It Stays As It Was Left

2016.1998.1999

February 2016

Stevie carefully maneuvered around the bodies of various friends and family members, sending them hugs and smiles as she reached her destination at Becca's side.

"Did you really need to do all this?" Stevie yelled over the music. "We were just nominated. It's not like we're actually in."

Becca rolled her eyes and handed Stevie her almost full beer bottle, gesturing for her to drink. "Who cares?" She asked. "It's a great excuse to hang out with our old friends. Have you said hi to Vedder yet? You know, he told me a few years back that Gossard had a thing for you back in the nineties."

Stevie rolled her eyes at Becca's drunk rambles but allowed a smile to form on her face, gulping the shitty beer Becca bought.

"Anyway," Becca continued, oblivious to the fact that her friend had mostly stopped listening to her. "What took you so long to get here? You know this party's for you, right?"

"Lola had a recital," Stevie explained. "Sorry, hun. But no party is gonna make me miss that little girl twirling around on stage, runnin' into her classmates."

Becca snorted at her words, knowing that she would also pick seeing Lola run around in a tutu over the party she had thrown.

"Jason's here too, isn't he?" Becca asked, squinting as she spotted the top of his head as he towered over Flea. "You two carpool?"

"Nope," Stevie said. "He dropped the kids off at their grandparents before he came here."

"Then how'd he get here first?" Becca asked in confusion, not realizing how annoying she was coming off. Thankfully, Ashley did and she reached over to put a hand on her wife's waist. "She probably went to get a bite to eat before she started drinking, babe," Ash said. "Just like you should have done."

Stevie giggled as Becca's head lolled to the side and she gave her wife a melty smile. "You're right," She said. "Let's go track down some food."

She turned back to Stevie. "You good on your own?"

Stevie nodded her head, gesturing towards the empty deck outside. "I need some air," She said. "It's pretty fuckin' stuffy in here."

The girls went their separate ways and Stevie slid the back door open, stepping outside as she wrapped her cardigan tighter around her body, shivering lightly. She took a seat on the weatherproof couch that Becca had placed on the deck a few months earlier after their old chairs had broken down from use. She tucked her feet under her lap and stared at the sky, searching for the stars that glowed bright enough to be seen through the chemical pollution. After twenty minutes, she spotted one and smiled lightly.

She had missed the stars so much ever since she moved to LA. Back in Tennesee, she would stay up late with her grandmother every weekend and watch the stars, surrounded by the comforting smell of her Shalimar perfume and Lucky Strike cigarettes. Once she moved to Seattle, things changed, and she watched the stars with Becca on the roof of their crappy apartment, whispering their deepest hopes and dreams to each other. Although neither states could compete with the stars she watched in Virginia when she and Dave would sit in the grass outside, imagining a future together. It always seemed like those stars shined the brightest. Then she moved to LA, where the stars were almost non-existent, but back then, she thought she liked that.

Stevie's eyes never left the sky as the couch dipped next to her, assuming it was Becca or Camilla, who were both people who got a little cuddly when they were drunk. She held out an arm and a body slid under it, though, it was much larger than she had expected. Jimmy's cologne invaded her nostril and she smiled lightly, pulling him closer to her.