Chapter 15

I fell in love with Jacob a third time when I was seventeen. I also fell out of love with him at seventeen.

Yes, this is the prom story.

In April of my senior year of high school, Anna came skipping up to me at lunch, her face flushed. She proceeded to tell me that Sam from band had asked her to prom, despite our pact that we wouldn’t attend because prom was dumb.

“You know it’s going to be too many people packed into the Country Lodge, with the deer heads on the walls, and everyone’s going to be drunk and sweaty,” I said. “And Sam is probably going to try to grope you in the back of his pickup afterward. Wow, sounds fun.”

“Now you’re just being a jerk.” Anna grabbed her lunch and stood up. “And Sam doesn’t drive a pickup. He drives his mom’s minivan.”

With that parting shot, Anna left me to sit at lunch alone. She was always my lunch buddy—my only one. If either of us was sick, the days were long and lonely without each other. Guilt sat in my stomach like lead. I was ab