Jacob – Past
I’m setting my folder into my locker and lifting out a book for my last class of the day when Layla comes up beside me, her back resting against the locker next to mine. Her hair is down today, and she’s twisting strands of it between her fingers.
I close my locker and turn to face her.
“Do you want me to give you a ride to my house?” She asks.
I hesitate. I can see people starting to notice she’s talking to me.
“No, I can make my own way.” The bell rings, signaling the next class.
“Are you sure? We could talk about our ideas on the way there?” She pushes off the lockers.
“I’m sure.” I start to head toward my class.
“I’m parked by the cherry tree, if you change your mind.” She shouts after me.
When I walk through the door of AP Math, Mr. Wells is scribbling the day’s work on the board.
I take my seat next to Parker, who’s sitting with his elbow on the desk, his head leaning on his hand.
I take out my notebook and grab the textbook, searching for the page number Mr. Wells has written.
When the last student enters, Mr. Wells starts to talk. He holds up last Friday’s exam papers.
“I don’t know what’s happening to this class, but you all need to wake up!
It’s ten months until your junior year is over, and if you think this is hard—” He throws the papers down on his desk.
“You’re about to get a rude awakening.” He shakes his head, re-emphasizing his point, then gathers the papers back up and starts to pass them out.
He drops mine, and I glance at the A. I flip it over when I see that Parker didn’t do as well. Mr. Wells lingers at our desk.
“Parker. If you want to continue in this class, you better get that grade up. I’ll be speaking to your coach. Maybe if you asked your friend Jacob here, he could help.”
Parker doesn’t answer. Instead, he pushes his paper into his bag and stares forward.
“I’d prefer to fail,” he says, glancing quickly at me.
A look of shock briefly passes over Mr. Wells’ features before he replaces it with a more stoic expression. He shakes his head then moves behind us to the next row.
When the bell rings at the end of class, Mr. Wells ushers me over. He waits until the classroom is empty.
“You’re the only student that managed to ace that test, Jacob.”
I stay silent.
“Have you thought much about college?”
I haven’t thought about it at all.
I shrug.
He sighs. “What are your interests outside of school?”
I don’t have any.
“I don’t know,” I answer.
“There has to be something you enjoy?”
I look at the clock hanging above his head. “Can I leave now?”
He gives me a look of disappointment, then points toward the exit.
***
I’m an idiot.
I should have taken Layla up on her offer. It’s hot today even for Rockport. I pull out the water bottle from my bag and take a sip. There’s not much left, but I’m close enough to Layla’s house now.
I turn onto her street and immediately feel out of place. Willowdale Avenue.
I look at the address she gave me. Number fifteen. I keep walking until I find her house. Of course, it’s the nicest one on the street. The flowers on the windowsill are alive. There are even more planted in the front garden. The grass is cut short. Everything looks clean, cared for, perfect.
I knock on her door and hope it’s her who answers and not her brother.
When I catch a glimpse of her long blonde hair through the window, I relax. She’s grinning as she pulls open the door.
“We’re going to have to address your poor timekeeping in our business meeting today, Mr. Evans,” she says as I step inside.
They have air conditioning.
I don’t care how out of place I feel, I’m never leaving.
I kick off my shoes off by the door, leaving them next to hers. The bottom floor is open plan, all beige tones and clean lines. She heads toward the kitchen. It’s big and white, with a central island. She opens the fridge and pulls out an orange soda.
“Do you want one?”
“Sure.”
The glass doors at the back of the house open onto a swimming pool, with trees beyond it.
“Do you swim?” I ask.
She smiles. “As much as I can. What about you?”
I nod.
She shakes her head like there’s a joke in there she’s not willing to share.
“Come on. We can work in my room.”
I follow her up the stairs, passing what I assume is her brother Rhett’s room, football memorabilia covering almost every surface.
Her room is next to his, with a shared bathroom in between.
The walls are painted a pale lilac, and the sloped ceiling cuts into one side of the space, but even with that, it’s a large room.
A queen sized bed sits in the center, piled with pillows.
A few stuffed animals rest on a chest beneath the window.
Beside the door, there’s a photo collage, pictures of her with her family, her friends.
In one, she’s kissing Alex on the cheek.
She moves to the desk by her bed, pulling open a drawer and grabbing a few sheets of paper, highlighters, and pens.
