Wish Upon A Star

by Jasinda Wilder

  Every moment has to matter, deeply.

  I realize that perhaps I’ve already fallen in love with her, and I just don’t know how to recognize the signs. What it feels like. What it is. What it means.

  Is this it? How do I know?

  It makes it crystal clear that I’ve never been in love. I’ve never told another person that I love them, so that’s pretty obvious. But you can be in love and not tell them, right? Because maybe you’re scared, reticent to trust and risk being hurt. But the way I feel, so suddenly, and so intensely, for Jolene…it puts my emotions into perspective.

  Is love possible, when you just met someone? When you barely know them, in terms of time? Yet I feel like I know her, on a level I shouldn’t after only a few days. I shouldn’t. It doesn’t make sense. Yet I just…know her. I feel her soul. I could no more walk away from her than I could lift a building onto my back. It’d be walking away from myself. Worse, maybe.

  It’s after four in the morning when I pull through the gates of home. She’s been asleep the whole time, which I think is good. I hope. I don’t know. She doesn’t seem to be in pain or sick, just…sleeping.

  I pull to a stop in the garage, immediately closing the garage door and shutting off the engine. She doesn’t stir. I decide to leave our stuff and just go inside. I don’t want to wake her, though. She shifted and leaned the seat back, so her weight isn’t on the door anymore, allowing me to open her door, unbuckle her, and scoop her into my arms.

  “Hmm? Wha—? Whattimezit?” she mumbles. “Wes?”

  I cradle her against my chest. “I’ve got you.”

  “Tired.”

  “I know. It’s okay. Just rest.”

  “Are we there?”

  “Yeah, we’re home.”

  “Your home?”

  “Yeah.”

  To my bedroom, the main floor master suite off the kitchen. I don’t bother with lights, even though the predawn leaves the house thick with gray shadows and black patches. I know the way well enough to navigate in the dark. I’m exhausted. Beyond exhausted.

  I settle her onto the bed, tug the blankets out from underneath her, and cover her with them. She rolls to her side, sighs deeply.

  “Wes?” Her voice is small.

  I shuck my shoes and shirt, leave my shorts on, and climb into bed beside her. “I’m here.”

  “Closer. Hold me.”

  I press my nose between her shoulder blades, wrap my arm over her hip, and she clutches my hand against her chest. “I’ve got you.”

  “Are you afraid?” Her voice is soft, quiet, faint.

  “Of what?”

  “Loving me, and losing me.”

  “Of loving you? No. Of losing you? Yes.”

  A long quiet, so long I’m sure she’s fallen asleep. “But you love me anyway?”

  “Yeah, I think I do.”

  “I don’t care if it’s crazy.”

  “Me either.” I kiss the back of her neck. “I thought you were tired.”

  “I am. But I can’t fall back asleep. I’m stuck, half asleep, half awake.”

  “You did sleep for a long time.”

  “How long?”

  “From like three in the afternoon till we got home. It’s after four in the morning.”

  “Should have warned you. I do that, after I’ve been sick. I can’t really rest when I feel like that, so even though it seems like I’m doing nothing but sleeping for three days or whatever, I’m not really sleeping, not restfully. So then, when I’m feeling better and can sleep, my body’s just like, bam, you’re down until you’re caught up.”

  “It’s okay. I figured it was something like that.”

  “You drove that long by yourself without stopping?”

  “I refueled twice, but you didn’t wake up for it.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. You needed to sleep.”

  “I bet you were lonely.”

  I huff. “Yeah, but you were there with me, just sleeping. It’s fine. I binged a podcast.”

  “I bet you’re exhausted, now.”

  I groan an affirmative sound. “I’m beat.”

  She rolls to her back, and now her arm is under my neck, cradling my shoulders, and my head is against her chest. I can hear her heartbeat thudding rhythmically. She’s soft, and warm. “How’s this?”

  “Mmm. Best.”

  Her lips touch my forehead. My temple. “I’ll hold you, now. Sleep.”

  I’ve never been held like this, before. It’s weird, at first, mentally. But it feels…safe. Warm. Vulnerable. It makes my heart…open, like a flower in the dawn light.

