Senior/High School – Four Years Ago
Six months after I changed my life, I asked Riley Montgomery to prom.
People underestimated the change your body could make in six months.
Six months and my Accutane treatment finally clear up my acne.
Six months I worked out every part of my core until I was numb.
Six months of wearing a clear retainer.
Six months of motivational podcasts.
Six months of erasing the scrawny, lanky shit I used to be.
Six months and I got my dream girl.
I remember when I first noticed Riley noticing me. I’d just gotten off practice when her and her friend Marla approached from the bleachers.
“Great job out there, Jace.”
I didn’t even think she knew my name. But she did, and she was talking to me.
“Thanks. We got another game tomorrow night if you want to come?”
She liked that I invited her, and I savoured the new confidence I found in myself. Old Jace would have never talked to Riley Montgomery. Riley Montgomery would have never talked to old Jace.
The next night, she came wearing my jersey number on her cheek. We won 3-0 and I rode the high a little longer than I’d ever rode it before. Before she could say anything, I took her face in my hands and kissed her senseless. It was the second time I spoke to her, and my hands were gripping her waist. She let me explore more of her later, but I wanted to wait until prom.
I saw something with this girl. She saw something with me.
No one saw that before.
A few days after I asked Riley to prom, the guys were getting changed in the dressing room.
“Boland copped Riley, d’you hear Danny?” Connor piped, slapping my chest.
“Good on you,” Danny said.
He had a crush on Riley for a while, but I got her. She liked me. Not him. I felt a sense of power from that.
“You fuck her yet?” Morris asked, as if he had every right in the world to know my business.
I shook my head.
“She doesn’t want to touch you, eh Boland,” Connor joked. His stupid antics went over my head. Shit wasn’t funny.
“Didn’t Samantha Cordon give you syphilis last year, Cumberland?”
The boys growled with laughter while Connor ducked out of the room, unable to meet my eyes. Again, I felt like I’d won. The guys loved me. For once, they weren’t laughing at me.
They were laughing with me.
Five minutes later, the dressing room had cleared out entirely. Or so I thought.
“Feels nice, doesn’t it?” It was Max who remained.
“What?” I slung my bag over my shoulder. “What feels nice?”
“Feeling like you belong.”
A surge of heat soared through my body. A pang of annoyance coupled the emotion. “You’re fucking weirding me out, Max.”
“You’re better than this, Jace.”
“You don’t know me.”
“You don’t know yourself,” he countered, shaking his head. “You think fitting in with a bunch of assholes is going to fulfill you? What are you looking for?”
“A way out of this conversation,” I snapped, turning my back on him until I exited the room.
Who the hell did he think he was? Acting like he knew me? Questioning everything I worked towards, everything I worked for? I barely said five words to this guy. He would’ve said less than three.
“Baby,” Riley said as soon as I reached her locker. “You look a little down.”
I cupped her cheek and kissed her lips, taking in all that she was giving me. All that belonged to me.
Leaning in close, my breath tickled her ear. “Come back to mine.”
I fucked her that night.
I couldn’t wait until prom.
Connor said she didn’t want to touch me, well, I proved him wrong.
I proved everyone wrong.
That’s all that mattered.
