First Loves: A Collection of Three YA Novels

by Jolene Perry

  “Because you’re still pining over Sarah and planning ways to make points to kiss me. It’s gonna get confusing.” Her mouth pulls down.

  “I realized this afternoon that you’re easy to be around.” Shove it out Jay. “I like being honest.”

  “No you don’t.” She shifts her weight to one leg. “It makes you uncomfortable.”

  “You can like things that make you uncomfortable,” I point out. “Besides, it’s probably good for me.”

  We stand in silence, her looking up at me. “Okay. See you Friday.” She starts up the steps to her door.

  I follow. “Two days.”

  “You’re counting. That’s sweet.” She turns and rests her back against the door.

  Now it’s me holding my lips together to keep in my smile. It probably doesn’t do a good job of hiding my embarrassment over the fact that I’m counting days.

  “Don’t be embarrassed. I’m glad you’re looking forward to it. So am I.”

  Then she’s gone. Disappeared into her house. And I’m still standing on her porch not having the faintest idea what to do with myself.

  SEVEN

  On Thursday Mom is still closing cupboards with too much force. We’re going on nearly five days. She’s up early, and I’m just about to take off for school.

  “Everything okay?” I ask. Even though part of me knows this is a little different and that things probably aren’t okay. I don’t know why I think this, but I can’t shake it.

  “Oh, yeah.” Her smile is faint. “Have a good day.”

  “I will.” Maybe I should give her a head’s up for Friday. “I’m taking Sky out on Friday. Is that a problem?”

  Mom’s smile turns more genuine then. “Not at all. You should talk to your dad about using his car.”

  “Do you think he’d let me?” It sounds partially like fun to drive the Porsche and partially like I’d just be trying too hard to show off or something. But I really love driving his car, so maybe I don’t care.

  “I don’t know why you think I’d know what your father will or will not let you do.” It comes out in a snap. She turns and starts emptying the fridge of its contents.

  Yep. Things definitely aren’t good. I wonder how much longer it’ll be before they’re back on track. Waking up to cupboards slamming is grating.

  “I gotta run.” I start for the door again.

  “I hope you two have fun. She seems like a cool girl.”

  I hold in the ridiculous grin I feel spreading. “She is.” I half jump out the door and then I let myself smile. She is a way cool girl and I don’t know how I’m going to keep up with her for a whole night. But it’ll be fun to try.

  - - -

  So, as much as I’d like to think I’m moving on after a whole six days to get used to the idea… I’m not. I mean, I’m moving on, but the only time I’ve seen Sarah without Eric is when they’re separated by classes.

  “How are things?” I ask her. We’ve sat next to each other for third period English the whole year.

  “Good. You?” She opens her book and flips through the pages.

  “Good.” What do we have to talk about? I don’t want to talk about Eric.

  “How’s your new friend?” Sarah pulls out our assignment from yesterday and looks it over.

  “Sky?” I’m confused.

  “Yes. Sky.” She finally looks at me, her eyes wide. I’m having a hard time reading her expression. Probably because I’m trying too hard.

  “You okay?” I ask.

  She smiles a little. “Yeah. Sorry, I was just surprised because you’ve never mentioned her and we hang out.”

  “I met her on Friday after the dance. I gave her a ride home. She lives across from me.”

  “Oh.” Sarah relaxes in her seat.

  “Is that it?” I whisper. Why do I care if people hear what Sarah and I are talking about? What else would there be?

  “I just didn’t know if… I thought maybe you were dating and hadn’t told me. That’s all.” She fingers the edge of her paper and her eyes have dropped back to her desk.

  “No.” I smile. Maybe Sky’s right. Maybe Sarah does like me. “I’m taking her out on Friday, though.”

  “Oh.” Sarah’s head snaps up.

  “What’s with you? You’re acting all strange,” I say.

  She’s shifting in her seat and not looking at me.

  “You’re being so direct. I guess I’m not used to that from you.” Her bright blue eyes meet mine.