  I turn my face up, wriggle higher. Kiss her.

  She murmurs a laugh. “I thought you were tired.”

  “I am. But I’m never too tired to kiss you.”

  Her lips are soft and warm, and I feel myself melting into her. Kissing, and kissing. Exhaustion tugs at me, but desire wins. Pushes me closer to her, prompts me to deepen the kiss.

  She pulls away first, with a frustrated sigh. “I feel…impatient, Wes. Sexually. I want everything. I want more. I also want to just…enjoy the process of discovering this, of finding out what things feel like. But I also know that…I don’t have much time. And I want to feel everything with you while I still can.”

  This is an abrupt transition from kissing, but I roll with it. Pull away from her and rest my head on her chest again. “It’s all on your time frame, Jo. It can all happen as slowly or as quickly as you want.”

  “I want to…” She gazes down at me. “I want to make love with you, Wes.”

  I trace her jawline, the shell of her ear. Searches her face. “I want that too. I want to make love to you, Jolene.”

  “Now?”

  I touch her lips with a thumb. “Would you trust me if I said I wanted to wait, and do something special for you? For us, I mean.” I trace her lips again.

  “I trust you.”

  “I want to make it special, Jo. It should be special. Magical.”

  “Everything we do is special and magical.”

  I laugh. “That’s the damn truth, baby. But I mean…I want to take you out on a proper date. Get you a fancy gown and shoes and rent a limo and…all that.”

  “That sounds amazing.” She kisses my temple again, a soft, gentle, warm touch of her lips. Affectionate, and sweet, and it sends a lance of something deep and intense through me. “I don’t need all that, though.”

  “You deserve it,” I say. “You deserve magic. Romance. You deserve to feel like the most beautiful and special woman in the world, because you are.”

  “Well, I won’t lie—that does sound like the most incredible night ever.”

  “I’ll make it happen, then.” I lift up, and my lips touch hers. “You deserve everything, Jo. Because you are everything.”

  “Wes, I…” She stops short. Looks away from me, blinking hard. “I can’t even begin to tell you how thankful I am that you showed up at my door.” She kisses me, then and I kiss her back, and then we’re lost in each other, and she rolls into me, hovers over me, and kisses me breathless.

  Then pulls away, settles back and resumes holding me. “Sleep.”

  I laugh, but exhaustion hits me in a sudden wave. I let her hold me. Let need subside.

  “Showing up at your door is the best decision I ever made.”

  She doesn’t answer that, but I can feel the many different responses she could make.

  La-La Land

  Jolene

  I end up falling back asleep after an hour or so of dozy mental meandering, while holding a sleeping Wes. And then, I wake back up a few hours later, with a spinning mind. Mainly, I consider how grateful I am for this experience. For him.

  He pushes me out of my comfort zone, but gently. He allows me time to think and process, lets me set the pace and doesn’t complain if his desires may not totally align with my needs.

  He’s adorable, asleep like this. He rolled after an hour in my arms, and I moved to s
poon him. Inhaling his scent. Touching his shoulders. Just enjoying the privilege of being able to be near and touch someone so beautiful, inside and out.

  It’s bizarre how quickly he’s infiltrated my whole being. I can’t imagine going back to life without Wes. I literally just cannot. I don’t want to. I’ll fight tooth and nail for every moment with him. If there was a treatment option that would feasibly prolong my life to any kind of meaningful degree, I’d do it. But I’ve exhausted them all. Nothing would do more than make me dreadfully sick and give me a few more weeks of mostly misery. That’s the trade-off with most treatments: yeah, it extends your life, but at a cost. It’s poison, you know? Kills the cancer, yes, but good grief, it’s freaking miserable beyond belief.

  No thanks.

  I’ll take the time I have left. As many good days as I can get, and hopefully spend the bad ones with him near me.

  At 9:00 a.m. on the dot, Wes’s phone rings, on the nightstand beside him. He groans, exhales with resignation, and grabs the handset off the table without moving any other part of his body.

  Peers at it one-eyed, pokes the speaker button, and grumbles at the handset. “What.”

