“Your last text from this clown was three days ago, when he said he was going to call you the next day. Did he?”
“No,” I admitted, my voice small.
“And did he provide any reason as towhyhe didn’t call?”
“Well, he—”
“Yes or no?” she pressed on.
“No,” I conceded sulkily.
“And aren’t you better than this? Don’t youdeservebetter than this?”
After a pause, I nodded at her wordlessly. She was right. After years of coming in second place to my dad’s new life in Boca, I’d somehow managed to fall right back into the same pattern with Jake. I did deserve better.
I watched her mouth settle into a determined line, and then she began typing furiously. When she handed it back a minute later, my entire message history with Jake had been erased.
“What did you do?” I asked, though I wasn’t quite sure I wanted to hear the answer.
“What you don’t have the balls to do yourself.” I stared at her in silent disbelief until she relented and said, “I simply reminded him that you are a majestic unicorn who deserves to be treated with respect. And then I deleted him from your contacts, because you don’t need to spend another minute reading back over your messages, obsessing over what you said to each other and trying to figure out where it all went wrong.”
When I started to protest, Ali put out a hand to stop me. “Don’t bother trying to deny it. Believe me, I’m doing you a favor by freeing you of the temptation. Jake is a grown man. The ball is in his court. If he wants to talk, he knows where to find you.”
But he didn’t find me. He didn’t text me back for the rest of the evening, or the day after, or the one after that. The silence continued for another week until the truth finally hit me. I wasn’t going to hear from Jake. Not now, or ever again.
After the initial sting of rejection wore off, I told myself it was all for the best. Those two excruciating weeks of thirsting fortexts from Jake like they were droplets of water in the desert had wreaked havoc on my performance in the classroom. Which was ridiculous, considering male-induced distractions were the whole reason I avoided dating in the first place. It was good that things between us had fizzled out before he became an even bigger diversion.
I couldn’t help feeling like an idiot, though. How could I have misread the situation so badly? Yet, as my mother would have said, the facts of the matter were irrefutable: Jake was no longer interested in talking to me, and I had only made a fool of myself by continuing to reach out to him. Clearly, I’d romanticized the whole thing from the get-go, and this was the punishment for breaking my no-dating rule. It was time to move on and forget the whole thing had ever happened.
The thing is, it’s nearly impossible to stop thinking about a guy you slept with when his face is plastered on every bus in Manhattan.
8
“DO YOU EVER WONDERwhat Jake Taylor is like in bed?” I blink twice as I stare at Ali’s reflection in the mirror, wondering if I’ve heard her correctly.
“Excuse me?”
It’s the first week of May, just two weeks shy of graduation. Ali and I are standing in my bathroom, getting ready for the graduation party we’re co-hosting at my apartment.
She grins as she slides a hoop through her earlobe. “I’ve had ‘Blueberry’ stuck in my head all day. That song is so freakin’sexy.Wait, let me put it on.”
Ali strides into the living room and clicks on the TV, scrolling to a music channel. She types in Jake’s name and the now all-too-familiar opening chords fill the air. For the past eight months, I’ve avoided reading anything about Jake, averting my eyes when I see his face splashed across the covers of grocery store tabloids and fan accounts on TikTok. I flat-out refused to join Ali when she invited me to his show at UBS Arena last month on the grounds that “concerts aren’t really my thing.” But it’s impossible to escape the popularity of the hit single that skyrocketed Jake to fame. The song is everywhere: blasting through the overhead speakers at the grocery store, pouring out cab windows, and playing faintly in the background of Instagram reels.
“I mean”—Ali’s voice cuts through my daydream—“thatvoice. There’s no way a man who sings like that isn’t sexually gifted. He just has that energy about him, you know?” A series of memories flashes across my brain. Jake’s fingers twisting in my hair. His teeth scraping against my throat. His brown eyes, heavy-lidded, as he lowered himself between my legs. My thighs clench as I rememberexactlyhow gifted he is.
“Um, I guess,” I reply noncommittally.
“God, imagine being the girl he writes songs about. Have you heard his latest single, ‘Dorothy’? I’d literally kill for a man to be that in love with me. And you know what he means when he refers to blueberries.” She wiggles her eyebrows at me.
I shake my head. “Has it ever occurred to you that maybe the song reallyisabout blueberries?”
Ali rolls her eyes. “Yeah, right. And ‘Watermelon Sugar’ is about Harry Styles’s passion for fruit salad.” She glances around the kitchen. “Do you think we have enough to drink, or should I run down to the bodega?” Her eyes slide over the display of alcohol and mixers I’ve arranged neatly on my island countertop.
“We have plenty. People will bring stuff, too.” My stomach rumbles loudly. “And hopefully also some food.”
“Dev said he’s going to bring his famous five-layer bean dip.” Ali’s eyes practically turn into emoji hearts as she says his name. She’s been dating him for a few weeks now, and I’ve never seen her so excited about a guy. “He’s literally the nicest person I’ve ever met,” she told me and Chloe over happy hour margs a week after their first date. “He’s a first-grade teacher, owns a three-legged rescue dog, and there isn’t a single photo of him holding a fish on his Hinge profile. I think he might be The One.”
“Just stay off my bed,” I groan. “Seriously, I just washed the sheets.”