  “Sorry. I didn’t realize.” Guess it’s contagious.

  “Maybe. If you want, we could double?” Her voice finally has a hint of the excited tinges I’m used to from her.

  I really don’t think that’s a good idea, but how do I tell her? Maybe I’ll go for non-committal. “Yeah, maybe sometime.” But the two girls together in my driveway is enough for me.

  “Let’s set it up.” She turns toward me.

  So, this is why she wanted to know if I was dating Sky. So she could set us all up for some cozy adventure. I’m sure it’ll bring me more than one heart attack worthy moment that Sky will give me no end of grief over. But not Sarah. She won’t give me grief, because Sarah and I aren’t real with one another the way we should be. I don’t know how I never saw it before. How that one act of me not telling her how I feel, somehow allowed us both to keep things from each other. Or maybe that’s how most people interact, and Sky and I are different?

  “Why don’t we just see if she still wants to hang out with me after Friday.” I chuckle and pull the assignment from my book.

  Sarah looks relieved again.

  “Sarah.” I lean over.

  Our teacher stands up to start class.

  “What?” she whispers.

  “You know you can tell me stuff, right? We can be honest with each other?” I guess what I’m really asking is, Are we still friends? But I can’t ask that. It would hurt her feelings.

  “You’re being weird today, Jamesy.” Her face turns into the cute Sarah version of a scowl.

  I sit back into my seat and will the next couple of days to pass more quickly. I need it to be Friday.

  - - -

  I have an apple, peanut butter, and two huge rolls for lunch. I don’t know why this matters, but I’m suddenly paying attention to the small details since I’m not sharing lunch with Sarah.

  I wish Eric and his fake blond hair would take his hands off her, for just one second. He’s eating his burger with one hand so the other one can wrap around her back. It’s like holding her hand isn’t enough. Or just sitting next to her isn’t enough.

  But I have to admit if Sky were here, I’d be trying to do the same. How is it possible for me to watch Sarah and wish I was Eric, while I’m also wishing for the same thing with Sky?

  The problem is that I really can’t compare the two and as much as I felt like I’d suffocate a week ago when I watched Sarah and Eric kiss, it’s better. Not healed. Not perfect. But less.

  “What’cha spacing out on?” Matt sits across from me. Matt looks like the stereotypical football jock. He’s my height but probably twice as broad.

  “Hey, man.”

  “You swimming after school today?” he asks.

  “Like every day.” I nod.

  “I saw you and Kaylee talking the other day.” He shifts in his seat a few times and clasps his hands in front of him.

  I think back. Right. Monday morning. Meeting. “Yep.”

  “Are you two…” he trails off hoping I’ll finish his thought because somehow it’s too embarrassing? Is that it?

  “Just ask, Matt. And no, we’re not.” I wonder if there’s anything else.

  “Do you think she’d go out with me?” He scratches the side of his head and his eyes dart from me to something behind me.

  I turn around to see the back of Kaylee’s head. “You’d have to ask Kaylee.”

  “Could you put out feelers maybe?” His eyebrows are bushy, and for whatever reason, it’s making me crazy. “You�
��re like, one of those good, sensitive guys, right?”

  Has high school always been this juvenile? “Matt. You know what girls like?”

  “Do you?” He chuckles and rests his arms on the table between us.

  “I spent last Friday night in my pool with a college girl who was wearing nothing but a tank top and panties.” Crap. That shouldn’t have come out.

  “Holee shit, man!” He raises his hand for a high-five over the table.

  I shake my head. “Matt. Go talk to Kaylee. Tell her you like her or that you think she’s pretty, and then see if she wants to watch a movie with you or something.”

  “No way.” He shakes his head.

  “Then I’m not putting out feelers because if you don’t like her enough to ask, you don’t like her enough to go out with her.” I choke on my words at the end. My gaze shifts to Sarah. How would it not after saying something like that? For three years… Was she not important enough? Eric gives her a squeeze, and her big blue eyes look up at him. Will this become normal? Her underneath his arm? Will it stop hurting?

