered herself a Hanson fan – but there were a few that I didn’t know, too. I realized as the concert went on that this was the first time I’d seen them in concert since they were just three little boys singing old doo wop songs. I’d made fun of them then and for years after, because I was just too cool to like a boy band, but I realized then that they were anything but. I couldn’t help being drawn to Taylor, transfixed by the way he poured his heart and soul into the songs. It didn’t even mar the performance when his voice cracked, no doubt a side effect of the cigarettes I kept asking him to give up.
It doesn’t matter
You’ve got all that you need
It doesn’t matter
You take everything you see
It doesn’t matter
You’ve got anything you please
But you don’t have meWhy do you close your eyes so tight
When you’re kissing him goodnight?
You make believe a face
Just to try to fill the spaceWake up, and tell me it’s alright
Wake up, ’cause I just wanna hold you tight
Wake up, and tell me it’s alright
Don’t you ever wonder what you’re looking for?
I had to turn my head away as he sang. Even though he still hadn’t looked my way, it felt like he was staring right through me. Worse than that, it felt like everyone in the audience must have known he was singing about me. I knew that was silly; they couldn’t possibly know. But still I felt my cheeks growing red as all my sins were laid bare on the stage.
Let me in your heart
Give up, give out, give in, is where it starts, yeah
Dreamin’ is not so hard
Once you’ve found your shooting star, yeahLet’s stop wastin’ time
Let’s stop wastin’ time
Say you’re mine
Chelsea shot me a knowing look and I gave her a gentle shove. I couldn’t be angry at her for pointing out what I already knew. Taylor was singing about me, and I hated it. I wanted to hate him, too, but I couldn’t.
When their performance was over, Chelsea took my hand again and pulled me through the audience. I was beginning to think she was a super spy; she knew exactly where to find their hidden little spot backstage. Somehow, we weren’t stopped by any sort of security, and soon I saw the crowd of Hansons gathered around a van relaxing. The little kids were running around, playing and giggling. I had met most of them, but didn’t quite remember their names. The others were leaning against the van or sitting in fold out chairs. Zac noticed me first and gave me a nod and a wave.
“Ade!” He called out. “I didn’t know you were coming.”
“Surprise,” I said, giggling. “Umm, where’s Taylor?”
Zac’s face darkened and he glanced off to the side, over my shoulder. He didn’t have to say it for me to know Taylor was behind me. I spun around and felt my heart drop to the ground. Taylor was walking up, his arm wrapped tightly around some girl. I recognized her as Hannah; he had sent me a picture one day in his excitement to tell me about her.
“Hey, Lady,” Taylor said as soon as they reached out side. “This is my girlfriend, Hannah. Hannah, this is Adelaide. The one Zac went to prom with, remember? I told you about her.”
Was that all I was to him? Just Zac’s prom date? I forced myself to smile, but I couldn’t find it in myself to offer Hannah a handshake.
The five of us made small talk for a few minutes, but I don’t think a single word of it penetrated my mind. I was intently focused on Taylor and Hannah’s body language and the way they kept looking at each other. I didn’t know why it bothered me so much, but I was finding it hard to deny that it did.
“Lady, can we talk for a minute?” Taylor asked, cutting through my thoughts.
I had vaguely registered that Hannah had wandered off with Zac to get hot dogs or something. As soon as Taylor asked, before I could even answer, Chelsea mumbled something about catching up with them. Then she was gone, leaving me with no choice but to talk to Taylor alone.
We stood in awkward silence for a moment before Taylor asked, “So, you’re leaving for college soon, aren’t you?”
“Not for a few months. It still seems so soon.”
“You’ll be fine,” he said. “You’ll love being out on your own.”
“Yeah, I guess… I mean, I hope so,” I replied, forcing a smile. “You guys are leaving even sooner, aren’t you?”
“Next week,” he said with a nod. “We’ll be in LA probably the rest of the year, trying to get this new album recorded.”
I nodded. “So… I probably won’t see you again before you leave? I mean, you’ll want to spend time with Hannah, right?”
“I can always make time for you, Lady,” he said.
I knew just from his tone of voice and the look on his face that he wouldn’t. This was going to be our goodbye, at least for the next few months, maybe even until Christmas.
“Well…” I said. “Just in case I don’t see you again, can I have a hug?”
“Of course,” he replied, smiling. He swept me up into his arms, pulling me onto my tiptoes.
I wished the hug could last forever, but all too soon, he dropped his arms. Seconds later, Hannah, Zac and Chelsea walked up, their arms loaded down with food. Hannah handed Taylor a root beer float and I felt my stomach turn at the little look they shared as their hands touched.
This really was goodbye, I realized.
Tell me if I’m in, in over my head
Tell me if our future is just hanging by a thread
I don’t want to begin something I can’t face
If I’m destined for loneliness
Send me on my way
On my way