by Katie Wismer
She shrugged. “Because you’re always coming to my rescue.”
He dropped his arms from the table. “And that’s—a bad thing?”
“Yes,” she insisted. “Because I don’t want you to think of me as someone who always needs to be rescued.”
“You know I don’t see you that way.”
She stared at him for a second, the headlights from his car lighting him from behind. “I thought you had a date with Shay tonight.”
Miller twisted his mouth to the side and folded his hands back on the table. “I broke up with Shay.”
“What?” Jo demanded. “Why? When?”
“Today.” He scratched beneath his chin, and a small shiver ran through him. “I should’ve done it sooner.”
Jo shifted on her seat, not really sure what she was feeling. “I thought—you really liked her.”
He nodded, acknowledging this. “I did. But she wasn’t…” He cleared his throat. “She told me what she said to you. Jo, I didn’t know. I never would’ve…” He glanced down at his hands. “I never wanted you to stop hanging around, and I feel sick knowing you thought I did.” He swallowed hard and got up to slide onto the bench beside her. “Jo, you’re my best friend,” he said quietly.
Jo took in a shaky breath, her chest feeling like it might explode with relief, but also like she might burst into tears again. She closed her eyes and leaned against his shoulder. “I missed you.”
He threw his arm over her shoulders. “Will you please get in the car now?” he asked. “It’s fucking freezing out here. You know I just drove all over campus looking for you? And you were over here, of all places.”
“At my dorm? What a shock.”
A laugh rumbled deep in his chest, and he pushed her away lightly. “Come on.” He hopped up and extended a hand toward her.
She eyed his hand, but didn’t move.
“You’ll like what you find in the car,” he insisted.
She raised her eyebrows, her gaze flickering back over to where it waited beside the curb. “You brought me a present?”
“A bribe,” he corrected. “Take the bribe, Jo.”
She smelled it the moment she slid into the passenger seat. He pulled up two fast food bags and set them on the center console, the smell of salt and grease filling the car. She lifted a corner to peek inside.
“Fries. Predictable but not disappointing.” She eagerly popped one in her mouth and fished around for the box of chicken nuggets at the bottom of the bag as he pulled the car into the last spot in the parking lot.
Miller ripped open a ketchup packet with his teeth and nodded toward the back seat. Jo followed his gaze and let out an audible gasp. The entire back seat was full of plastic bags from the nearby grocery store. She twisted herself around to dump one out, and sure enough, the entire thing was full of Swedish Fish.
“How many bags did you buy?” she demanded.
He grinned. “Every single one the store had.”
She clutched the bags to her chest, smelling the artificial delicacies through the wrapping. “You hate Swedish Fish,” she reminded him.
“They’re apology fish.”
“Apology fish,” she mused as she ripped open one of the bags and mixed them in with her French fries. She shot a triumphant grin at the look of absolute disgust on his face as she squished a fish and a fry together and shoved them into her mouth. “I like groveling Miller. Is there more?”
“My fries and fish aren’t enough for you?”
She shrugged and licked the salt off her fingers. “It’ll do.”
“Well, actually.” He twisted around to reach into the back seat and appeared with his laptop in hand. “Have you seen the new Ugly Dead?”
Her eyes widened. “I didn’t even know it was out.”
He set the laptop up on the dashboard as the opening credits filled the screen. He twisted his head to look at her as she reclined her seat and readjusted the food in her lap.
“I may not have thought this out very well. We could go somewhere more comfortable, if you want.”
“Miller.”
He raised his eyebrows.
She smiled, leaned over to wrap her arms around one of his, and rested her head against his shoulder. “This is perfect.”
26
Senior Year - May
Jo was running late. It was entirely Miller’s fault, of course. She’d tried to go to bed at a reasonable time last night, but he’d always been able to operate on laughable amounts of sleep and didn’t seem to understand the concept of needing rest. It had started out innocent enough, a scary movie and candy, as they usually did. They made it about halfway through the movie before Miller climbed on top of her, and then that was the end of that.
