Jacob – Past
It’s been a month since our assignment was given, and we still haven’t come up with a concept for the app.
Layla’s pacing in my living room, rhyming off every idea she can think of.
Her hands move as she walks. It’s Saturday morning.
I have a job at noon. It’s one of the few Saturdays she’s been free from football, so she’s been here since eight. She brought coffee and bagels.
“What about an app to track your car when you forget where you parked?”
I screw up my face.
“You’re right. No one in school is going to want that. We need something they’ll want more than anything.”
“You know we don’t have to win, right? As long as the concept is good enough, we’ll still pass the class.”
She rolls her eyes like I’m being ridiculous. “Where’s your competitive spirit, Jacob?”
“I guess I don’t have one.” I check the clock and realize I need to leave.
“You’re telling me you’ve never wanted something so bad, you won’t quit until you get it?”
I hesitate. Maybe I have. I shrug and pull on my work boots.
“You’re leaving? You don’t start till noon.”
“It takes me an hour to walk there.”
“I’ll drive you. Sit back down, we need to come up with a solution.”
“We’ve been at this all morning. I come up with an idea, and you say it’s stupid. You suggest something, I tell you it’s stupid. Maybe it should be an app that teaches you how to build your own app.”
She glares at me.
“What?”
“That’s the worst idea you’ve had yet.”
I groan as I sit back down. I didn’t think it was that bad.
“Maybe we should ask some of our classmates what they think?” she suggests. “Like a survey. We get their interest and use the answers to come up with something.”
“That might actually work.”
“Okay, good. I’ll ask around at Amie’s party tonight.” She pauses. “Do you want to come? You’re not working tonight, and it’s on the beach, and I’d… like it if you came?”
“I can’t, Layla.”
She exhales. “Why not?”
“Because I can’t.”
She looks annoyed. “Rhett won’t be there.”
“Rhett’s not why I don’t want to go.”
“Then why?”
“Because no one in this town sees me as anything other than my dad’s son. And I don’t want to spend the night getting into another fight.”
“Then don’t spend the night with them, spend it with me.” She blushes. “That sounded wrong. I didn’t mean it like that. I meant–”
“I know what you meant. I’d still be there. With them.”
“I promise they aren’t all bad.”
She doesn’t know them like I do.