  A bright, chipper, businesslike female voice responds. “Well good morning to you too, Wes.”

  “We got in at four in the morning, Jen.”

  “So you got a good five hours. I know you can function on less than that.” A pause. “Wait…we?”

  “Yes, we.” He rolls to his back, eyes opening and fixing on me, smiling sleepily. “Myself and Jolene.”

  “I assume I’m on speaker, but I’m not going to filter for her sake, Wes.” A hesitation. “You brought her home with you?”

  “Yes, I did.” He wriggles to a seated position, reaches for me, pulls me to him so I’m cradled in his arms.

  “So…what’s the plan, then?”

  “Well, for right now, breakfast. Showers. Relax. We spent the last several days on the road, so I think we’re going to spend some time just unwinding.”

  “You have responsibilities, Wes.”

  “I know. And I’m going to have to give you the unwelcome burden of buying me time.”

  “Like, how much time? I can reschedule some stuff, but you’re starting choreo with Shania next week, and that’s a nonnegotiable.”

  “It’s going to have to be negotiable, Jen. Something more important came up. End of story.”

  “More important than your career, your reputation, and your contracted obligations?”

  “Yes.”

  A harsh, unhappy sigh. “Wes, come on. Work with me, here. You gotta give me something. I can get you out of all media, or maybe you just do phone- or Zoom only interviews, an hour or less. Maybe one day, we jam the whole media tour into one day, all day. She can go shopping or something. I’ll have a personal shopper, security, the works, and she can to Rodeo Drive and spend some of the money you refuse to touch.” A thoughtful pause. “But, Wes, you can’t bail on the film. You can’t. Bail now, on this, and you’ll never get hired again for anything major. Or it’ll be like starting over, only harder.”

  I can’t help myself. “Hi, um, this is Jolene. Wes’s…um…whatever—and I can promise you that he’s absolutely not going to bail on Singin’ in the Rain. I won’t let him. Could I, maybe, um, just be on set with him? If I don’t get in the way?”

  Wes frowns at me. “Jo—”

  I pat his cheek. “Wes, this isn’t up for debate. You’re not tanking your career for me. There’s nothing to talk about. Media stuff, that’s whatever. Between you and Jen. But you’re not quitting the movie and you’re not going to make the whole thing get delayed. I won’t have that on my conscience. That’s not just going to affect you, but the whole crew, the whole cast, everyone. So, no. Okay?”

  The room, between Wes and me and Jen on the other end of the line, is silent.

  “Hi, Jolene. Obviously, I’m Jen, Wes’s manager. I, um…I saw your video. It was, um…very moving.”

  I take the phone from Wes. “Let’s get the obvious awkward stuff out of the way, okay? The reason Wes is trying to shuffle off his entire life is because I actually am dying, so he wants to make the most of the time we have together. I don’t know what you know about what’s going on with us, and I’ll let Wes decide what he wants to tell you or not tell you. But the facts are that I’ve got a month left on the inside, two, maybe three on the outside. Maybe more, but there’s no way to know for sure. I care about Wes very deeply, so I’m not going to let him scuttle his career for me, when I’m going to be gone soon anyway. But I am feeling a little selfish about having as much time with him as I can get. So could you maybe work with him to find a good balance? Include me in his plans wherever possible, get him out of everything that’s not a hundred percent contractually necessary or whatever would be required for him to continue a successful career after I’m gone. Okay?”

  Jen clears her throat. “Um, yeah.” There’s a soft, subtle break in her voice. “Yeah, okay. I’ve got it.” A sigh, awkward, sad, hesitant. “It’s…nice to meet you, sort of, Jolene.”

  “If you’re Wes’s manager—and I think he told me when we first started talking earlier this week that you’re basically indispensable to his life—then I’m going to be seeing more of you.”

  “Yeah. I’ll take a look at things and then we’ll have to have a meeting with Wes and myself and his agent, Marty.”

  Wes is chewing on the silence, jaw moving, frown cutting a crease between his eyebrows. I think we’re about to have our first fight.