She rushed through her room, picking up different pieces of jewelry as she went, and paused to check her makeup in the mirror one last time. Her hair was down and curled today—the same way she’d styled it for her high school graduation, actually, though the white dress she’d found this year was much more flattering than that one had been. This one was off the shoulder and had a cut out in the center, a thin layer of lace on the top half. She readjusted her cords and sashes over her shoulders, making sure all five were visible.
“Jo!” Miller called from the kitchen. “If we don’t leave now, we’re not going to make it.”
She quickly bent over and slipped on her heels, then grabbed her bag from the dresser and strode out of her room.
“What?” she asked calmly. “I’m ready.”
He grinned and bent down to kiss her on the cheek. “You look beautiful, as always.”
She straightened his tie and pushed the hair back that always seemed to be falling in his eyes. His shoulders were overflowing with all of his cords—fourteen of them, last time she counted. “Did you order an Uber? There won’t be any parking,” she reminded him.
He held up his phone where a mini car approached their building on the map.
“Meredith texted me,” said Jo as they headed downstairs. “She got a seat with my parents. I can’t wait for you to meet her.”
Miller squeezed her hand. “And you get to meet my mom. Busy day.”
“You’re sure she’s not going to think I’m some kind of floozy for moving in with you?”
He snorted at the word floozy and shrugged as they waited at the curb for the car to arrive. “My parents got married after knowing each other for five months, and they lived together for three of those. Why? You think your parents aren’t going to like it?”
Jo crossed her arms over her chest, hunching her shoulders a bit against the breeze. Hopefully her seat wouldn’t be in the shade today. “My mom would fully support us running off to Vegas and eloping today. My dad…well, we’ll just make sure you’re sitting next to my mom at lunch. Maybe throw Mare in there as a buffer.”
He took her hand and kissed the back of her knuckles. “I’m not worried about it. Worse comes to worse, tell them we’re just roommates because we both have internships in town.”
She snorted. “Oh yeah. I’m sure that will be real believable.”
“Jo.”
She looked over at him. “What?”
He smiled softly. “I love you.”
She rolled her eyes, but smiled back.
The car pulled up, vibrating with some country song. Miller opened the back door, but froze before climbing in.
Jo peeked around his shoulder to find two of the three seats in the back already taken, as well as the passenger seat in the front.
“Did you order a share?” she demanded under her breath.
“Shit.” He glanced at his watch, then started climbing into the remaining seat.
“Miller!”
“Come on.” He waved his hands at her. “We’re going to be late. You can sit on my lap.”
She scowled at him, but climbed in nonetheless, bunching up her robe in her hands. The other passengers were also all decked out in graduation attire, but Jo didn’t recognize any of them
. The car pulled away from the curb abruptly, and she braced herself against the seat.
Miller grabbed her hips to steady her. “I’ve got you,” he murmured.
The déjà vu was momentarily staggering. She glanced at him over her shoulder, and he offered her a guilty smile. But she couldn’t even muster a trace of her earlier annoyance. She reached up and pushed the dark waves of hair out of his eyes. His smile dimmed, a question rising to his eyes instead, but she turned back around before he could say anything.
A lump was rising to the back of her throat out of nowhere, and she had to clench her jaw to keep the burning in the backs of her eyes at bay. Maybe it was the flashbacks of the night they’d met freshman year in this exact position, or maybe it was something else.
She’d been so worried that crossing this line with him would ruin everything. And she was almost afraid of saying it out loud in case it jinxed them, but everything so far had been so…easy. Natural. And for the first time in a long time, she wasn’t worried about much of anything at all. He made it so easy to believe that despite everything, somehow, someway, everything was going to be okay.
The car dropped them off at the edge of the parking lot just as the graduates started lining up. Miller grabbed her hand as they jogged across the lawn, holding on to their caps as they went.
