for an answer. Pushing a few buttons, I found the house music channel I’d decided would be the thing to irritate Jake the most. For the cherry on top, I reached over and pressed the buttons that made the sides of his headrest slowly slide forward until they pressed against his ears.
He lasted about four seconds until he stabbed viciously at the entertainment screen. “What is wrong with you?” He said. “Oh God, make it stop.”
Taking pity on him, I switched to some seventies singer-songwriter music I knew we both had grown up listening to.
“Do you want me to shut off the heated seats, too?” I asked.
“No. I like those. “Can you free my head now, please?” He asked, trying to sound put-upon but he was laughing, too. “What is wrong with you?” He asked after I relaxed the headrest.
“Talk to me. If you’re going to kidnap me, I want to know why.”
“I know. I’ll talk.”
“Good. Start talking.”
“What do you remember most from That Summer?” he asked. “What was it like for you?”
God. I sucked in a huge lungful of that chill autumn air. What had it been like? It had been like being struck by lightning. Like finding out the one thing you needed to live had been with you the whole time.
Jake reached for my hand.
“I remember you were my whole world,” I said carefully, trying to find the perfect words. “You were the first thing I looked for when I came into a room. And as soon as my eyes would find yours, you would light up with a smile so beautiful it took my breath away. And I felt like this thing between us was so huge and visible that everybody must see it. They had to know. They had to.” His fingers tightened around mine. “What about you?” I asked.
He answered immediately. “Like I was a cup that overflowed. All these feelings, this love for you that had been a core part of me my whole life finally spilled out of me and into the world. I couldn’t keep it inside anymore. And, you, you loved me back. It was a miracle.”
I wanted to say I did, that I had loved him, but the words got stuck in my throat. Love. How terrifying. It had been so easy back then to say I love you. We’d said it to each other over and over. Voices nervous and tremulous the first time. In between kisses and in text over instant messenger later. Desperately, in my scrawled handwriting in letters I’d sent to his schools, letters that remained unanswered
He released my hand to go around a car cruising below the speed limit. The further we got from town, the faster he pushed the car. I liked watching him drive. His hands were steady on the wheel and he seemed confident and in control.
He surprised me by speaking again. “When I was with you. I felt like who I was, was okay. Like you saw all of me. You'd known me my whole life and still somehow you, this homecoming king, this perfect boy, liked me.”
I made a noise of protest and he poked my arm gently. “Shut up. You were. Tall, blonde, blue-eyed All-American boy. The one all the girls wanted. And you chose me. You loved me. So I must be okay.”
“A little bit more than just okay,” I said lightly.
He shook his head. He squeezed my hand and then pulled away.
The sun was starting to set, slanting through my window and outlining his profile in a golden halo. “Eric, I want, I need, you to look at me that way again. But I need to know that when you look at me, you're seeing all of me, so I have to tell you the truth. You'll probably hate me after, but at least you'll hate the real me.”
“Jake,” I said, not even knowing what I meant by it. He was right. I did need to know the truth. It would change things, no doubt about it. The past was gone and we could never go back and have that again, but if there was any hope of a future, we had to look at it. I had to know what had happened those years he was gone from my life. From all of our lives.
“But we have to go back to the beginning,” he said, unconsciously echoing my thoughts. “So that maybe you’ll understand where my head was, just a little. I don’t know if