Do Overs and Second Chances

After fleeing her home in Arizona Izy decided not to go back. Instead her aunt and uncle helped her to enroll in the private school their own daughter went to in Virginia. It was a nice school except for the uniforms and the fact that it was an all girls school. There was only so much she could take and being in an all girls school made her miss the friends she had once had back in Arizona.

Then one day she met Jake. She went to the mall after school one day and was sitting in the food court eating a soft pretzel when he came up. He had what some people would consider to be the perfect looks wise. He was about six feet tall with blond hair, blue eyes and a tanned muscular body.

“Is this seat taken?” he asked while taking the seat across from her.

“No, I was just going,” she lied starting to stand up.

“Wait. Don’t leave I just got her,” he tried to stop her.

“I don’t know you though. There’s stranger danger and all that other stuff they tell you to avoid in elementary school,” she said.

“My names Jake,” he told her holding out his hand for her to shake.

“Good for you,” she replied sarcastically.

“Well now that you know my name I’m no longer a stranger.” He smiled at her showing off perfect white teeth.

“Do you always try this hard?” she inquired.

“Only with girls as beautiful as you are.”

“I’m surprised that you didn’t just choke on the clicheness of that line,” Izy said but sat back down anyways.

“It’s all in the delivery,” he said.

“Apparently because if any other guy had said that I would leave.”

“Since I convinced you to stay could you tell me your name?” he asked.

“I guess I could do that. My name is Izy.”

Izy continued to talk to Jake for a while. They developed a flirtatious and carefree friendship even if it was pretty brief. After that day the two of them texted back and forth and hung out a few times. After a while there relationship started to lean more towards the benefits side of friendship. Izy told herself that she didn’t care about what they were doing. She didn’t really want a relationship she wasn’t ready and Jake just didn’t seem like boyfriend material. It was something in the way he looked and the lines that fell easily from his mouth. If they weren’t together though she couldn’t get hurt or at least that was what she told herself before she would head over to his house to meet up with him whenever he called.

“Hey Izy.” Jake pulled away from her taking his lips off hers.

“Yeah?” she asked somewhat distracted thinking about how it had felt when just moments ago his lips were pressed firmly against hers.

“My school is having a semi-formal in a few weeks and I was wondering if you would like to go with me,” he told her.

Izy was taken aback. Her and Jake had never been on a real date, he had never introduced her to his friends and she didn’t really have any friends worth introducing him to. “As a date?” she asked.

“Of course,” he told her. “So do you want to go?”

“I would love to go,” she answered and an involuntary smile spread onto her face. Looking back though she should have just said no. She should have left and ended whatever the hell the two of them were, but she couldn’t resist and one good thing did come out of that high school semi-formal.