“Lowe didn’t say. He just said he walked you home.”
“Yeah.”
The silence returned.
Two girls walked past, their eyes glued to Jake. As they walked up the hill away from us, they started giggling and casting smiles at him over their shoulders.
Some things never changed.
“It took me off guard,” Jake suddenly said.
I turned back to him, frowning in confusion. “What?”
“Seeing you … with him. It took me off guard. I reacted badly. I’m sorry.”
Even more confused than I’d already been, I dragged a hand over my head and down through my ponytail, trying to think what the best answer was. Something not confusing. Something that reminded us where we were now. I didn’t do it gently. “It’s been a while, Jake. You must know that there have been other guys.” Guy singular, but he didn’t need to know that. I’d already explained myself when I didn’t need to, confusing the situation even more.
If I were anyone else, I would’ve missed that little flare of anger in the back of his eyes. He hid it well and he hid it quickly. “Of course. I’m just trying to wrap my head around all of this. Sometimes it feels like only yesterday we were lying in the back of my truck, you know.”
“Well, it wasn’t.”
Jake studied me a moment and I tried my best not to squirm. Finally, he nodded. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I just came here to see if I hadn’t f**ked everything up again.”
I wanted to scream at him—demand to know why he’d f**ked everything up in the first place, and then stuck the knife in deeper by bringing another girl to the place we’d planned to come together. Instead, I nodded tightly. “We’re good.”
He appeared to relax a little and he gave me a small smile. “We’ll go to the gym together next time, yeah?”
My answering smile was equally small. “Sure.”
“So your mom says Jacob Caplin’s there and that you’re spending time with him.”
Silently, I cursed my mother. I should’ve known she wouldn’t be able to keep this from Dad. Thankfully, Dad and I were talking on the phone and not on Skype so he couldn’t see my murderous expression. “Mmm-hmm.”
“Don’t ‘mmm-hmm’ me. Were you ever going to tell me?”
“There’s not much to tell, Dad.”
“That boy broke your heart. I don’t want him near enough to do it again.”
“That’s not going to happen.”
“I’m not convinced.”
“Dad, I don’t want to talk about this with you.”
Dad sighed, causing the line to crackle. “You were just a kid, Charlotte, and he changed you. One minute you were happier than I’d ever seen you, and the next you were closed off. I didn’t like having to watch that.”
I bowed my head, feeling at once loved and sorry that I’d done that to my family. “I’m not anymore,” I promised him softly.
“You sure about that, sweetheart? Because I don’t see any other boy hanging around. Let’s not even get started on Alex.”
“I don’t want to talk about Alex, either, Dad. There’s nothing to talk about.”
“Maybe you should come home.”
I laughed and then immediately sighed. “I’m okay. I won’t do anything stupid. Lesson learned.”
“You know you can still trust people, Charley, without it turning into another lesson. I think Jake is just this reminder that you can’t depend on people, and I don’t want my daughter feeling that way.”