Her mom cuts an apologetic look at Jolene, adding to what her dad was saying. “Sorry, honey, but this has to be said: you’re not a normal girl, and this isn’t a normal situation. I know all you want is to feel normal, just once. I get that, and you deserve to have that. So, Westley, what we’re saying is, if you really believe you have what it takes to be what this girl needs and wants, then all right, okay. But just…” Sherri sighs, starts over. “Honey, you’ve been through too much to risk being hurt, now, when you’re already dealing with something no one should ever have to deal with.”
Jolene slumps forward on the island, head drooping. “I hear what you guys are saying. But…I disagree, in a certain respect. What do I have to lose? I’ve never been in love. I’ve never had my heart broken. I’ve never been liked by a boy, much less wanted by a man. When am I going to risk my heart, if not now? Maybe he’ll flake out. Maybe I’ll get hurt and have to come crawling back home and you guys will have to put me back together again. But it literally is now or never, for me.”
Sherri looks at me. “And what do you gain from this?”
“I’ve never felt a connection like this with anyone.” I shift, lean against the door frame, prop one foot up on the toe of my other boot. My stomach churns from the intensity of all this. I don’t know what I was expecting when I left LA, but I sure as hell wasn’t anticipating any of this. “Look, I was discovered or whatever when I was seventeen. I had a girlfriend before that, but it was one of those puppy-love, holding hands at the mall-type things. My life literally exploded, all at once. I’ve been on the run from project to project ever since. Surrounded by people, offered scripts and recording deals, stage plays and musicals and TV and…anything you can think of. I turn down more than I accept simply because there just aren’t enough hours in the day, but I’m still running ragged all damn day, every day. And yeah, I’ve had the chance to date some people you’ve probably heard of. But I haven’t. Not because I don’t want to, but because I’m not going to invest my already limited time dating someone just because society feels like I should, since she’s famous and I’m famous. I haven’t dated anyone because I haven’t felt connected to anyone.
“Call me old-fashioned, but I want that connection.” I sigh, and hold up my phone as a gesture. “And when I saw Jolene’s video, at first I was like, holy crap, she really just proposed to me via TikTok. But then I watched a few more times, and I just…I felt like I knew her. Like I…I dunno. Like I’m meant to know her. I really don’t even know how to put it into words. But I had to do something. So, I drove here, and I knocked on her door. And I knew right then in that moment I was right, when I first saw her—I knew in my very soul that I’m meant to know this girl. The connection I felt watching the video was real. So… I’m gonna see this through. I’m not going to get bored. I’m not going to give up. I’m not going to send her home because it got too hard. I don’t commit to anything unless I’m sure I can honor that commitment.”
I stare at Jolene, and she stares back.
“This may not look like a traditional relationship,” I say, as much to her—and myself—as to her parents. “But I feel like as long as it works for us—for Jolene—then that’s no one’s business but ours. I have no intention of pulling her away from you guys—you’re her support system. You’ve been there for her, her whole life and I’m just meeting her. I’d be an idiot to think I can navigate what she’s going through and what she needs on my own, and I’m not an idiot. Or at least, I like to think I’m not.”
“Well,” her dad says. “You don’t seem like an idiot, and you’re saying the right things.”
“But I’m an actor, and that’s what I do, right?” I say, arching an eyebrow.
He lifts his hands. “I mean, the thought did cross my mind.”
“Mine too,” Jolene says. “Now, I admit I’m far from an expert, but it seems like at some point you just have to take the first step when it comes to trusting someone.”
“So…now what?” her mom asks.
Jolene just laughs, shrugging. “I don’t even know.”
“I think now Jolene and I have some plans to make.” I squeeze her hand.
Love, Concentrated
Jolene
“Jo, are you sure about this?” Mom asks me for the fiftieth time in the past hour.
It’s the day after Wes appeared at our house; he got a hotel room, as he needed to catch up on sleep, and Mom and Dad wanted me to have some distance from the intensity of the first meeting—to think about things, to be sure. He came back this morning, and we all had breakfast together, and if anything, I’m even more sure than I was yesterday. I can’t say the starstruck shine has worn off entirely. I just…I long to be near him, every moment. I want to know everything about him. I want to kiss him and never stop, and while that makes me feel hot and tingly all over, it’s also intoxicating, invigorating, thrilling. He seems to feel the same. His eyes follow me everywhere I go, watching, assessing, seeking, searching, roaming, raking.
I want to be alone with him.
I want to sit and talk with him from sunset to sunrise, and beyond.
I survey the carnage of my packing frenzy. “Yes, Mom. I’m sure. I’m sure I’m sure.”
She wrings her hands. “It’s all just so sudden.”
I hide a smirk. “Mom.” I sigh, laugh, and step aside, gesturing at the suitcase. “Go ahead.”
She widens her eyes, takes a step toward my suitcase, then stops. “You’re an adult. You can pack your own suitcase.”
I have to bite my lip. “I know. But it’s clearly eating you up inside, and it’ll make you feel better to repack it. I know you want to.”
She groans. “So bad.”
“Go for it.”
She eyes me. “Sure?”
“Yes, Mother. You have my permission to repack my suitcase.”
“Oh, thank goodness,” she breathes.
She’s an avenging goddess of organization and efficiency as she tears my clothing out of the suitcase, hands blurring as she unfolds my haphazard stacks of shirts, shorts, skirts, dresses, and tops and rolls them into tidy little cylinders, and just like that, I have room in the previously overstuffed suitcase for a couple pairs of shoes, a hoodie, a nice cardigan, and my toiletries as well as a pile of underwear, bras, and socks.
I stand back, grinning. “Man, you are so good at that, Mom.”
She flips the top closed and zips it with authority, then glances at me. Her eyes narrow with suspicion. “You just played me, didn’t you?”
I can’t help but burst into laughter. “Like a fiddle.”
She rolls her eyes. “You could have just asked, you know.”
“It was more fun this way.”
She’s laughing, now too. “You spent over an hour on that con, Jolene. Pretending to fold and sort and pack, all while I watched, knowing it was driving my OCD nuts.”
“You don’t have OCD, Mom. You’re just a neat freak.”