By the time she’d turned thirteen, Jazz had become a firm believer in both secrets and love—and especially in the point where the two of them intersected.

She’d always cared for her best friend and couldn’t be sure of the exact point in time in which caring turned into crushing. But she first recognized the funny feeling that zipped around her heart and settled in her stomach whenever she looked at Nathan about a week ago.

It was a Sunday, and she’d just returned from early service with her mother. When she entered her bedroom, she glanced over toward Nathan’s window that sat slightly lower than her own across the skinny strip of yard dividing their two Nassau County homes. It was an instinct, something she did without thinking.

Catching sight of Nathan always gave her comfort. Until that particular Sunday when she accidentally spied Nathan coming into his room after a shower. He wore a towel slung low across his waist, leaving the rest of his lean body exposed.

And Jazz couldn’t look away. Did he know she could see him? Was he hoping that she did?

It hadn’t been such a long time since they had innocently played house, he as the daddy and her as the mommy. She’d kissed him on the lips many times as part of their play, but it had meant nothing then.

Now that they were both in eighth grade, Jazz played a different kind of make-believe. She imagined what it would be like to feel Nathan’s lips on her own once again, what it would be like to sneak out of her room at dark and spend the night wrapped in his arms. Mostly, she wondered whether Nathan felt the same way she now did. And why it had taken her so long to realize her very own Prince Charming lived right next door.

It had taken eight years, to be precise.

They’d met when she was five and he was six. Jazz’s family had just moved to the neighborhood, having relocated from their dingy apartment in Queens. Nathan’s family had been there for generations and would continue to live in that old-fashioned Long Island colonial for many more generations to come.

Nathan said his parents fought about this frequently. His dad wanted to move out to Massapequa, said they could afford to move, said he’d earned a better zip code. But Nathan’s mom insisted on staying close to her Italian-American family, said that without family, they had nothing. Besides, he worked so much, he was hardly ever in the house anyway, so what did he care?

Nathan wished his parents would stop fighting. Jazz hoped that she and Nathan would live next door to each other for the rest of their lives. He was all she had other than her mom, but those two were also all she needed.

Five years had passed since her father stomped out of the house in a fury, never to return. And even though she and her mom had less money now, they were happier, too.

After seeing Nathan in that towel, Jazz spent the week thinking about love and what it meant. Her parents had said they loved each other, but their love hadn’t been the forever kind. Not even close, but she and Nathan would be different. She had no doubt.

Her heart fluttered when Nathan’s window opened and his handsome half All American, half Italian stallion features beamed out at her like a beacon calling her home.

She and Nathan knew each other inside out. They knew each other at their bests and at their worsts. Jazz expected—and he probably did, though wouldn’t admit it—that one day they would fall in love. Why couldn’t that day be this day?

“Hey, Jazz.” A sly smile quirked its way across his lips, and tingles filled her tummy. This was her chance. Maybe he was going to ask her to their year-end dance, or maybe she could ask him. There was no reason they should…

“Hey, Nate. I was just wondering, if—”

A second head emerged through the window. This one had tight, dark curls and bright red lips. Jazz’s heart dropped straight into her stomach, where gurgling acid would it eat alive.

Nathan kissed the girl on her cheek. “You know Angela, right?”

“Sure. Hi, Angela.” Jazz tried so hard not to frown, but judging by the look on the other girl’s face, she hadn’t succeeded.

Angela pouted her lips. “We were just wondering if you wanted to come to the dance with us.” She spoke with a slight accent that felt like it may have been faked. "You do have a date, right?”

Nathan smiled big enough for all three of them. “Yeah, Jazz. We could go double. It would be fun.”

“Uhh, yeah, okay. I’m going with…” She wracked her brain for a name, any name. “Tony. Tony Evans.”

“Ooh, you two will be so cute together,” Angela gushed.

“Yeah, you two are cute together, too,” Jazz said, even though the words made her want to vomit. First she’d devoured her own heart, then she’d spit it back up. No wonder Nathan would rather date pretty, perfect Angela than her.

“Aren’t we just?” Angela cooed, giving Nathan a kiss so forceful, a smudge of red lipstick marred his cheek.

“Well, we better be going,” Nathan said almost apologetically. “We’ve got lots of studying to do.”

“Sure, studying.” Angela giggled and then shut the window, leaving the blinds conspicuously open as if to taunt her victory in Jazz’s face.

Could Angela tell that Jazz liked Nathan more than a friend—and, more importantly, would she tell? As Jazz pictured the two of them laughing and gossiping about her pathetic crush, anger roiled in her stomach. Nathan would never do that to her, but he might also never return her interest.

Oh, what a hopeless situation.

Especially because she’d only ever pictured going to the dance with Nathan. Going with Tony would hardly be any better than staying at home, but then again, nothing would be worse than admitting she didn’t have a date to that smug, best friend stealing Angela.

She reluctantly picked up the phone and dialed Tony.

“Thought you’d be going with Reed,” he said when she mentioned the dance. She decided not to mention that she’d thought so as well.

“Would you go with me?” she asked, having to force each word out. Tony was so not her type, but at least she knew he would probably say yes.

“Yeah, of course. Meet you there?”

“Sure, Tony.” She had a date, but that didn’t make her feel any better. Sure, she would save face, but she still wished things could be different. “See you there.”

The night of the dance, Nathan and Angela danced so close that Jazz couldn’t have fit a toothpick between them if she’d tried. The school chaperones broke them apart several times before they disappeared behind the bleachers to do God knows what.

God knew, but Jazz didn’t.

And Tony had even less of a clue than she did. “You’re so beautiful,” he said, pulling her tighter into his arms. “I was so excited when you asked me out, to find out you liked me, too.”

Jazz forced a smile. Had Tony not seen her watching Nathan the entire night? Had she somehow sent him mixed signals? Guilt tugged at her heart. Now she was doing to Tony what Nathan was unwittingly doing to her. What a horrible merry-go-round of torture.

Before she had the chance to apologize or explain herself, Tony dropped his head and kissed her on the lips. It was wet and sloppy and completely gross.

Jazz’s first kiss.

And it was not with Nathan as she’d hoped. This was one first she could never get back, and she hated herself for that.