Miller gave her a quick kiss on the cheek, then paused, holding her face between his hands. “I’ll find you after, okay?”
She nodded and waved him on. He gave her one last smile before running ahead to find his spot in line while Jo fell into place along the other P last names.
“Johanna.” The guy in front of her turned around and smirked, his shoulders nearly overflowing with chords.
“Oh my God, Felix, hi. Uh, congrats?”
He nodded. “Same to you.”
Her phone dinged inside her robe. “Sorry, sorry,” she muttered as she fished around for it—she wasn’t technically supposed to have it on her, but the ceremony was going to be hours long. She glanced around to make sure no professors would yell at her before pulling it out.
Meredith: You didn’t tell me Miller was that hot. Also, you look cute.
Jo looked up, scanning the crowd ahead. A hand shot out above the rest of the heads, then Meredith was straight up standing on her chair. Her blonde hair was tied up in a bun on the top of her head, her pretty pink dress rustling in the breeze. Tears immediately sprung to Jo’s eyes at the sight of her, and she waved her arm over her head. Meredith blew her a kiss before jumping back down into her chair. Her parents stood too, waving and grinning—her mom even had a life-size poster with her face printed on it.
A second wave of déjà vu crashed into her as she thought about four years ago as she walked across the stage with her best friend. Somehow, it simultaneously felt like yesterday and a lifetime ago. The past four years were a bit of a blur, but also, so much had happened. And all she really knew was, as she stood there and prepared to cross a stage for the second time, she felt different than she did before. There was probably a word for it that she didn’t know—Miller was always the one who had a way with words, not her—but it felt something like hope. That somehow, through the tears and the late nights and the disasters during her time here, she’d come out like this. She’d come out feeling much more like herself than she had in a long time. Maybe more than she ever had before.
Jo laughed as her mom pumped the cardboard version of her face up and down, and her father put two fingers in his mouth and let out a long whistle. There’d been a lot of things they hadn’t been there for, and she’d spent a long time convincing herself that she didn’t care about that. But they were here now. They were here today. And it wasn’t enough to erase the other times, but maybe it was a start.
She quickly rubbed the tears away before they had the chance to ruin her makeup, blew out a calming breath, and faced forward again as the orchestra music started to play.
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See where it all started in The Anti-Virginity Pact…
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Preachers’ daughters aren’t supposed to be atheists.
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They’re also not supposed to make pacts to lose their virginity by the end of the year, but high school senior Meredith Beaumont is sick of letting other people tell her who to be.
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Spending the last four years as Mute Mare, the girl so shy just thinking about boys could trigger panic attacks, Meredith knows exactly what it’s like to be invisible. But when a vindictive mean girl gets her manicured claws on the anti-virginity pact and spreads it around the school—with Mare’s signature at the bottom—Mare’s not so invisible anymore. She just wishes she was.
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Now the girls mutter “slut” as they pass her in the hall, and the boys are lined up to help complete her checklist. When she meets a guy who knows nothing of the pact, their budding romance quickly transforms from a way to get her first time over with to a genuine connection. But when the pact threatens to destroy her new relationship and the fragile foundation of her seemingly perfect family, Mare has to decide what’s more important: fixing her reputation and pleasing her parents, or standing up for the person she wants to be.
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The Anti-Virginity Pact is a coming of age young adult novel that acts as a companion to The Anti-Relationship Year. Available now!
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www.katiewismer.com
About the Author
Katie Wismer is a die-hard pig lover, semi-obsessive gym rat, and longtime sucker for a well-written book. She studied creative writing and sociology at Roanoke College and now works as a freelance editor in Colorado with her cats Max and Dean.
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When she’s not writing, reading, or wrangling the cats, you can find her on her YouTube channel Katesbookdate.
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You can sign up for her newsletter at katiewismer.com, or check out her instructional videos on writing and publishing on Patreon.