The Past We Can’t Go Back To
Chapter One
Senior year was the year my childhood best
friend, Amy, fell for a jock.
He’d make her smoke in the bathroom, even
slap her around in front of other girls.
And she ate it up, her grades plummeting
faster than a lead balloon.
I was terrified this loser would ruin her future,
so I kept telling her to ditch him.
She’d just roll her eyes and go back to
making googly eyes with him. “I’d rather be
<
used and abused by Jake than treated like a
princess by a nice guy like you, Tom.”
The night before the SATs, she ditched our
pact to study together and snuck off to some
motel with him.
And me? I swallowed my feelings and set my
sights on Harvard.
I think Amy was in love.
She was always daydreaming in class, a little
smile playing on her lips, propping her chin up
with one hand and clutching a pen with the
other.
The pen would scratch across the pages of
her notebook, etching out a name.
I peeked once, and it was “Jake Miller.”
A sharp, edgy name that fit him perfectly.
Jake was the school bad boy, arrogant, wild,
like a beast charging across the basketball
court.
Said beast had accidentally nailed my sweet
Amy in the head with a basketball three days.
earlier.
We were walking past the court, arguing over
some complicated calculus problem.
Suddenly, bam! The ball smacked Amy right
in the head.
く
She yelped, glaring toward the court, and saw
Jake jogging over.
He was sweaty, rocking that kinda–cute–but-
kinda–douchy messy hair thing, a cocky grin
plastered on his handsome face.
“Hey, cutie, you okay?” He always called girls
“cutie.”
Amy just froze, staring at his face, his body,
and her cheeks instantly flushed red.
She quickly ducked her head and tried to walk
away.
Jake chuckled. “What’s the rush? I’m not
gonna bite. Here, add me on Snap, maybe we
can shoot some hoops sometime.”
<
Amy stopped dead in her tracks, fumbling for
her phone.
That’s how they connected.
I stood there like a pathetic idiot.
Eighteen years, and Amy had never blushed
around me.
Not even when I worked up the nerve to tell
her I liked her. She just burst out laughing.
“Tom, seriously? You think you could handle
me? I’m into the bad boy type, you know? The
edgy, rebellious guys. Not the sweet, gentle,
‘nice guy‘ thing.”
Yeah, I was too nice.
く
I’d loved her since we were kids, like a
favorite cat, always petting her hair, bringing
her treats.
I figured love was like tending a flower; you
wanted it to bloom, beautiful and carefree.
But she wasn’t blooming for me.
