I think of all the what-ifs that had plagued me over the last year. What if Jake hadn’t left me? What could I have done differently? Would I be leaving still to take this job at the law firm in Albuquerque? Is life a pre-destined event? Do certain decisions and events change the course of things?

I don’t have any answers. I guess I’m just afraid.

Jake Wharton was my high school sweetheart. Our families knew each other even though he was clearly from a different part of town, the bad part, though that isn’t something I’d ever say out loud.

My mom and dad are prominent in our small community. My dad had been on the Mayor’s Council when I was growing up, and he’s a professor of political science at the community college. My mom is a nurse in the newborn nursery at the local hospital.

Jake’s family is a little more homegrown. His mom is a single parent, and she works as a lunch lady at the junior high cafeteria. Jake's mom has always been nice enough— Geraldine is her name. She used to sneak the tough girls single cigarettes and watch as they went out to the loading dock to share a Marlboro Red. But I was way too proper in junior high to get caught up in that.

Jake is the youngest of three kids. His two brothers were in jail for drugs or something. It was always a sore subject that no one talked about. But he was different, so sweet and cute, although he was very much a nerd in junior high. It didn’t matter though, since I wasn’t even considering boys at that time.

Something happened just as he got to high school. Something changed. His freshman year, he started to get taller. I did notice that, and I saw that he had started to fill out. He kind of looked like a cross between Harry Potter and Harry Styles, but cuter— and probably taller— and he was still sort of on the skinny side.

Then one day, when I was celebrating my birthday with ice cream and cake at Grecco’s, Martha walked up to me when I was picking a flavor at the counter— I think it was butter praline— and she turned to Jake who was also there and said, “Carolina, have you met this fine young man, Jake Wharton? He works at the skate shop across the street, and he is such a sweet kid. He sweeps up for me at night.”

Jake turned eight shades of red. We each mumbled “hi,” and he walked away. And that was our infamous introduction.

Still, throughout the years, he would always say “hi” to me and hold doors for me, which I thought was so adorable. The truth is, I was kind of full of myself. By that time, I had become pretty popular, and the guys were lining up. I probably wouldn’t have noticed Jake if he had laid down in front of me.

I liked the bad boys, and one in particular— Taylor Hecht. He was dark, like super dark. He looked like an extremely mean but sexier version of James Dean. Funny enough, I’d had a poster of James Dean on my wall in fifth grade, and I’d swear on a Bible they were related in some way.

Taylor smoked filter-less cigarettes and drank Jack Daniels right out of a flask on the front steps of school, and not one teacher said a word. One of the reasons, I always assumed, was that his dad was the most respected judge in the county. Looking back, he was probably having sex with every teacher in school, including the male ones.

Still, I was so in love with him. I could not care less where his dick had been, as long as I was his main girl. And I was, for a while. The girls on the water polo team absolutely hated me for it.

Why water polo? Well, those girls were the only jocks who were not only pretty—  like cheerleader pretty— but they had the added element of being considered bad girls. All of them were stoners, and every one of them was blonde. They were creepily similar, but the guys didn’t seem to mind. They knew they could get laid easily if they attended a water polo party.

Jessie Smith almost took me out once during cheer practice on the track field. I was coordinating a pyramid when she stormed over. Apparently, she had realized I was dating Taylor. She was big too— like a foot taller than me. Suddenly, I was looking at her nose as she confronted me, right up in my face. My teammates jumped back in a panic.

“Hey, Carolina, why are you such a slut? Taylor and I have been dating for a year. You freaking know that. Is it too hard for you to keep your legs closed? Yeah, that must be it. I hear your dad is thinking about sending you out of the country before you bring home an STD and shame the Abbott family name.”

Suddenly, as if a guardian angel had coordinated the timing, Taylor walked up in the middle of the scuffle, pulled me in close to his body, and started making out with me. Then he said to her while leaving me breathless, “Hey, Jessie, is there a problem?”

She stormed away, and I was so wet I thought for sure everyone on the cheer team could tell.

Jake happened to be coming out of the locker room and saw the embrace. He looked sad. All of a sudden, I started to see him differently, but I wasn’t quite over Taylor yet, even though I knew Jessie had been telling the truth— Taylor had been playing the field and dating both of us at the same time.

I wasn’t ready to grow up yet. I still wanted to be with the bad boy even though I knew we were going nowhere, fast.