“Just—” I mumbled, brushing my fingers along the side of Jack’s face— “Just do it.”

And he did. The kiss was long, slow and gentle and could have been described as sweet or innocent. It could have been, except for the fact that Jack had a girlfriend. And I wasn’t her.

Rewind. I want to explain how all of this happened.

Jack and I, we’d never really been friends. We’d been in some classes and stuff together since sixth grade, but we never exactly connected. Then I was at Miranda Patterson’s birthday party in ninth grade. Miranda was, well… a party girl. I’d probably spoken to her about three times before, yet there I was, drinking Sprite on her sofa. It was my first boy-girl party, and I didn’t know what to do. My friend Lizzie was off with her little flirt-buddy, Alex, and I was just thirsty and bored. So I grabbed a soda.

Then Jack Penn walked into the room.

His hair, which was normally a plain blondish-brown color, was now a light chestnut. I hadn’t seen him all summer; maybe it was natural. His green eyes, brighter than I’d ever remembered them being, surveyed the room with delight. Of course, Penn loves to party. That’s fabulous, I remember thinking.

But then those bright green eyes found me, sitting all by myself on Miranda Patterson’s sofa.

“Hey, Elle,” he said, sitting beside me. “I didn’t know you and Miranda were friends.”

I took a sip of Sprite. “We aren’t. I don’t know anyone here except Liz and Alex, and they’re off… somewhere… doing… something…”

And that, I think, was when I fell completely head-over-flipping-heels in love with Jack Penn.

He grinned. “I only came ‘cause Hanks made me. I don’t know anyone here, either, except for him. And you, of course.”

I nodded. Jared Hanks was on the school’s baseball team. I knew that. “Sodas are over there, if you want one,” I said dumbly, not knowing how to start the conversation.

Jack jumped up to get one, and was back by my side with a root beer before I had time to plan out what to say next. “You cut your hair,” he accused.

I blushed. “Yeah. Yesterday. I didn’t think anyone would notice.”

Jack looked slightly startled for some reason or another, and took a sip of his soda. “Huh.”

“Your hair is different, too,” I told him, like he didn’t already know.

He nodded. “I think the sun did it. Either that, or someone dyed it in my sleep. I didn’t do anything to it.”

“People’s hair sometimes gets darker as they get older,” I informed him. “When I was born, I was blonde.”

Jack nodded. “Yeah. I heard that could happen.”

I sipped my soda nervously, scrambling to find something interesting to say. “Do you have Mr. Gann for bio?”

“Yeah. Can you listen to him talk? I always zone out, and, well… I don’t know.” He looked a little embarrassed. “Do you get that?”

I didn’t. Gann was just fine in my opinion. “Omigod, yeah,” I said. “He just… ah! It’s so… monotonous.”

“Wow, Eleanor, big words.”

“Oh, shut up. And don’t call me that, God. What my parents were thinking…”

“Yeah, I get what you mean. It’s kind of old-fashioned, I guess. Elle fits you better. It’s more… I don’t know.” He finished hurriedly. I could tell that it wasn’t what he was going to say at all. “So, uh, who do you sit next to in bio?”

I smiled. “Jesse Martinez,” I said.

Jack’s jaw hardened. “He’s an idiot. Don’t let him copy your papers or anything.”

“He’s not that bad,” I defended.

“You only say that because you think he’s cu-u-ute,” Jack said, imitating a girly voice on the word “cute.”

I rolled my eyes. “Doesn’t mean I like him.”

Jack looked at me out of the corner of his eye and took a sip of root beer. “Who—”

“Penn!” Jared shouted suddenly, interrupting. “Get up here!”

Jack looked at me apologetically. “Later, Elle.”

“Later, Jack,” I mumbled as he fled towards his friend.

And that was, as they say, the end of that.

Only then, it wasn’t.

Fast forward to the tenth grade school play: Dracula. I was Lucy; Jack was my fiancée, Arthur. Lucy became possessed by Dracula, you see, and then tried to take Arthur as well, but this mainly resulted in a sort of demented stage-make-out session between Jack and me. Oh, and I had to say, “You don’t think it’s too low-cut, do you?” in front of about a million people. And yes. It was too low-cut.

But me and Jack, we kind of became friends like that. We’d practice for the play together, we’d help each other out in math—Algebra two, good Lord save us all.

Then in eleventh grade, he started dating Kathy Chang. Now, honestly, I love Kathy to death, but she was a total slut. The first thing on every male’s lips when the news got out was “Fucking Lucky.” The first thing on every female’s lips was “Haha, skank. Poor Penn.”

Pause: It wasn’t as though Kathy was unpopular; she was very nice and really smart. Captain of the varsity tennis team and the debate team, and class president to boot. She slept around, for sure, but she was a genuinely cool person.

I hated her. I hated her with a passion. After everything, I still liked Jack and he still didn’t like me. He liked Kathy. I mean, it’s one thing to compete with any old girl. It’s a complete nightmare to compete with Kathy. Skinny, Asian, beautiful, smart; I had to face it that this girl was amazing. And I, well, wasn’t.