Then she picks up a remote and flicks on the TV, which I hadn’t noticed before, perched on a chest of drawers between the bathroom door and what looks like her closet.
She stops on a music channel, and a song begins to play as she sits down on the bed.
I’m still standing in the doorway, half in the hall, half in her room.
“Jacob?” She says, spreading the papers in front of her. “You can come in, you know. I get that it’s a super girly room, but it’s not going to kill you.”
I walk in. She pats the bed beside her, and I sit down.
“So, I was thinking we should try to do something small, to keep costs down. But it still needs to have a big impact. I want to win,” she says.
“I agree.” I actually do. The budget the school gave us isn’t great. If we try something big, we’ll burn through it all and be stuck with low quality results.
“What about an app?” I suggest.
She nods, and her smile grows. Her nose wrinkles a little when she does, it’s distracting.
“I like that idea. Now we just need to figure out what kind of app.”
We throw around a few ideas, but none of them land.
Eventually, she grabs her laptop and pulls up some websites on app development, and we start running numbers.
Mrs. Milton wants a full business plan, including profit margins.
We can’t do that without knowing what we’re making, but at least we can figure out if building an app is even feasible before wasting ten months on something we can’t afford to finish.
“Want another soda?” She asks, standing and stretching.
“I’m good, thanks.”
She drops back onto the bed. “What do you do on the days you can’t meet with me?”
I’m scribbling notes into my notebook, but I can feel her eyes on me.
“I work.”
“Where?”
“In town.”
She puts her head into her hands and starts shaking it. “You are absolutely terrible at conversations, Jacob.”
I don’t answer. I don’t like giving people information they can use against me.
I learned that the hard way. When you don’t fit into someone’s perfect life, they’ll find a way to push you out.
Layla doesn’t seem like that kind of person, but she has friends that are.
And I don’t know how much of her is like them.
“What’s wrong?” She asks.
“Nothing.”
“You were frowning. We can take a break if you want. Would you like some dinner?”
I know I should say no. But I don’t have anything at home, and I can’t go to the store until tomorrow. So against every sane part of me, I say yes.
While she rummages through her cupboards, I notice a few boxes of cupcakes that must be from a bakery on the counter.
“I made them for the game on Friday,” she says, catching me looking. “Some of Rhett’s friends usually come here after. They rarely get eaten, but I enjoy making them too much to stop.”
“You made those?”
She grins. “Want to try one?”
Before I can answer, she’s already lifting one from the box. The school’s mascot is piped onto the icing with precise detail. She hands it to me and turns back to the cupboards, shifting things around until she sighs and looks over her shoulder.
“Are pancakes okay? I can bake, but I can’t cook all that well.”
“I like pancakes.” I take a bite of the cupcake.
It’s the best cupcake I’ve ever had. I eat it slowly. I probably won’t have one of Layla’s cupcakes again.
She makes the pancakes from scratch. I ask if I can help, but she waves me off and tells me to sit. As she moves around the kitchen, she starts talking about Friday’s game, she’s cheering at it. She asks if I usually go, and I tell her no.
When the pancakes are ready, she sets the plate down, grabs the butter and syrup, and sits beside me.
“Do you have a girlfriend, Jacob?” she asks, then casually takes a bite of her pancake, eyes locked on me as she chews.
I nearly choke.
“No.”
She nods, a small smirk on her lips, and takes another bite.
“You and Alex are together, aren’t you?”
She rolls her eyes. “He’s not my type.”
“I thought he would have been.”
“You must have a really low opinion of me, then.” She laughs. “What did you think of the cupcake?”
“It was good.”
Her smile falters. I regret downplaying it. I should’ve told her the truth.
She clears the dishes and leaves them in the sink. Then we head back upstairs. I pause near her photo collage and take a better look. She stops beside me and starts pointing out where and when each picture was taken.
She gets to the one of her kissing Alex’s cheek.
“Is that why you thought we were dating?”
I don’t answer.
“It was after a game. He had convinced me to get drunk for the first time, then asked Amie to take this photo. He told me to kiss his cheek, and I did, because I had way too much alcohol in my system to think straight.” She pauses, “Right after it was taken, he kissed me. Amie put it up here because it was ‘the moment before my first kiss.’ I hate this photo.”
She rips it down and tosses it in the trash.
“I didn’t want to kiss him.”
My opinion of Alex was low. That story just confirmed what I already knew.