Nobody ever told Jackie Lynn Thomas that, at 15 years old, she’d be sitting on the floor, consoling her boyfriend over his best friend confessing to a crush on him and then literally leaving the planet. But here she was.

Nobody ever told Jackie Lynn Thomas that she’d end up with her first boyfriend because of a magical alien truth or dare game that tried to kill them both. But here she was.

Nobody ever told Jackie Lynn Thomas that she’d spend her freshman year of high school hanging out with a magical alien princess. But here she was.

The fact of the matter was that when Jackie started dating Marco, she knew and expected that it would mean spending a lot of time with Star Butterfly. Star hadn’t been in Echo Creek very long, but it was obvious that she and Marco had bonded. Jackie was cool with that; she didn’t want to break it up.

Honestly, she was grateful that Marco and Star were close. Marco was a really great guy, but Jackie would probably never have considered him romantically if it weren’t for Star. She’d brought Marco – who’d always seemed nice, if decidedly shy – out of his shell, and if she hadn’t Jackie wasn’t sure he’d ever have really talked to her, let alone admitted to his crush.

There was something special there, and Jackie knew that. Sometimes she wished she had a friend that she’d clicked with like that. It’s the kind of friendship you expect to last forever.

(Jackie had been surprised, at the sleepover, to hear that Marco had a crush on her. She’d kinda thought that Star and Marco had some too-busy-being-besties-for-dates thing going on.)

Still, Jackie never expected it all to go down like this.

Since whatever happened the last time Marco went home with Star, he’d been distracted and down and weird – and even weirder, Jackie hadn’t seen Star once. So, as Marco’s girlfriend, Jackie took it upon herself to be as distracting and uplifting as she could. She thought it might be working, at least a little, and when Star presented herself for what would hopefully be bestie reconciliation, Jackie was happy to let them work it out.

And Marco seemed happier after talking to her, like a weight had been lifted that he hadn’t quite been aware he was carrying.

“MARCO!” Star shouted from halfway up the stairs.

And then everything stopped. Then everything changed.

Star babbled. She stammered. She cried.

She said, “I do have a crush on you.”

Marco didn’t get his head about him until she’d told him she was leaving forever and run away. He ran after her.

Jackie ran after him.

“Marco?” she called as she came upstairs, a little tentative. She wasn’t sure what to expect – if Marco had caught Star, there could be anything from frantic making out to crushed sobbing awaiting her. If he hadn’t –

He hadn’t.

She sat down next to him. “Are you okay?”

(Of course he wasn’t.)

Jackie sat with Marco for almost an hour. They didn’t talk.

What was there to say? “I’m sorry your best friend in the universe left forever” seemed a little on the nose.

“So what does this mean for us?” was pretty self-centered, not to mention not something he’d have an answer for yet. Not something he should have an answer for yet.

But the worst thing she could think of would be, “What are you going to do now?”

When she finally left, she kissed him on the top of the head.

“Sorry,” she said in a low voice. She didn’t know what else to say.

“Jackie?” Marco called after her just as she reached the top of the stairs.

“Yeah, Marco?”

“Thanks,” he said. His voice was shaking; he looked exhausted and sad and lost.

Jackie smiled sadly. What else is there to do, really? “Of course.”

She came back the next day.

When she arrived, she found Marco in his room, pacing.

“Hey, Marco,” Jackie said. “How you holdin up?”

Marco froze. “I’m, uh – well I’m not literally dying, so I suppose that’s an improvement.”

“S’pose so,” agreed Jackie. She paused, biting the inside of her lip. “Your house looks weird now.”

“Yeah,” Marco said dully. “I, like, can’t look at that side of the hallway anymore.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “All her stuff is still in the bathroom. I found it this morning.”

“That sucks,” said Jackie. She didn’t ask what he was going to do with it.

“No kidding,” Marco agreed. “God, I don’t know what to do with myself – like, I don’t think I’ve had this much downtime in months!”

Jackie chuckled despite herself. “Well what do you want to do?”

Marco made an indistinct sound and sat down heavily on her bed. Jackie sat down next to him.

“What can you do?” she asked gently.

“I, uh, I have – I have these scissors,” he replied. “They – they’re for – I mean basically they cut a hole in the imperceptible spatiotemporal fabric between dimensions, and since Star is in another dimension now, I could use them to try to find her but the multiverse is huge! I would barely know where to start!”

He said all of these things very fast, but Jackie got the idea.

“So, you have a way to get to her,” she summarized. “What’s stopping you?”

“What’s – Jackie, I don’t know where to go,” Marco replied.

“Where she lives is probably a good start.”

“Well, yeah, but I – uh – she probably doesn’t want to see me,” he said.

Jackie rolled her eyes. “That sounds like something you’re telling yourself.”

Marco sighed.

“We’re gonna go after her, right?” said Jackie. “You’ve got a way, and you’re never going to feel okay until you actually get a chance to at least say goodbye.”

“I guess,” Marco replied. “Hold up, did you say we?”

“Well yeah,” said Jackie. “What kind of girlfriend would I be if I let you run around the multiverse alone in this state?"