thought he was making the stories up—they were truly that awful. But he wasn’t a liar, and it broke my heart to know that he had grown up in such a dysfunctional environment, where his opinion didn’t matter.
He spent quite a few nights here at the apartment with me, which helped calm my nerves about being alone and also kept me sexually spent. That man’s appetite for me was on another level. But I welcomed it because I’d never been so desired before. Mac made me feel like the most beautiful girl in the galaxy, not just our planet. And if he wanted to work out his frustrations on my body or show me all the ways in which he craved me, I was here for it.
Other times, he went to the baseball house alone, or we went together. I never blamed him for wanting to hang out with his teammates, and the last thing I wanted to do was take him away from them during his last season. And even though it was a little bit of an adjustment, knowing that I came second to all things baseball, for some reason, it didn’t really bother me. What bothered me at times were all the other girls.
No one could believe that Mac had settled down, even when they saw us together on campus. Some girls would cast us shocked looks and shake their heads in disbelief. Others couldn’t have cared less. It was a weird reality, being thrown into this universe all of a sudden. One second, I had been Sunny Jamison, typical senior, and the next, it felt like the entire student body knew who I was and was judging me for it.
I remembered Danika going through a similar thing after she’d gotten together with Chance. I thought it had been worse for her though because Chance never gave any girl the time of day, so everyone wanted to know why she was so special. Whereas my boyfriend had made out with half the campus. It was a little embarrassing to know that he’d kissed some of the girls we walked by on a daily basis. I hated knowing that I shared my boyfriend with so many random females.
And then there was the social media aspect. I saw the nasty comments after he posted a picture of the two of us together, confirming our exclusive status. The remarks got so downright mean that he turned them off and begged me not to look anymore. But I was a curious beast and couldn’t stop myself even if I tried. It was hard not to care what other people were saying about you, especially when they didn’t even know you.
Of course, most of the comments were about my looks. How I wasn’t hot enough for Mac or how I was too skinny or how I dressed slutty. And my favorite: Who told this bitch that she looked good with silver hair?
Not all the comments were mean though, and I appreciated that fact. Some girls wrote some really nice things, complimentary and kind. But it was the nasty ones that stuck in my head the most and made me feel insecure. It was all worth it though if it meant I got to be with Mac. That didn’t mean that my jealousy never reared its ugly head because it definitely did. And Mac was always patient and understanding, apologizing every single time for putting me in the position in the first place.
“I’m sorry I’ve made out with half the school,” he said one night when I was in a particularly ornery mood.
“I mean, I was one of them, so I get it. But now, every time I catch a girl looking at me sideways, I think it’s because she hooked up with you, and then I imagine it, picturing the two of you making out and I can’t stand it.”
He grabbed my hand and looked me right in the eyes. “I can’t change any of that. I swear, if I could go back in time and take it all back, I would.”
I knew that he meant it. He was genuinely sorry for the pain it caused me. But I’d known all of those things before I fell for him in the first place, so it wasn’t right of me to keep throwing his past decisions in his face.
When my phone rang one evening, I knew it was Danika without even looking. Her personal ringtone blared from the other room, and I practically