  And I know I’ll need to apologize to Sky for saying something about her wearing her panties in my pool. I also know I’m about to go crazy with two girls floating around in my head.

  “Dude, Jameson. Who pissed in your Cocoa Puffs this morning?” He stands up, chuckling.

  “Sorry.” I stick my finger in the small cup of peanut butter to get out the last drops. It’s the only protein I have today and I’m gonna need the energy for the amount of laps I’ll need to do to get my head on straight.

  - - -

  Dad’s hunched over, resting an arm on the counter, when I come in the front door. He’s standing over the stove and a pot of boiling water wearing his recovering-from-work clothes—sweatpants that need to be thrown away and an old T-shirt from a trip to Mexico. His short curly hair is stuck up on one side and my guess is that he just rolled out of bed.

  “You swim today?” he asks.

  “I swim everyday.” I slide my pack down and set it next to the kitchen table.

  “Almost.” He drops the contents of a mac and cheese box into the water.

  “Okay, almost.” I’m still staring.

  He seems more tired than normal. This does not bode well. As of this morning Mom was still slamming cupboards and Dad looks very distracted.

  “Your mom said there was something you wanted to ask me?” Dad’s half-Mexican, but grew up in a Mexican household. His accent is still there, even though it’s subtle. I only know a few phrases in Spanish. Enough to find a bathroom, a bus, order a few meals, and some phrases that would put me on the receiving end of a smack from my mother—if she knew Spanish.

  “Oh.” The car. “Nah. I’m taking a girl out this Friday and was going to ask for the Porsche, but I think that would put the expectations way too high.” I chuckle.

  “Sarah?” An eyebrow goes up.

  It’s kind of a shock that he doesn’t know about Sarah and I. Has it been that long since I’ve seen him? Instead of going into the whole story I say, “No. Someone else.”

  “Oh.” Dad stirs his pot of mac and cheese. “Is that a good thing?”

  What a loaded question. But then I think of Sky, our brutal honesty, and her long legs. “It’s a good thing.”

  Dad shakes his head. “Watch it. I recognize that look.” He points at me and his face relaxes into the smile I’m used to seeing from him.

  “What look is that?” And as soon as I say it, I realize I should have kept my mouth shut.

  “The look that tells me I need to remind you to use a condom, every time, no matter what.” He’s pointing at me with a wooden spoon as he stands over his pot on the stove. All he’s missing is an apron, and I could laugh.

  “Thanks, Dad.” I’m trying hard not to let my embarrassment show. He’s guessing that I’ve never done it before. Mom knows I haven’t, but for some reason I’m afraid to admit that to Dad.

  Friday doesn’t feel like our first date. On our first date she was wearing her black panties in my pool and I really, really need to stop thinking about that because it’s bound to come out of my mouth at another inopportune time.

  He laughs. “Can never be too careful.”

  And even though I think I shouldn’t ask. “Where’s Mom?”

  He turns toward the sink. “At work.”

  “Really?”

  “It’s not that unusual for your mom to work a Thursday night.” He sighs, his shoulders slump, and he turns back to the stove, smile gone.

  There’s something I’m not being told, but I don’t want to know because I don’t want more to think about. There’s too much in my head already. The problem is I know how Dad begged Mom to change her work schedule so they’d be on at the same time. So far this week, they’ve been opposite. And the last time they were in the same room, I heard them arguing.

  That sucks.

  “Got homework.” And I need to get out of this room before I can’t breathe anymore. Crap, I’m hungry. I grab another small peanut butter package and a box of crackers to take to my room.

  “If you decide you want the car, you’re welcome to it.”

  “Thanks.”

  Right now I need to get my homework done and make sure I have enough planned for my date tomorrow night. I really don’t want to let her down. And I’d rather think about that than anything else.

  EIGHT

  At ten to six I’m standing in her driveway wearing my most expensive jeans, a button up shirt with sleeves rolled up, and tennis shoes. I’m early, but don’t care. I knock.

