Beth

Beth blushed as she felt her swollen lips. Thankfully, she skittered across her front porch undetected. She was out after curfew, which was ten on school nights. Eleven on the weekends. Beth was the only high school senior she knew with a curfew, but as she recalled the desperate way Jared had kissed her just now, she knew she’d break curfew a million times over to do that again.

Jared had a way of leaving her feeling breathless and lighter than air all at once—like she could actually float away if she didn’t cling to him while they kissed. Beth knew she was being a total girl, but she couldn’t help it. She’d always been a hopeless romantic. Her life long dream was to be an actress, so how could she not be starry-eyed when it came to her boyfriend? Jared was basically her white knight. Sure, he rolled in on a moving truck instead of a horse, but everything else felt like a fairytale.

Sometimes Beth still had to pinch herself when she looked at him. Jared was by far the most gorgeous boy she’d ever met in real life. He was like a teenaged Brad Pitt with sandy brown hair and lacrosse gear. And when Jared smiled at her, Beth literally felt dizzy. She couldn’t help it, the boy was swoon-worthy.

The only bad thing about dating Jared was Beth didn’t feel like she had anyone she could talk to about him. She had Caroline, but she wasn’t the gushy romantic type. And boys were the one subject Beth couldn’t talk to Parker about. For once, she wished one of her annoying sisters were around to confide in, because Beth was pretty sure she was falling for Jared. She’d never felt this way before—it was terrifying.

Beth snuck up to her room and quickly washed up for bed. She glanced out her bedroom window to Parker’s house. All the lights were off. Huh . . . She could’ve sworn she’d seen his star lights on when she and Jared pulled up. Perhaps it was wishful thinking? Either way, first love wasn’t something Beth could talk to Parker about. Deep down, she’d always thought he would be her first love and now it felt like a betrayal to tell him her heart was connecting with someone else.

She stared out the window for a moment longer, wondering not for the first time, why she and Parker had never become more than just friends. It’s not that they hadn’t had opportunities. There’d been plenty. But Parker never made his move. And maybe Beth was old-fashioned but she was never going to act first. There was too much at risk.

Beth let her thoughts muddle around her head a bit longer, annoyed that they kept coming back to Parker’s comment from last summer. ‘There’s only one girl for me.’

Why couldn’t Beth get that out of her head? She’d wasted too much time wondering who that mystery girl was. And what did it mean that she was still having thoughts like this about Parker while falling for Jared? Could she possibly love them both?

Frustrated, Beth climbed in bed. She was too wound up to sleep so she scrolled through her phone, wondering which of her sisters would be the best to call. Her oldest sisters Bianca and Britton were sweet but they were ten and seven years older than Beth. They probably didn’t even remember what it felt like the first time they fell in love. And then there was Brianne, who was always Beth’s favorite sister, but she lived in Scotland and the time difference made it impossible to ever get in touch. Beatrice might be a good one to call. She was probably the most like Beth—conservative and sensible. She was only three years older and visited often. Plus, she’d actually met Jared at Christmas and could weigh in with her impression of him.

Beth glanced at the phone and sighed. It was way too late to call Beatrice. She had four kids under the age of three. If Beth woke them up she knew Beatrice would kill her. Beatrice lived in Boston and visited a lot after she had the twins. Two kids she could handle, but the unexpected twins seemed to overwhelm her. Beth couldn’t blame her. Beatrice was definitely outnumbered by her mini army of diaper-clad towheads. Luckily, Beth and her mother loved babysitting whenever they could.

With all of Beth’s other sisters not being viable options, that only left Brenna. Beth shuddered. There was no way she could talk to Brenna about this. Especially after the way Brenna behaved when she found out Beth had a crush on Parker.

Brenna was only a year older than Beth and the two of them fought over everything growing up. One day Brenna caught Beth writing about Parker in her diary. Brenna snatched it and threatened to tell Parker what she wrote. Beth had run crying hysterically to her mother about the diary stunt and Brenna got grounded. But that didn’t stop her from marching right up to Parker the next day and kissing him right on the lips!

No, Brenna could definitely not be trusted when it came to boys. Her parents would agree. Brenna was the worst of all the Bennett girls when it came to boys. Or when it came to anything really. She’d single-handedly given their father gray hair when she came home with her own hair dyed red and a piercing through her eyebrow on her fourteenth birthday.

Brenna had been the only Bennett sister born with strawberry blonde hair. The rest of them were all blonde and that led to lots to teasing by the older sisters, saying that Brenna was the milk man’s daughter and got her fiery temper from her hair color. Brenna, being Brenna, decided to embrace the taunt and dyed her hair fire engine red. She also got lots of tattoos and piercings and a few years later, ran off with some motorcycle artist before graduating high school. Then, to top it off, she got pregnant, the motorcycle guy left her and she now lived in Georgia, single-parenting a toddler while her parents foot the bill. Long story short, Brenna was the reason Beth had to live under such harsh rules.

If it weren’t for crazy Brenna, maybe Beth wouldn’t have been in this awkward situation. She could’ve dated like a normal high school girl and gone to proms and gained the experience she needed to deal with all these confusing boyfriend feelings. Beth couldn’t help thinking if she’d dated more than one boy in her life she’d know the difference between love and attraction. But as it was, Beth was just impressed that someone as popular as Jared wanted to be her boyfriend after finding out she was so inexperienced.

Beth actually thought their fling would end when summer did. But Jared had been surprisingly eager to introduce Beth to everyone as his girlfriend the first day of school. It was true that he didn’t have as much time for her these days now that lacrosse was in full swing. He hadn’t gone to any of her theater performances and he didn’t share her love of black and white movies or Broadway music . . . but couples didn’t have to do everything together, did they?

That’s what friends were for. And Beth had the best friend in the world. Parker went to all her plays, he never missed a Sunday Night Classic at the Vestige, and he listened to her Broadway soundtracks without complaint.

Beth sighed, realizing how bad it sounded when she thought of it that way. But just because she and Jared were into different things didn’t mean they wouldn’t work out, or that their feelings weren’t real. Variety was the spice of life, and opposites attract. Maybe it was good that they had different interests?

Beth wished she had the answers, because her questions felt really important. She always imagined the first time she had sex it would be because she was madly in love and she wouldn’t be able to stop her desire to share every bit of herself with that person. But with Jared she just wasn’t sure. Everything was so new and exciting with him. But was that love?

Beth looked longingly at Parker’s window one last time. The lights were still out. Sometimes she felt like they had a sixth sense for each other and that if she stared at his window long enough the light would come on. She knew it was a childish thought, but still, she stared at his window for a moment longer before flopping onto her side and trying to sleep.