Planning Your Future

Just Breathe (Part 2)

July 18, 1992

Veronica's POV

I stand in the tailor's dressing room. The green dress fits tightly on my body. "Does it fit?" The lady calls from outside the room. "Yes." Thank God. I didn't want to have to get it done again. With everything I have to do before the wedding Friday, I don't have time to come here again.

I leave the shop with my dress in a box. I have to go to my house, drop the dress off, then go to JD's to work on the song for the wedding. JD and I call it a night at around 11pm. "Okay. I'll see you tomorrow?" JD starts to put away the music. "Sorry your mom has her final fitting tomorrow." Her wedding is less than a week away but apparently there were some complications at the tailor's. To be fair, her dress needed a lot more done than mine. So we're doing the fitting five days before the wedding. Then I have to work on the bachelorette party for Wednesday and the rehearsal dinner for Thursday. I'm going to be so busy all this week. "We've got it almost perfect. We shouldn't need but one for practice." I look at my watch, "Which I will get back to you with a date on that soon." I leave as quickly as possible.

I grab the box sitting in my passenger seat. I get out of the car and knock on the door. "Oh, hey Veronica! Come in!" Ethan invites me inside. Ethan was the DJ at many school dances, including our senior prom. He was kind enough to give me a discount since we used to be friends in middle school. "Okay. So here are the songs. They're all labeled for you." I give him the box. "Okay. And did you make the order?" He asks. I motion to the side of the box, where a list has been taped. "Perfect. Then I will see you on Friday." He smiles. "I'll see you then. Thank you for this, it really means a lot." I hug him. "No problem."

When I get in the car, I take out my checklist and put a check beside "give Ethan the music" then I set it beside me. I go home, ready to call it a day. Heather is sitting on the porch. "Hey. What's up?" I didn't expect her to come by today. "Here's your fake ID for Wednesday." She hands me an ID. "I thought we said we weren't going to a bar for the bachelorette party." I knew Jill would feel weird if she had two underaged girls drinking. "Jill told me it was fine. She said she'd make an exception for that night." She assures me. I let it go and put the ID in my pocket.

I go into the attic. I've been coming upstairs to play the piano every night. It helps to destress me after a long day of wedding planning. I'd turned the attic into a nice spot to just chill. I open my book to Ours. I play and sing through it. As I hit the final note on the piano, I sigh. "Hey. When did you write that?" My dad is sitting on the top step. I jump. "Woah, I'm sorry, Ronnie! I wasn't trying to scare you." I take a deep breath, "I'm fine... But I wrote this a couple of months ago. "Is that about a new guy you like? Or are already dating?" He asks. I don't say anything. "Okay, you don't want to talk about it. That's fine... So how is the wedding planning coming along?" My dad is coming so hopefully he's impressed by all that I did for it. "It's going okay. I'm just tired." I shrug. "Well I'll leave you to it. Goodnight, Ronnie."

The next morning, I go out for coffee with Alyssa. "You look tired." She says. "I am. Between helping JD with something for his mom, and tracking down people." I put my head down on the table. "Why are you planning the wedding? Aren't you supposed to plan the bachelorette party and that's all you do?" I sigh, "Usually, but Jill was looking for a wedding planner so I said I would." I'm starting to regret that decision. "Well I can help if you want. To decrease your workload, and give you a minute to breathe." I look up, "Alyssa, are you sure?" She smiles, "What do you need to do today? I'll do some of it." I pull out my list from my pocket. "Okay can you get the place cards and pick up the gift bags?" I write down the addresses. "They haven't met me so just say you're Veronica Sawyer. And take the card," I give her the card Hank gave me for wedding things. "I trust you not to lose that." Alyssa nods, "I promise I'll hold on to this card with my life."

I go over to the Dean house where Jill tries her dress on. "Okay. What do you think? Does it fit right?" She looks in the mirror. "It fits great, Jill." Heather tells her. "Yeah. It fits just right." I say. "Great." Jill goes to the other room to take it off. When she comes back, she sits down with us on the couch. "So what else do you have for today?" She asks. "Well I need to pick up my shoes. Since I just remembered this morning that I needed shoes. Then I need to send the food list to the caterers. But other than that, I don't have anything else scheduled." Alyssa is taking care of the only other things I have to do. "Perfect. I do want to thank you again for doing this for me. I know you must be so stressed." She pats my leg. "I'm a little stressed but I'm happy to do it." It's been a pain in my ass but I'd say it was kind of fun. And if the wedding goes according to planned, it'll have all been worth it.

After I get my shoes, I drop off the list to the catering company. I sit in my car, taking a second to calm down. "Just breathe, Veronica. You just need a few minutes to take some deep breaths." Now I have to go home and start breaking in these shoes or when I wear them the day of, it's going to suck. I check off the stuff I did from my list, then drive home.

Alyssa is standing at my front door, two big boxes by her feet. "Oh thank God. So I'm assuming everything went well?" I start to bring the boxes into the house. "Yep. Everything went great." Alyssa gives me back the card. "Great. Thank you so much for doing this." I kiss her. "You're welcome. Seeing you stressed was honestly starting to stress me out." That's fair. I look in the boxes to make sure everything is good. And it is. "Thanks again." I hug her.

So this chapter is a little shorter. But these next two are gonna have some good stuff. This one was just kind of a filler chapter. Bye!