“Hey Jake.” She made an attempt to brush past me. Jake pulled me next to him before she could.

“Hi, Nikki.” He was careful to keep his voice polite but uninterested. “You know Brenna. My girlfriend,” he said pointedly.

“A bunch of us are going to the shore after prom. Wanna come?” She pushed her considerable cleavage towards him. She was completely ignoring the fact that I was there.

“No thanks,” he said and started to maneuver me away. “Sorry,” he said in my ear.

And I tried to hold it together, because tonight was already great and Nikki was just a blip, and I had started everything when I broke up with Jake and threw myself into Saxon’s arms, so I had no just cause to feel what I did.

But I felt it. My entire body went shaky.

Jake noticed, grabbed my hand in his, and led me outside where there was a quaint garden, some fountains, koi-filled manmade ponds, and the requisite twinkle-light-lit gazebo.

“Are you alright?” He smoothed his hands over my arms.

I nodded and blinked back tears.

“Really?” He cupped my chin and looked into my eyes.

“It’s just skanky to think that you…had sex with her.” I said it, even though I knew it was going to tear through some of the night’s romance.

“I wish I hadn’t,” he said adamantly. He took his hands off of my face and stuck them in his pockets. “I wish you hadn’t broken up with me.”

Maybe he wasn’t blaming me, but maybe he was. I wasn’t sure, and it didn’t really matter after all.

“But it was different.” I felt like I should just stop talking about it, but I couldn’t.

“I know.” His mouth was hard. “You didn’t have sex with Saxon.”

“No.” I shook my head. “It’s different because I cared about Saxon. I wouldn’t have risked anything between you and me with someone I didn’t care about.”

“You say that like what you did is better than what I did.” His eyes were a little angry.

“I guess I think it is. I wouldn’t have done anything with Saxon unless I cared about him. I wouldn’t just jump into bed with someone I didn’t even have feelings for.”

Jake shook his head. “Do you hear what you’re saying, Bren? You cared about him. Probably care about him. Trust me, it’s easiest if I just don’t think about it too much. Sure, I had sex. And I regret it, I really do. But I can’t care about anyone else. Sex with someone you don’t care about is nothing. Literally less than nothing. But just having feelings for someone else, even if you never hold their hand, that’s something.”

It was what Saxon had told me. That even if we never acted on it, just feeling what we did was an act of cheating because I wasn’t being honest about my feelings with Jake.

Jake grabbed my hand and yanked me along the little stone path, over the bridge, up into the gazebo, away from the crowds and sat me down on one of the little benches. “What you did, it really broke my heart.” His voice was scratchy. “And I understand why you did it. And at that time, I wanted you to understand how bad you hurt me, so I hurt you the only way I could.” He ran a hand through his hair in a gesture of frustration. “I couldn’t connect with someone like you and Saxon connected. I slept with Nikki because I couldn’t open up to any other girl. I couldn’t force myself to feel anything about another girl like I feel about you. There’s only you, Brenna. I’ve been with so many girls and have never felt even a little bit of what I feel for you. So I’m sorry, but that’s the only way I had to show what I felt. I don’t expect you to completely understand.”

I did understand, as well as any virgin could. Because I had felt that lack of anything real when I had been physical with Saxon, but we hadn’t pushed it that far. We hadn’t actually had sex. Jake had. Again.

But he had been honest, and he had explained it to me the best way he knew how. So I tried to explain to him what I had done, the best way I could.

“What I felt for Saxon,” I said, then stopped. “What I feelfor Saxon is a kind of attraction, but it isn’t love, Jake. I love you. And I do care about him. He is someone who I feel connected to. But I couldn’t love him. Not even when I tried. It was always you. I never loved anyone the way I love you.”

He kissed me, and I could feel the relief like a sigh from his mouth. “I love you, Brenna.” He kissed me again. “And I’m glad we talked. But this is prom. It’s supposed to be fun. So, let’s go dance, alright?”

I followed him in because I wanted to repair the night and because he was excited and because I wanted to apologize and be apologized to. Those thoughts were all swirling around in my head, so I wasn’t thinking too much about Jake being excited to dance.

But he did dance, and I was shocked at how good he was at it. I always had a feeling he might be a little bit of a natural, but he’d said he was too nervous to try. Something in him was completely, adorably unleashed, and he danced really well.

I hadn’t danced like this since that night in Paris, and I thought for a minute about how odd it was that I was wearing the same silver heels again, this time to dance with Jake. But I didn’t think about it too much. We danced to the fast songs, Jake drawing a cheering crowd around us. He had to take off his coat and cuff up his shirtsleeves. I could feel the pins loosening from my hair and knew my professional makeup was probably a little runny, but we both kept dancing through the set, right until the first slow song. Jake didn’t miss a beat.

I was in his arms and he was dancing me around the room with ten times more style than the other awkwardly swaying couples.

“Jake!” I cried. “Where did you learn to dance like that?”

“ Si tratta di un segreto,” he said, pulling me in to kiss him.

“Italian? Dancing? What’s going on? Are you trying to seduce me?” I asked, pulling away.

“ Si, il mio amore.”He smiled. “I learned to dance from the only person I could ask, other than you.”

I shook my head, unable to fathom who he could have asked.

“I asked Saxon, Bren.” He looked at me closely.

Jake always managed to shock me, but this was way beyond. I stopped cold on the dance floor, creating a sudden traffic jam, but I didn’t care.

“What? Saxon? Why Saxon?” I felt nervous, though there was no real reason to feel that way.

“Do you remember the day I tried on my suit?” He gathered me back into his arms and moved me out of the way of the oncoming dancers.

“Yes,” I said, my voice soft. The day I wanted to tell him about his father. How could I forget it?

“And you knew about my dad. I could see it on your face.”

I stopped again, and now the other couples were starting to mutter with annoyance. It was just bad dance-floor etiquette on my part. Jake led me out of the ballroom, to the now-full gardens where our classmates were in various stages of full on grinding and face sucking. Jake led me to a more secluded section.

“I wanted to tell you,” I rushed. “I really did. But I didn’t think it was my right. It was Saxon who told me the whole thing. I didn’t know what to do about it, Jake. I’m so sorry.”

He took my hands in his and kissed my knuckles. “Don’t be sorry. I get it. I get all of it. The truth is, I’ve known for a long time.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?” I was blown away. Totally and completely at a loss. He’d known? All along?

He shrugged. “How do you talk about something you’re not even supposed to know? Plus that, who do I talk to it about? Saxon can’t handle it. My real dad bailed, my mom is dead, and my step-dad probably already feels like he got dealt a pretty shitty hand, so why rub it in, you know?”

“You could have told me,” I said, not really sure if I wanted to hear why he hadn’t told me.

“I thought about it. But when I thought about your situation, I figured you’d be the last person who I could tell about it. Once I knew about your real dad, it helped me let go.”