Page 11 of True Abandon

“I love you.”

I panicked, wondering if I heard him correctly over the deafening rain.

He opened his mouth again. “I love you.”

This time there was no mistake—his words were calm, collected, and said with sheer conviction.

Instead of responding, I stared—stared at his face and the way his pupils dilated with every passing second, and at his chest that started to rise and froze as if he were holding his breath.

He ran a hand through his disheveled hair, pushing the tendrils away from his youthful gaze. “You don’t have to say anything. I just…I’ve been feeling it for some time, and then I was looking at you standing here in the rain, and it overwhelmed me. I had to tell you. Because I do. I love you. But you don’t have to say it back. Take as much time as you need. What are you thinking?”

A slow, building smile grew on my face as I watched this overly confident boy totally fall apart after telling a girl he loved her. With a laugh on my lips, I leaned up, threw my arms around his neck, looked straight into his eyes and told him, “I love you, too.”

Just as the sweet memories of the short-lived romance we embarked on in the weeks before he left for college come sweeping in, so does the pain that quickly followed.

“I wish you could see how beautiful you are. Can I film you?” he asked, looking at me naked on the bed.

“No. What if someone sees it?”

He climbed over me, running a hand up the side of my body as he drew closer to my face. “It’s just for me. When I go to school, I want something to keep me sane until I come home for break. Please, baby, I need to remember this moment. I want to relive it every minute I’m not with you.” He leaned down and gave me a sensual kiss that radiated down to my toes.

“Okay. Promise it’s just for us.”

“I swear.”

The devastation of betrayal. The anger of being used.

“Why is everyone staring at me?” I asked as I walked down the hall. Every eye of the school was on me as I made my way toward class the first week of my junior year.

“They’ve all seen your sex tape,” a girl on the school paper sneered at me.

My heart stopped. Fear knocked my soul out of my body. “What are you talking about?”

“The one of you on top of some guy. It’s Jackson Davis, isn’t it? I totally saw something going on between you two. It is, right? Everyone’s trying to figure it out.”

“Sex tape?” I could hardly get those two words out of my mouth.

“Here, I have it on my phone.”

For nine minutes and forty-five seconds, I watched myself do things I never dreamed I’d watch myself doing. That’s how long he filmed me until he turned the camcorder off.

In six months, he went from a cherub-like angel I worshipped to the devil incarnate.

Except now, he has tanned skin and bleach blond hair. It’s far cry from his natural, light-brown waves. He looks like an idiot—like a Q-tip or a bad Ryan Lochte from the 2016 Olympics.

He is no longer my Jackson. This, here, is Jax.

I stare down at him and appraise the man lying in front of me because that’s what he is now: a man.

His jaw is more square, hard and masculine. Even his neck and shoulders, that are currently covered in bruises, are thicker than they once were. He still has the same boyish good looks with high cheekbones and clear skin. There’s stubble on his jaw that trails down his throat, and lips so lush, I remember why I wanted to kiss them so badly.

Tattoos cover his arms, but the Jackson I knew had virgin skin, a clean slate from any sort of art. Now, he has more ink than I ever thought he’d be able to sit still for.

The bedsheet blocks my view past his clavicle. With the slightest pinch of my fingers, I grab the fabric and pull it down, exposing his upper body.

A dragon wraps around his right shoulder and cascades down his chest—its mouth blows fire onto his heart, and the tail wraps around his ribs. It’s colorful and bright, a true piece of artistic expression. A woman’s eye is on his forearm and an elephant’s head is on his left bicep with its head decorated with vibrant jewels.

Hard to believe this harden man in front of me is the same boy of my past. The one who wanted to be a lawyer. He played lacrosse and tennis. He was a jokester and the most popular boy in school. Princeton was in his future, as was a life in the political arena as he followed in his father’s footsteps.