I feel like I’m back in high school again.

When we were younger, we mostly keep our relationship to ourselves. Everyone knew we were together, of course, but we weren’t hanging off each other in the hallways like a lot of the other couples.

I liked that about him. He wasn’t exactly reserved, but he was serious. I felt like making out with him in the hall would somehow disrespect what we had, like our relationship was real compared to all the other fake ones around us. It made it feel special again.

I feel that way now. It’s so stupid and insane, since I’m an adult now and we are definitely not in a relationship, but I can’t help but look at him and feel that, even if it’s just a shade of that teenage-brain-induced love madness.

I can’t lie and pretend like I don’t enjoy it. I like that we kissed yesterday, and I like that nobody knows about it. He hasn’t come up to me yet today, although he did smile when he came onto set. Mostly he’s working through the action sequences set up for today, and I’m doing my job as well, but I keep stealing glances at him. I keep thinking about that kiss, the way it felt, and I keep feeling like a schoolgirl again.

I feel silly. I feel good. It’s a particular feeling, something I can’t really explain. Maybe it’s falling in love again. Or maybe it’s waking up only to realize that you’ve always been in love, and it hasn’t gone away.

Not that I’m actually in love with him right now. God, that would be so stupid. No, that’s just the closest I can come to explaining this feeling.

When you’re a kid, everything is so much more intense. The chemicals in your brain are going nuts, and you’re basically drunk with hormones all the time. Plus, everything is new, especially when you’re a teenager. I was just discovering my body back then, and Jackson was slowly helping me do it. Maybe we didn’t have sex, but we did other stuff, and we were going to do it sooner or later. But back then, even a simple kiss took me places I don’t think I’ve been ever since.

I always assumed those feelings were gone forever. I never knew I felt those things, not because of my crazy teen brain, but because of Jackson.

I felt it all over when he kissed me. It was like a whole body high. It was so intense that I could barely breathe afterward. I had to hustle him out of there, or else I was going to do something really stupid, like throw myself at him.

Maybe it’s impossible to explain. But in short, I feel like a kid again, and it feels so good.

When we break for lunch, Jackson is nowhere to be found, but I don’t think anything of it. I figure he’s just busy running lines or something for our upcoming shots. He has some line-heavy scenes, and I know actors worry about remembering everything.

When we get back to shooting, something’s weird. He’s not looking at me, not even coming close to looking at me. When I have to feed him a line, he doesn’t meet my eye, just accepts it and moves on. He doesn’t smile at me, doesn’t even act like he knows me. It’s like an entirely new person is out there now, and I have no clue what changed.

I’m the type of person to get paralyzed in analysis, but I’m going to resist that. I won’t dig too deeply into this. He might just be concentrating on his job, or maybe he’s just in a bad mood or something. I can’t worry about Jackson like this, I just have to do my job and keep moving forward.

The day goes on and finally we wrap shooting. As I clean up the script and go over the day with Lionel, Jackson disappears back into his trailer. Normally he stands around and chats with the crew, but today he just ran off like something is up.

I get finished with Lionel, and as I’m walking back toward my locker, I run into Paul the lighting guy. “How you doin’, script girl?” he asks me.

“Pretty good,” I say. The crew’s been nicer to me ever since I went out with them, although I did run away pretty fast. I think Jackson talked me up or something.

“You hear the gossip?” he asks me, grinning.

“I don’t think so,” I say. “Lay it on me.”

“Apparently, Jackson was yelling in his trailer earlier at lunch. And now there are rumors about him and Holly.”

I raise an eyebrow and my heart starts to beat faster. “Holly?” I ask, not wanting to know.

“I think they’re together. Dunno what it means that he was yelling at someone, maybe trouble in paradise.”

I take a deep breath. “Sounds like the usual set crap,” I say to him, trying to smile.

He laughs. “Yeah, can’t get away from it with these movie stars. Always got to be dramatic.”

“You’re not wrong about that,” I say.

“Well, you have a good night, script girl. Good work today.”

“You too, Paul.” I nod to him and hurry off, heart racing.

What the hell was he talking about, Holly and Jackson? And why was he yelling in his trailer?

I put my things away, locking up the master script in my locker. I don’t know what the heck is going on, but I can’t help but think about the way he was reacting earlier. Maybe something really is wrong, and he’s fighting with Holly about something. I know the studios are always pushing these actors together, but I thought Jackson was above all that stuff.

I head home, trying not to obsess too much, but that’s in my personality. I get back to my little bungalow apartment and head inside to find Laney sitting on the couch, eating a bowl of Cocoa Puffs.

“’Sup girl,” she says as I walk in, a mouth full of cereal.

“Did you move yet today?”

She shrugs. “I went to the kitchen.”

“And did you write?”

“What are you, my agent?”

“No,” I say, flopping down on the chair next to her. “But you gotta sell some movies so I can work on them.”

“Working on it,” she says, taking a big mouthful of chocolate sugar. “This stuff is so good.”

“It’s just sugar, you know.”

“Oh, I know.” She grins at me. “I work from home, so who am I impressing?”

I sigh. “Your pancreas?”

“She’s good. Very strong.” She pats her stomach.

“Your pancreas is a girl?”

“Of course,” Laney says. “Every organ I have is a girl, but if I were a guy, they’d all be a dude.”

“Makes sense,” I say, nodding at her simple logic.

Laney flips the television channel and lands on one of those gossip shows. It’s a new episode, because they’re talking about some really recent drama. I’m only half paying attention as I scroll through Facebook on my phone when I suddenly hear Jackson’s name.

“That’s right,” the presenter, a chic and thin-looking brunette woman with an Italian name, “the new hunky action star Jackson Hendricks is confirmed to be dating his dreamy co-star, Holly Hart. We don’t know when this little on-set fling began, but apparently it’s hot and heavy already.”

I stare at the TV as they transition into another short bit of news about some teen actor I’ve never heard of. I keep staring at the TV, totally blown away.

“Hey, Tara, you okay?”

I blink and look over at Laney. “Yes,” I say softly.

“You look like you just saw a ghost. Seriously, you okay? Is it the Hendricks thing we just saw?”

I stare at her and I want to tell her everything, but I can’t, not now. Especially not now.

“I’m just an idiot,” I say, and get up off my chair. I quickly walk out of the room, ignoring Laney’s protests, and shut my bedroom door quietly behind me. I lock it and sit down on my bed, head in my hands.

I feel so stupid. I feel like a total idiot. I let myself get my hopes up again, and now he’s destroying them. Jackson will break me, every single time, and I can’t ever let him get close to me. I opened myself again, imagined what it could be like, and here I am, broken all over.

I feel that hollow pit in my stomach that lingered for years after Jackson left me starting to open up, threatening to swallow me whole.