Catherine woke up to the sound of the shower running. A few minutes later, Jackie entered the room. Jackie watched Catherine standing there wearing the clothes she leant her, folding the blankets. She was extremely turned on at the site. Usually, it was her  wearing Catherine's clothes. So this was a first and hopefully not the last. Her thoughts were interrupted when Catherine noticed her in the door way and began to talk.
"Great. You get to take a shower and put on fresh clothes while I'm here with bed head."
"Oh please, you could be wearing a paper bag and still look fucking gorgeous," Jackie said while she rolled her eyes.
Just then, there was a knock on the door.
"I ordered some room service. I didn't want to wake you," Jackie said. "I wasn't sure what you wanted so I just ordered a few different things."
Catherine headed to the bathroom to freshen up and change back into her own clothes. As soon as she looked in the mirror, she was mortified. Her hair was a mess and her make up had smudged. While she was taming the situation in her head, she remembered Jackie calling her gorgeous and caught herself smiling in the mirror. It's been a long time since she smiled like that and knew Jackie was to blame.
As they were eating, Jackie asked Catherine what she had planned for the next two days.
"Nothing in particular. Just figured I would stay the rest of the weekend, since it's not every day that I get a free trip to California."
"You know, there's a lot more to do and see in LA that's here at Stanford. You should just change flights and come hang out with me in LA," Jackie said in a somewhat teasing manner.
"Right. Don't you have a full schedule with all of your press for Neptune 26?"
"Not really. I have an interview this afternoon, but they were nice enough to give me Sunday off."
"As tempting as LA sounds, I'm meeting up with some old friends I haven't seen in a while for lunch," Catherine said.
Jackie knew it was a long shot but figured she would try, which is why she made it sound like she was only half serious. The truth was that Jackie didn't have many friends, at least real ones, back in LA and it got pretty lonely. She had forgotten how much fun both her and Catherine had when they were together.
****
After breakfast, they got ready and made their way to Catherine's hotel. As they pulled to the front door, Catherine turned to Jackie.
"Thank you so much for coming. It really meant a lot to me."
Catherine placed her hand on Jackie's shoulder.
Jackie winked, "I couldn't let you come to California and not  seeing me."
Catherine smiled.
"My offer still stands if you change your mind. I would be happy to entertain you in LA."
"I appreciate the offer but you need to get back to work. I'm sure Wade wasn't happy about your little adventure." Catherine smirked.
"You're right, he wasn't. Which is why I have to get back to LA so soon."
Catherine leaned in to hug Jackie. The smell of her hair alone was enough to make Catherine cancel her plans and join Jackie in LA. Jackie tightened her grip around Catherine's neck while Catherine tried to swallow the lump quickly forming in her throat. She gently rubbed Jackie's back, letting her know she was going to miss her too. As soon as she felt Jackie's arms loosen, she quickly put on a happy smile to disguise the pain.
"Have a safe flight." Catherine said.
"You too Catherine, don't be a stranger." Jackie said with a smile.
With that, Catherine exited the car and waved goodbye.
****
When Catherine got back to her room, she sat on the bed thinking about the night before. Part of her wished Jackie hadn't come. She felt like she had fallen in love with her all over again. Which was silly because all they did was talk. On the other hand, Jackie had always been easy to talk to. Catherine missed being able to confide with someone like that.
All of a sudden, Catherine began to cry.
Instead of stopping herself, she just let it all out for once. Despite their age difference, Jackie was everything she had ever wanted. The fact that Jackie had flown to Stanford, to surprise her and support her, made Catherine cry even harder. No one had ever been there for her the way Jackie always had. Again, the guilt kicked in. How could she have told Jackie that she wasn't worth it when Jackie was willing to make it work back then?
Catherine looked at the clock, realising she needed to start getting ready. She calmed herself down as she took a long shower.
****
Jackie was having a hard time keeping it together. As soon as they reached to the airport, she could see the paparazzi waiting. Funny how she can walk around her neighbourhood in LA just fine, but can't even spend 12 hours here at Stanford without them finding her. They must have been here since last night, knowing she would show up eventually.
Great, Jackie thought. Just what I need right now.
When the car came to a stop, her driver told her to wait so he could come and get her. As soon as the door opened, Jackie put on her happy face. They began shouting questions asking her why she was here. Jackie ignored them and kept on smiling. By the time she got to her seat, she was physically and emotionally exhausted. She pulled out her phone and texted Wade and her manager. Letting them know her flight was on time and what gate to pick her up at.
When she glanced at the empty seat next to her, she felt her heart ache. She wasn't surprised Catherine turned down her offer. It was a long shot after all, but she wasn't expecting Catherine to not even think twice about it. Unknown to Catherine, Jackie had purchase two tickets back to LA; perhaps she was being a bit optimistic.
Although the trip wasn't a total bust, it didn't exactly go as Jackie dreamt it would. Usually Catherine couldn't keep her hands off Jackie.
Even last year after their fight and not speaking for months, Catherine took her back to her house the second she saw her again. Jackie let out a deep breath as she stared out the window. Her eyes began to fill with tears.
