Page 61 of My First Time Fling

“He’s had a fucking awful week, and you know what the worst part of it is? Despite you breaking his heart, he’s been going out of his mind worrying about you, hoping that you’re okay.”

“I didn’t—I never meant to—”

“But you haven’t even had the decency to answer his texts, to let him know you’re still alive. I don’t care what’s going on in your life. That’s pretty fucking selfish, if you ask me.”

“No, Brooklyn, I know, but I—”

“Look, I don’t know why you’re here today, but just stay away from him, okay? He’s done enough crying over you. I don’t want you to go fucking with his head and getting his hopes up again. He deserves better than that.”

Brooklyn turned and stalked away, leaving me standing in the dewy grass, still trying to figure out what was happening. Finally, one of his sentences broke through the cacophony in my brain.

“Wait, Brooklyn, wait!”

Brooklyn turned and looked at me doubtfully. “What?”

“I—it’s just, you said—” I crossed the space between us with a quick jog. “What did you mean about getting his hopes up?”

Brooklyn rolled his eyes. “I meant what I said. I know he’s trying to pretend he’s over you, but he’s obviously not, and I just don’t want him to see you and get hurt again. One word from you and he’d be right back where he was at the beginning of the week, pining over you.”

“Pining over me?” I repeated. “But he’s—I mean, last night, I saw—he’s not back with Tanner?”

“Back with Tanner? Why the hell would he be back with that douchebag?”

“I saw them last night. Talking. Laughing.”

“Uh, yeah. Jesse ran into him on his way back from the store. He said that Tanner had broken up with his boy-toy and was angling to get Jesse to go for coffee with him or something. And Jesse laughed in his face. Isthatwhat you saw?”

I ran Brooklyn’s words over in my mind. Did that explain everything? Now that I thought about it, I hadn’t actually seen anything more than Jesse and Tanner talking, and that one laugh from Jesse. I’d just jumped to the worst possible conclusion.

“Holy shit,” I said, half to Brooklyn and half to myself. “Oh, fuck. I’m an idiot.”

“Well, yeah.” Brooklyn’s voice was flat. “Are you just realizing that now? Because I gotta be honest, Mark, that’s not news to the rest of us. Or, at least, it’s not news to me. Jesse, on the other hand…”

“Fuck. Fuck, I have to go! Did Jesse—is he running the race today?”

“Why do you think I’m here?” Brooklyn frowned. “But I swear to God, if you jerk him around again—”

“No jerking! I promise. I just need to apologize.” I turned towards the starting line.

“You need to do a lot more than that,” Brooklyn said, grabbing my arm. “But Mark, he started the race a while ago. You’ll never catch up to him now. Just wait for him at the finish line.”

“I can’t wait. I have to go find him. Now.”

“Look, Mark, I know I was kind of harsh on you, but if you want to wait with me, I really think it would be better than—”

I didn’t wait to hear the rest of his sentence. I just took off running. Someone else yelled something to me as I crossed the starting line, but I didn’t stop to listen to that either. I didn’t care if they weren’t letting people start anymore. I didn’t care about the race at all.

All I cared about was Jesse.

I couldn’t stop thinking about how dumb I’d been as I ran. Pushing him away, hurting the one person who meant more to me than anything. Cutting him out just because I was afraid.

But Jesse wasn’t with Tanner. He wasn’t with Tanner, and that meant that there was some hope left in the world.

I just had to get to him.

21

Jesse

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