B reached for the door handle, and the need to keep her with me even just a little bit longer won.
“Can I ask you something?”
She paused, nodding.
“What happened to Rory?”
She gave a sleepy smile. “My grandma came and stayed with us not too long after the bathroom incident, and she and Rory fell in love. I suggested she take her, and I’d barely gotten the sentence out before Grandma was loading her up in the car.”
I returned her smile, eyes searching hers, looking for an answer to a question I hadn’t been bold enough to ask.
“Can I ask you something now?” she whispered.
“You can always ask me anything.”
You would have thought those words were a bucket of ice water for how B’s demeanor shifted with them.
“If Jenna wasn’t out of town, would you have texted her tonight instead?”
I frowned, heart picking up its pace in my chest.
No.
That was the answer that roared inside me, my soul begging me to just tell her the truth. But the better part of me knew that wouldn’t be right.
Maybe I also knew that once we crossed that line, there would be no going back.
And I didn’t know if that was really what I wanted.
I cared about Jenna. I was intimate with Jenna in a way I hadn’t been with any other girl before. I didn’t want to hurt her.
And I didn’t want to mislead B until I knew for sure.
Words were lead in my stomach, too dense and heavy to lift.
“Don’t make me answer that,” I breathed.
I watched her for a reaction, for a tell to let me know if she wanted me to say yes, or no, or if she felt what I was feeling. But she was stone cold, her poker face impeccable.
Nodding, her lips spread into a quick smile, but it slipped just as quickly as it’d appeared. “Goodnight, Jamie.”
With that, she opened the door and closed it as quietly as she could. I waited until she successfully snuck in through her bedroom window, and then I drove away.
My mind raced even more once she was out of my car, but the subject matter had dramatically shifted. I spent every moment of that drive home reminding myself that I cared about Jenna, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t care for B, too. And of course, I felt attracted to her, because she was gorgeous and fun and… different. But that didn’t make me a bad person. And it didn’t mean I had to fuck everything up to act on impulse.
But it wasn’t until I brushed my teeth and climbed into my bed, the morning light shining through my blinds, that I realized what I felt.
I scrambled for my phone, taking it off the charger long enough to type out the text.
— Thanks for tonight… You’re my best friend, B. —
She didn’t answer, but somehow I knew she felt the same.
And so, we slipped back into our normal — me dating her best friend, her dating her surfboard, and both of us convincing ourselves that friendship was all that existed between us.
I WASN’T SURPRISED WHEN Jenna broke up with me.
Maybe I should have been. Maybe, if I only saw our relationship from the outside the way B did, I would have been shocked. Maybe if I experienced it through Jenna’s perspective, the doting attention I gave her, and how I couldn’t keep my hands off her, I would have found it hard to believe.
But the truth was, after Christmas Eve?
I was never the same.
I was with Jenna, in every way a boyfriend can be. We spent all our waking hours together, held hands in the hallway, filled our weekends with dates whenever one of us didn’t have practice.
I was with Jenna.
But I wasn’t with Jenna.
Because in my head, I was always with B.
I could deny it all day long, play the part of just being her friend when anyone else was around, but the sick truth was that I couldn’t get the girl off my mind. I tried spending less time with her, but that only made the thoughts louder and more demanding. And when I did spend time with her, I found a million more reasons to feel the way I did.
It was sick, and selfish, and not fair to Jenna.
Which was why when she broke up with me, I wasn’t surprised — but still, I was hurt.
There’s nothing like that first heartbreak. We can all think back to ours — middle school, high school, maybe after. The first time you thought you had your whole future in front of you with someone, and then very suddenly, realized you didn’t have shit.
That’s what I mourned when Jenna broke up with me.
I saw our relationship playing out like my mom and dad’s did. I saw high school sweethearts turning into husband and wife. I saw a house full of kids. I saw going to the same college and building a life together.
I even thought, eventually, I’d drop my fascination with B.
But when Jenna broke up with me, and the first thing I wanted to do was drive straight to B’s house, I knew I was in big, big trouble.
First and foremost, I didn’t want to hurt Jenna. I also didn’t want to hurt B. And by running to her in that moment, I would have done both. I would have put B in a difficult position, choosing between being loyal to her best friend and being there for me, and I would have made Jenna question our relationship, question what she meant to me.
Especially because I knew damn sure that I would have made a move on B.
I was in too vulnerable a space, and I wanted so desperately to let B fill the void. I knew she would have, too. I knew if I showed up, ran my hands back through that curly hair of hers and tugged until she looked up at me, I know she would have let me kiss her.
So, I stayed away.
I didn’t so much as text B, let alone call her or go to her place. I threw myself into the last month of school I had left, spending time with the guys on the basketball team and getting everything ready to move to California.
I stayed away.
Until I didn’t.
I can’t explain the mood that slipped over me the night of graduation. Maybe it was a mixture of anxiety and immense relief, a dizzying cocktail of pride and fear. I wasn’t really worried about going to college anymore — mostly because I knew it was happening, plain and simple, so I might as well embrace it. I also wasn’t super sad about graduating. I knew I’d miss high school, but in a sense… I was ready to leave.
So, after my gown and graduation cap had been put away in my room, I told my parents I was going out to celebrate, dodging my youngest sister and her plea to join me.
I picked up a few guys from the team in the Jeep, their 7-Eleven cups filled with something more than the orange soda it looked like. I played it calm, cool, and collected the whole drive to B’s, but there was a storm brewing inside me, thunder rolling and lightning crackling enough to make the hairs on my arms stand up.
I’d been inside B’s house a few times, chatted with her mom while B got ready to surf or picked out her outfit for the football game, but I’d never seen it like that. Every inch was packed, people dancing and playing drinking games, smoking and laughing, making out and hooking up. The music was so damn loud you had to scream to hear anything, and it was so unbearably hot that I wanted to strip my clothes off as soon as we walked all the way inside.
Of course, B beat me to it.
I’ll never forget that moment, walking into the crowded house and seeing her through said crowd like a fucking vision. She looked around like she was trying to solve a math equation, and then with a shrug, she crossed her arms over her midriff to grab the hem of her V-neck, lavender shirt.