"I guess I'm really not worth it."
****
Catherine's eyes skimmed the tables as she entered the restaurant.
"Good afternoon, can I help you?" Asked the Hostess.
"I'm supposed to be meeting two of my frien-" before she could finish she heard,
"Catherine! Over here!"
"Never mind." Catherine laughed to the Hostess.
"Oh my god!" He old college friend, Kelly said as she got up from her chair and hugged Catherine. "You are absolutely gorgeous. It's not fair."
Catherine smiled and kissed her friend on the cheek, as her other friend Jenny made her way over.
"Seriously woman, what is your secret other than not having children?" Jenny laughed. "It's so good to see you."
"It's good to see you both as well. Now stop. You both look stunning as always. How are you girls?"
Kelly went first of course. "I'm great! Jacob is about to graduate Pre-K, which is breaking my heart and Tyler just finished First grade."
Here we go, Catherine thought to herself. She loves her friends and she loves children, but she's absolutely loathed when women couldn't carry on a conversation without talking about their kids.
Jenny continued talking after Kelly and said "Things are going great! I switched to Junior High for teaching this year, which most people found it crazy, but I am really enjoying it. I feel like I've been able to really connect with the kids for the most part. What about you? Are you still teaching at Bloomington?"
"No, I quit last year. I needed a change of pace and have been really getting into more of the research side of Psychology."
"Oh wow! Good for you! I can't believe you got to speak at Stanford. You must be doing really well yourself. I'm sorry we missed it, how did it go?" Jenny asked.
"Really well. I'm glad that I got to do it and hopefully I get more opportunities like that."
"Soooo...Catherine, have you found yourself a man yet?" Kelly asked, winking.
"No, not yet." Catherine laughed.
Here we go again, she thought. If there's one thing she learned from being single in her early-thirties, it was that other people her age only knew how to talk about two things:
1. When are you planning to get married and
2. When are you planning on having babies
"Oh come on, give us married girls some juice. And please, don't hold back." Kelly nagged on.
"I'm not holding anything back. There was someone last year but it didn't end well. So I have just been concentrating on my work." Catherine replied.
"There we have it! Didn't end well? Sounds like you really like this person. Was he maybe 'The One'?"
"Kelly!" Jenny hissed. "Maybe Catherine doesn't want to talk about it."
"It's fine Jenny. Yes, he meant a lot to me. I've never felt that way about someone before. You know me, I don't let people in very easily but it could never work between the two of us. So I moved past it."
Catherine wished she felt as confident about what she had just said.
"Why can't it work? Is he married? Oh. My. God. He's married, isn't he?!" Kelly bursted with excitement.
Clearly this woman needed to lay off the Daytime Soup Operas and get out into the real world, Catherine thought to herself.
"No, not married. He came to Bloomington from California but then took a job back out here last summer."
Catherine didn't bother correcting the 'he' to a 'she'. She wasn't ashamed of dating other women, but didn't feel like diving into that conversation with Kelly.
"I'm so sorry, Catherine." Jenny placed a hand on top of hers. Â "So you haven't spoken to him since he left?"
"Funny you should say that. He actually flew in and surprised me at Stanford last night."
"What!? What happened!?" Cried Kelly.
Catherine realised she was Kelly's form of entertainment for the next hour. Whether she wanted to be or not.
"Nothing juicy. We just talked and caught up all night."
"Why on earth are you here with us right now then?" Jenny asked.
"Sh..He" Catherine quickly corrected herself, "had to catch a flight back to LA this morning for work."
"Hold on a second...This man that you are saying may be 'The One', hopped on a flight to come and see you for a few hours and NOTHING happened?!" Kelly was losing her housewife mind.
"Did you realise he might not be in the one after all?" Jenn spoke after Kelly. She was always the more down to earth one.
"No, I realised the exact opposite. I fell in love all over again and was even invited back to LA, but I just can't let myself fall back into that. We still live on opposite sides of the country and I don't want to deal with that pain again."
"Catherine. Excuse my French but you are dumb as hell," Kelly said  bluntly. "This person is crazy about you. Probably more so than you are about him. Considering he caught a flight just to see you, and you are throwing it all away because you live in a town all the way across the country that you no longer have ties to?"
"I hate to say this but she's right," Jenny looked at Catherine with sympathy. "I know it's hard for you to leave Bloomington, considering everything that happened with your parents, but you have a real shot at happiness here."
Catherine sat there absorbing everything her friends were saying. Why was she so heartbroken?
They were right.
Jackie found the time in her insanely busy schedule to FLY to where she was. Just to see her speak at Stanford. Sure the speech was a big deal to anyone who had written a research article, but Jackie was a movie star with a giant blockbuster movie being released. She had much bigger and better things going on in her world.
When Catherine came back to reality, she saw Jenny and Kelly staring at her smiling.
"I'm sorry ladies, but I got somewhere to be," she smiled.
Both girls jumped out of their seats and hugged her.
"Go on! Get out of here!" They both said in unison.
A/n Thanks for reading my story. Please vote and drop a comment. Comments will help me a lot more than you might think. â¤ï¸