Getting over your first crush seems impossible - especially when he's the star of the world's biggest movie franchise.
***
Jess Wheeler is happily single and perfectly content with her simple life in Hemlock Landing, South Carolina, where all she kn...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
"You probably wouldn't remember him since you haven't been around for a while, but that guy I was talking to is Dylan Jacobs." It actually makes me feel a little better to say his name out loud. It feels like it loses its power that way, kind of like Voldemort.
"Wait..." Bay scratches his head. "Wanna-be football player, Dylan Jacobs? From high school?"
I sigh. "Not wanna-be. He made the team eventually, after you left for L.A."
Bay makes a disgusted sound in the back of his throat. "I always thought he was an asshole. He used to try to sneak into the girl's locker room before practice to see up the cheerleaders' skirts. All of the teachers let him get away with shit because they thought he was charming."
"Yeah, well...I kind of dated him." Now I really want to sink into the car seat until I disappear. The air weighs on me, and I don't dare look at Bay. "We were the 'it' couple for a little while, believe it or not. Until he dumped me right before prom because he got into Yale and didn't want me to hold him back. And now he makes 90K in a hippie van and married the love of his life. So...yeah. Good times."
Bay remains silent as he looks at me, and in the dark it's hard to read the expression on his face. It doesn't matter, though; his silence speaks volumes.
"Whatever," I spit, suddenly turning on the stuttering ignition and twisting to see if I can pull out of the parking spot. "I know you're judging me enough as it is. You're thinking, 'What a fucking idiot Jess Wheeler was, thinking she could date a football player and that it would turn out well.'"
"I'm not judging you at all, Jess," Bay says quietly as I pull into the street and wait for some of the foot traffic to clear. "I'm just angry that he hurt you. You never deserved that."
I keep my gaze firmly set upon the road, even though I feel something warm in my chest. "Yeah, well...It was high school, so who cares, right?"
Sometimes I disgust even myself. My constant pretending to be fine is coming off as an obvious farce: I know it, and I know Bay knows that I know it. Of course I care about the man who took my virginity then discarded me like I was nothing—but I can't let Bay know about that, about how deeply it hurt me. How it kept me from trusting anyone for a long, long time.
"If you ask me, you got the better end of the deal, anyways," Bay eventually says.
I make a doubtful noise in the back of my throat. "Why's that?"
"By the look of it, Dylan's forgotten how to shower. And his wife is a terrible kisser." I glance sideways at Bay. We both crack up at the same time, our stuttering laughs weaving through the air in a harmony that I've desperately missed. We're still chuckling when I pull into my driveway.
"You're so right, though," I manage to gasp, wiping tears from my eyes. "He smelled like a gamer's bedroom. And she uses way too much tongue."
"Way too much," Bay agrees. "There's a process, with kissing. You have to build up to that sort of thing."
