“Wow.”
“I know.”
“So were your parents hippies, or astronomers?”
“Maybe a little of both,” he said.
“Well, it suits you, the name.”
“Really? How’s that?”
“Orion was known for being extremely overconfident. Wasn’t he?”
He smiled like he was impressed. “So the ice princess has a little fire to her. I like that.”
“What does that mean—‘ice princess’?”
“Isn’t that who you are? Future wife to the heir of the empire?” He brushed a hand across the sky at the silhouette of the mountain, where the ski runs cut wide white paths through the dark of the trees.
I didn’t know what to say to that. Or how this guy, who I’d never met, knew me as Shane’s girlfriend. Or why it made something in me tense up that he did.
“I’m Julianna,” I said finally. “And as far as I know, my future’s not set in stone.”
“Well—Julianna.” He took a step toward me. In that moment his eyes danced with something I’ve gone back to more times than I can count, because of what he said next. “Maybe the saying is true then. Maybe we were supposed to meet out here on this balcony tonight.”
I don’t know why I wrote all of this down . . . .
Actually, that’s a lie. I just lied in my own journal. I wrote it down because it’s three a.m. and it’s all I’ve thought about since I left Shane’s. I wrote it down to remember it, because this night turned out to be beautiful.
We stayed out there under the stars, trading words like secrets, and I wanted to keep all of his for later. We talked about little things, like how he’d come here and stayed with his uncle for the winter because he wanted to try out a place different from the one he’d been in all his life. I said I wished I could go away too, but to a place tropical and warm, anywhere near an ocean. We talked about small towns and big dreams, about art and beauty and inspiration, and about traveling, and all the places we’d each want to see if we could. We talked like we’d always known each other, and when it finally came time for him to go, it felt like we had.
And I left too, because I didn’t want to spend the night in Shane’s bed after that. I wanted to come home and be alone, to think about it more. To think about him more. I hope that’s not wrong. It doesn’t seem like it should be, just talking to someone. What does seem wrong though, is that I’ve been lying in bed looking up at the real Orion in the sky, wondering if the one I met on the balcony had someone waiting on him, like Shane with me. I didn’t ask, because if the answer was yes, I didn’t want to know. It’s almost enough to make me hope I never see him again. Almost.
I close the journal but leave my finger in the space where she left off. All of a sudden this story feels different in a way I don’t expect, and I’m not sure I want that. Shane and Julianna were the golden couple. That’s how everyone remembers them. That’s how I want to keep remembering them. But I can hear a tiny shift in her words. And I can see her standing on the balcony with Orion, the night shining around them with something new and magical. I’ve never been there personally, but I know enough to know that things like this never end well. Part of me hopes she didn’t ever see him again, and part of me has a nervous feeling that maybe she did. I open the journal again to find out.
May 26
I’m restless today and this town feels so small. Shane’s gone, again. He’s off learning to fly his grandpa’s plane, and I’m here, waiting for him to get back, feeling pathetic. Days like these make me realize how much of my life revolves around him, and how little I have that’s just me, or mine alone. Sitting here without him makes me feel totally unmoored—not in a free kind of way, but in a lonely one. The worst thing is, Shane’s never made me feel like I had to give anything up for him. I did that all on my own, from the very beginning, almost without realizing.
But days like these, I realize a lot of things.
I don’t have any close friends of my own. No best friend who knows everything about me, a person to call when I need someone besides Shane. After we got together his friends and the girls they dated became my friends, more out of circumstance than anything else. I like them, and I know them now, but I don’t know if we’d be friends without him. It’s like that with so many things. Shane’s the reason for the music I listen to, the places I go, even the clothes I wear. They’re all, in a way, because of him. Because I love him and, for me, that’s always meant loving the things that make up his life. Some people might say that’s how it should be, and others might say it’s wrong. For me it’s just the truth.
But when Mr. Kinney put that question on the board and gave us these books to answer it, it scared me. Made me think about the things I’ve done in my life so far. My one life. And aside from falling in love with Shane, I’m not sure I’ve done anything wild or precious, which makes me think about the future. We’ve talked about it. Made plans. He’ll go to work for his family as soon as we graduate, and so will I. While he learns everything about running the mountain from his dad and grandfather, I’ll work for one of his aunts—in one of the stores, or in the lodge, or the daycare—something important but not so important that I won’t be able to quit when we get married and have kids, because in the Cruz household, there’s nothing more important than family.