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She exhales. "No time for friends, and they kinda didn't like the idea that I lived in a trailer. That didn't help my cause."
"How about a boyfriend? Do you have one of those back home waiting for you so you can experience college life? You made the grades, or you wouldn't have been accepted at Kenyan. You don't play sports."
She mumbles something under her breath that I can't catch over the music. She must have had a boyfriend because she isn't a prude virgin kneeling inside the church praying to God.
She hesitates, and I think she is choosing how to carefully answer the boyfriend situation based on our conversation in the past and the way she has chosen guys on campus. My nostrils flare thinking about her fucking someone else that isn't me. I would punish her with my silence and indifference when she chose to have sex with Valen. I can't get mad about anyone before me, but there hasn't been anyone for me since her.
I wish I could say the same about her, but there is a reason deep down. Something she is hiding that I want to find.
"No sports. I was top of my class and didn't have a boyfriend. No one wants to be seen with trailer trash. It doesn't matter who I really liked," she says, looking out the window.
Anger at how they judged her back at her school has me wanting to go over there and burn their fucking building down until it's a big pile of shit. All those idiots at Cedar Lake are pricks. Jesse is gorgeous. It doesn't matter where a girl lives. It is where you live in her heart that does.
I wonder if she liked someone back home, and she is hoping that attending here for four years will make them see her differently. The selfish part of me hopes not. The selfish part of me wants me to be the one she likes more than any other.
"Did you like anyone? Maybe you were hoping they would ask you to prom?"
I feel her tense beside me, knowing I struck a nerve. I sound like a chatterbox, but fuck it. Fuck.
"I thought I did, but it doesn't matter. I wasn't asked to go, and I didn't have the money for a dress. I didn't go to graduation. I was happy I was able to get a better education. I will be the first Sharpe with a college degree where I come from. Did you go to prom?"
My jaw locks, not so much by her question, but by the fact she has never been to prom. She's probably never had a boyfriend, but then I grin. She's out with me.
"Yeah, I graduated from Kenyan Preparatory. My parents made me go with Tara," I say, the words bitter on my tongue.
"Oh."
She doesn't say a word or push. I should be grateful the music is playing, but the silence stretches uncomfortably.
"It feels the same. Going with someone you don't want to go with and not going at all."
She shrugs. "Yeah, I guess. It would have been nice, though. My mom wanted me to go. It was one of those things parents want their kids to experience, but at the same time, it is an experience for them too. To watch their kids grow up and take pictures. Memories they can look back on."
"I would have asked you."
I may sound like a dork, but it's the only thing I could think of to make her feel better. Besides, it’s the truth. I want to know what she wanted and didn't get.
I pull into the parking lot and find a spot to park. She turns to me. "Asked me what exactly?”
My hand is on the handle to open the door, but before I exit the car, I give her a genuine smile. "To go to prom with me."
CHAPTER32
Jess
My cheeks hurt from the smile plastered on my face as I sit across from Reid. He said he would have taken me. And I believe him.
After we place our orders, his eyes never leave my face. It is like he caresses me with his eyes instead of his fingers. My eyes take in his clean-shaven face without his piercings and file it away to memory. The way his dress shirt stretches across his wide chest and tight muscles as I shift in the plastic seat of the booth.
“Why are you always taking me out to eat?” I wave my hand at him. “You could have asked anyone else. Why me?” I push.
“Because I never see you eat. I’m looking out for you. You’re always holed up in your room. Your car doesn’t move from the same spot in the parking lot,” he says.
“You have someone watching me or something?”
He gives me a playful smirk. “You’re hard to miss when you’re around, and when you’re not around, it’s not hard to find you.”
Is he flirting with me? I bite my bottom lip because I have never had anyone flirt with me this way before.