  She opens the door two seconds later, making me hope she’s as anxious as me, and then she seriously takes my breath away. Her hair is down, long and straight like always, but it looks like liquid, like something I want to run my fingers through and bury my face in. Her eyes are glowing and her top is almost non-existent. She’s in another tiny skirt and shoes that are almost the same as mine. Her necklace is thick with tiny beads in intricate patterns, covering most of her collarbone.

  “Wow.” It just comes out.

  “Thanks.” Her smile fills her face.

  “Happy Birthday.”

  “Thank you.” She steps outside.

  I reach out and touch the necklace. It’s broad and has a white background with black designs and red along the edges. Normally I wouldn’t notice stuff like that. “This is incredible.”

  “From my mom, and you’re using it as an excuse to touch me.” She smirks.

  “Maybe,” I agree. “You look… I mean, you’ve pretty much answered one of my two things.” I’m going to have to find a way to not stare at her like this all night. I’m just not exactly sure how to go about it.

  “Two things?” She grabs a bag from the floor by the door and follows me outside.

  “We’re still doing the honesty thing, right?” I can’t believe how normal and relaxed I sound standing next to someone like her.

  “Always.” Her eyes meet mine.

  “Okay. First I need to apologize.” I want to get this out of the way.

  “For?”

  “I told a guy at my school that I had a college-girl in her panties in my pool on Friday night.” We’re walking up her driveway together.

  “You did have a college girl in her panties in your pool.” She’s getting a kick out of me. It’s all over her face. Her smile, her eyes…

  “Well, he was insinuating that I knew nothing about girls while at the same time saying something about me asking a girl out for him, or…” I’m not sure how to explain.

  “So, you’re apologizing to me, for lying to him?”

  “What did I lie to him about?”

  “You made it sound like you know things about girls.” She bumps my arm with hers.

  “Wow. Thanks.” I take a dramatic breath in. “No added pressure for tonight, though. It’s cool.”

  She laughs. “And what’s the second thing?”

  “Well, I was offered the Porsche, but I was worried it would
put expectations up too high. But now, looking at you and all your hotness…”

  “I think the Golf is cute, I really do. But do you even have to ask?” Her eyes narrow and her dimples grow deeper.

  “Porsche it is.”

  “You look good, too. But you’re one of those guys who will always look better with his shirt off.” It comes out of her mouth nice and smooth. Like she just said something about my lawn.

  I stop in my tracks.

  She looks over her shoulder at me. “Come on. Since you didn’t pick me up in a car, we need to get one.”

  “Right.” Yeah, there’s no way I’m keeping up tonight.

  - - -

  “We could just walk from hotel to hotel all night, huh?” Her hand is laced through mine.

  “We could.”

  “So.” Her smile is wide. “You’ve already showed me real French fries as well as the most delicious steak of my life. What’s next?”

  “You’ll see.” I squeeze her hand.

  “Where are we going?” I’m loving the excitement in her voice.

  “You’ll see,” I say again. It feels good, to be with her like this. Like friends, but more, because the tension and the possibility is there. Also, she’s seems to be forever in control and tonight, she’s relinquished it to me. I don’t want to let her down.

  “The Mirage?” she asks as we get close.

  “Yeah. It’s been here a while.” I take a deep breath. I need to keep my face calm.

  “Okay.”

  We step into the lobby. I’ve been here a hundred times before, no, more than a hundred. Mom used to work here. She still knows the guy who keeps the dolphins. If our timing is right, he should be waiting for us.

  “Wow, look at all the fish!” Sky stops at one of the many aquariums through the lobby. “Pretty amazing, huh?”

  I step in close behind her and breathe in. “Yeah.” I like them, even though I’ve passed them all way too many times.

  We walk past the check-in counter and toward the back door.

  “Oh! Jay! There are dolphins here!” She stops at one of the signs.

  “Cool.” I take another few deep breaths to relax. I don’t want to ruin the surprise.