I mean, sheesh, I was pretty. I had, you know, breasts—something Kathy didn’t have, for sure. But Kathy had a whole lot more that I didn’t have—including Jack.

Fast forward some three-odd months to Miranda Patterson’s huge end-of-the-school-year party our junior year. I tagged along with Lizzie and Alex just to have something to do. Kathy, beer in hand, made a beeline for me the second I walked in. “Hey, sweetie-pie!” she said, hugging me. That was another thing about Kathy—you lost your name. Honey and sweetie-pie was all you were anymore.

“Hey, Kathy,” I said, casual as casual can pretend to be. “Where’s Jack?”

“He’s going to be late—he’s with his little baseball friends. Oh, I adore baseball boys.” Kathy’s tinkling little laugh sounded soprano-style over the hideously loud music. “I was so happy when my honey-bunches made the team. He’s been trying for so long, you know.”

I did know, I wanted to tell her. Jack and I had gone to the park countless times last July to practice using my older brother Jeffery’s equipment. “Oh, yeah. That’s cool, isn’t it? Did you watch the final game?”

“Nu-uh,” she shook her head ruefully. “I had a match. But my sweetheart told me all about how he, you know. Pitched.”

I refrained from rolling my eyes. Jack had actually struck out every player for the first five innings. The last few innings were a bit dodgy, because the umpire broke his own glasses and couldn’t see straight. Of course, our team still won. “Yeah,” I said slowly. “Hey, is there anything around her to drink? Not like, drink drink,” I clarified. “Just, you know. A soda or something?”

“Sodas are over there,” Kathy pointed, rocking her tiny little body in time with the music, her beer sloshing out of its bottle. “Make sure you take a can, though. The bottles are uber-spiked.”

I grabbed a Sprite, my ritual drink at Miranda Patterson’s parties. I sat once again on that old sofa in the back of the room, away from the freak-dancing and the making-out. I sipped my soda, trying to remember why I’d come. And then someone sat down next to me. “Hello, Elle,” Jared Hanks said, his voice holding the tone of alcohol. I could smell it all over him, and he put his arm up on the couch back behind me. “How goes it?”

“It’s uh, alright, Jared. It’s great.”

“You know he wants you, El’nor.”

“What?” I coughed, having choked on my Sprite.

“Penn. Penn wants you bad.”

“What are you talking about? He’s with Kathy, Hanks, you idiot. He doesn’t want me. If he did, he wouldn’t be with his beautifully gorgeous girlfriend, now would he?”

“Kath’s aight,” Jared murmured, taking a sip from on of the bottles he held. “She’s great, really. Love the girl to death, I do. But she doesn’t care ‘bout him. You do, though, Ellie. You care ‘bout Jack, right? You guys were like besties when it came down to it.”

I surveyed him tiredly. “Jared, you’re drunk.”

“’M not that drunk, Ellie, it just messes with my eloquence. ‘M thinkin’ just fine. And d’you know what I’m thinkin’? I’m thinkin’ you should tell him, then. Right Delquino?” Jared nodded toward Jesus Delquino, the catcher on the school’s baseball team.

Jesus nodded, looking at me. “He’s too involved with this Chang chica. It’s not too good for him. She’s just all like, sex and drinking, you know, but Jackie, man, he’s a good kid. He, you know… he deserves better. Like you, Elle.”

I looked between the two boys, hoping my expression could convey how incredibly insane I thought they both were. “Even if I liked Jack, even if I was better for him than Kathy, why would he want me?”

Jesus sat on my other side. “It’s like this, though. I mean, we were out, you know, drinkin’ and stuff, and then Hanks is all like, ‘Penn, whaddya think about me dating Eleanor Gleason?’ And Penn, he gets real mad, saying shit like how Hanks is a fucked-up drunk and how you deserve better like hella. So I’m just all, you know, sitting there like, dude. So I ask him, I say, ‘Penn, you got a girlfriend. Whatchoo scammin’ on pretty little mamas like Elle Gleason for?’”

“And then Penn’s all, ‘Elle, she don’t want me. She wants more. She’s gotta want more.’ And other shit like that.” Jared sipped the other bottle. “It’s like he thinks you’re too good for him.”

“And Kathy’s not? She’s amazing.” I bit my lip

“Yeah.” Jared got real quiet. “Look. Penn’s upstairs hiding from Kathy. Go find him, an’ tell him, Elle.”

“Tell him what?”

“That you love him,” Jesus supplied, his tan face breaking into a smirk.

“But I don’t—”

“Yes, you do, babe,” Jared patted my shoulder drunkenly. “Now tell him.”

I set my Sprite down on the arm of the sofa and headed toward the stairs, carefully avoiding Kathy and her friends freak-dancing below. I knocked on a few doors and received no response. Sex had not always been a factor of Miranda Patterson’s parties, but it sure was now. At the last door I knocked on, I heard the light switch flip down. “Jack?” I asked.