  Wes takes the phone back from me, but doesn’t seem to know what to say. “Jen, I—”

  She interrupts him. “Wes, we’ll figure it out. I admit I didn’t understand the situation before, and I’m sure I’m still missing a lot. But clearly, something big is going on in your life. I’m here to help you, Wes. Always. We’ll figure this out, okay? Take the day. Can we plan on a meeting tomorrow morning?”

  He sighs. “Yeah, tomorrow morning will work. I don’t want to talk to Marty right now, though, so you set it up.”

  Jen chuckles. “You know he’s going to flip his shit about this, right? You are aware of this.”

  “Yes. He’s going to say it’s a terrible idea, and if I insist on it, then I should at least milk it for maximum publicity, and I’m going to categorically refuse, and he’s going to keep badgering me and I’m going to get pissed. It’s gonna be a whole thing and I’m really not looking forward to it.”

  “I’ll try and run some interference for you, okay?” She hesitates. “Wes, just tell me this—and Jolene, I’m sorry that I have to ask this, but I do—”

  “No, you don’t.” Wes cuts her off. “This is a mutual relationship. End of story. She’s not doing anything for publicity or money. She’s fucking dying, Jen. What does fame or fortune mean, to someone with an expiration date? Nothing, not a goddamn thing. So no, you don’t have to ask. Is what we’re doing perhaps a little crazy, a little impulsive? Hell yes. It’s a lot, it’s intense, it’s fast, it’s scary. It’s a lot of things. It’s definitely way outside the bounds of what anyone would call normal. But I don’t care and neither does she. We’re just…doing what seems right to us, one moment at a time. And I…” I let out a breath, and allow myself to speak the unvarnished truth. “You need to understand something, here. If it comes down to it, I will choose Jolene over my career. I’ll hold to my obligations as much as I can, but if I have to choose between one more minute with her and tanking or scuttling my career or whatever, it’s not a choice. I’ll choose her, without a single instant of hesitation or thought. Okay? So just understand that very clearly, Jen.”

  “I hear you, loud and clear. And you have my word that I’ll do everything in my power to make sure you don’t have to choose. But I do think you should have a meeting with Adam and Damien about this. Just be upfront and honest. We can handle scheduling that tomorrow though. For now, just…relax and be happy.”

  “Thanks, Jen,” he says. “Thank you for unders
tanding.”

  “You know I’m your friend before anything, Westley, right? I’m your manager, but more than anything, I’m your friend. I look at it as my primary job to make your life easier and better. So yeah, I’m going to do my best to understand, even this does feel a little hard to follow.”

  He says his goodbyes, and then tosses the phone onto the bedside table. Turns away from me, feet on the floor, shoulders slumped.

  “Wes?” I crawl across the bed and touch his back with my fingertips.

  “You can’t make decisions for me, Jolene.” His voice is quiet. He sounds angry.

  “I’m not trying to. But you have to have a life to go back to, when this all over, Wes. You have to think about your future. Because you have one. The reality is, I don’t. So I can’t let you—”

  “It’s not your place to let me, Jo!” He bursts up off the bed and turns to face me. “I never wanted to even be an actor. I wanted to be a musician. I signed a bad contract and screwed myself out of that. I only ended up an actor by mistake. If I choose you over a role and if I have to pay a price for that, then that’s my choice.”

  “I know that, Wes.” I stand up off the bed and move close to him, reach for him. “I just…you have to have a life after me.”

  “Maybe I don’t.” He softens, anger receding. “That’s up to me. If you worry about me, about what my life will look like, after—” he swallows hard, shakes his head. “That’ll ruin the joy of the moment for both of us. If ever there’s been a time for two people to live with a…a carpe diem mindset, then it’s us. Right now is all we have. This moment. Today. And I’m not going to waste it worrying about later, and even more so I’m not going to waste the moments we have working. Not when I don’t need to. Movies can wait. Filming can be rescheduled. There are other projects. If I have to work harder later to earn trust, so be it. I can do that. But here, now, with you—that’s all that matters to me. And you can’t try and take that away from me.”

  I sigh. Nod. “I understand. And believe me, the last thing I want is to spend my time sitting around waiting for you to be done working. But I would also, just selfishly, love to experience being on set.”