A voice from inside said, “What is it, Elle?”

“Your friends sent me up here. I need to talk to you.”

The door opened slowly, and I saw Jack standing there, looking tired. “Come on in.”

He shut the door behind me, and I sat down on the floor next to his can of root beer. “No alcohol?” I asked, surprised.

“I had a lot already. No sense in death by choking on my own puke.” We laughed a bit, and he sat beside me. “What did you need to talk to me about?”

“Oh. Well. Um. Why aren’t you with Kathy now?” I started off with.

Jack shrugged. “I just… she’s not…” You. I willed him to say it, but he didn’t. Instead, he said, “I don’t want what she does. We’re too different.”

Two smart, sweet, athletic, good-looking people are too different? Well, I couldn’t see that happening. But Jack apparently could. “Have you broken up with her?”

I could tell he was going to say no by the shameful look upon his features. “No,” he did say. There was no but I’m going to. There ought to have been, I think.

“Do you love her, Jack?”

“No,” he repeated.

“You like her, then.”

“She’s a great girl. But I don’t think I actually do, Elle.”

“Why not?”

He looked up at me, his green eyes looking anxious. “I might like someone else.”

“Well, fine.” I said, about to stand. “But I’m not going to sit here with you and just wait for your girlfriend to find us alone in a bedroom together. No matter what we are anymore, friends or not, I can’t do that. You can’t do that. I don’t know why I came up here, why I came to this stupid party in the first place.”

“Because you wanted to see me,” Jack said. Not arrogantly, though. Just honestly, simply, as though stating a well-known fact.

“I—”

“It’s alright, Elle. I only came to see you, too.” He leaned back against the end of the bed and motioned for me to do the same. “How long?” he asked abruptly.

“How long what?”

“How long have you known that I like you?”

I couldn’t breathe. Or maybe I just wouldn’t. Either way, I just stared at him. “About five minutes ago,” I finally managed to choke out.

“Oh.” He frowned. “Five minutes to four years. My friends sure can keep a secret.”

“You…” He’d liked me for four years? I’d only liked him for three. I’d only really known him for three. What the hell was going on here? “Are you drunk?”

“Not really,” he said, shrugging. “I just thought you should know, you know?”

“I know,” I conceded. “I… I like you, too, you know. A lot. Ever since Miranda’s first party, in ninth grade.”

“I remember that. I was mad because you’d cut your hair. I loved your hair.” He touched it, then, his fingers slowly moving towards the ends of it, falling long, just past my breasts. “I wanted to stay and hang out with you, you know.”

“Then why did you leave?”

“I didn’t want you to know that I wanted to stay and hang out with you,” he answered promptly. “I wanted to kiss you.”

“You should have done it.”

“I didn’t want you to be mad at me.”

“I wouldn’t’ve been. I would’ve kissed you back.”

“I still want to kiss you.”

“You shouldn’t.”

“But I do. Don’t you want me to?”

“Of course I want you to.”

“Then tell me what to do, Ellie.”

“I don’t know what to do.”

“I do. Tell me Nike’s slogan, Ellie.”

“Just—” I mumbled, brushing my fingers along the side of Jack’s face—“Just do it.”

And, as you all know, he did it.

I pull away. “Jack, we… I mean, Kathy…”

“Don’t think about Kathy,” he says gently, holding my face in his warm hands. “Just think about this, us.”

And he “just does it” again. And again. And so many more times I lose count. Then the door bursts open. “Jack!” a female voice shouts.

I pull away from him and dive under the bed before whoever it is can see me. “Yeah?”

“Kathy—she’s downstairs… making out with Jared Hanks.”

I almost gasp. Jack jumps up and follows the girl, whose voice I now recognize as Robin Laurent’s. I follow them down the stairs and towards my favorite sofa, where a tiny Asian girl is fervently kissing a muscular blond boy. “What are you doing?” Jack asks calmly.

The music stops; the room goes silent. All eyes are on Kathy, who has detached herself from Jared. “I’m sorry, sweetie,” she says. “It’s how it’s meant to be. We haven’t liked each other for a while, now, Jack. We were just going through the motions and you know it. It’s always been Jared for me, hasn’t it, honey?” she pleads with Jack. “Just like it’s always been Elle for you.”

Jack doesn’t say anything. People have started to look at me, now, murmuring things like, “Jack and Elle? Elle and Jack? I saw that coming, didn’t you?”

I swallow nervously, waiting for something to happen. “You’re right, of course,” Jack says finally, smiling lightly at Kathy. “So, then… friends?”

She jumps up and hugs him, her arms barely circling his waist. He pats her shoulder and they release, Kathy going back to Jared and Jack coming back to me. “I suppose you’re going to want some time to collect yourself,” I say. “Breakups, they’re nasty business and all. I’ll just be over here if you—”

“Ellie,” he says, pulling me to him, his hands on my waist. “Just do it.”

And so I do. And it’s just as wonderful as the first time. And the time after that.