“Wouldn’t dream of it,” she said. It all sounded like a tease, but was there any truth in it? Did she want us to care? Or did she already know that we did and thought we were foolish for it?

She dressed, yawning again as she pulled my t-shirt over her head. It did something to me to see her standing there in my clothes. The sweatpants were pooling a bit around her ankles and the shirt was too big, but as she pulled it over her head, I swore I saw her pause for a moment and sniff.

She still hadn’t taken the collar off, and it jingled every time she moved, so she couldn’t have forgotten it.

Manson poked his head into the room. “Ready?”

Jess nodded before she turned back to me. “Thanks for the clothes. And for a really fun time.” She kissed me, the touch of her lips too quick. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

I almost asked her to stay. I nearly dragged her back and told her she’d be coming to bed with me.

But then she was gone; Manson wrapping his arms around her shoulders and walking her down the hall.

I collapsed onto the bed, scrubbing my hands over my face before I stared up at the ceiling. This was exactly what wasn’t supposed to happen. This feeling, this…longing. The reawakening of a high school crush that had somehow intensified despite time and distance.

When I’d transferred to Wickeston High, Jess and Vincent had been my first true temptations to sin. A seductress and a jester, challenging my carefully guarded thoughts. I was used to being surrounded by rules, to living with the guilt of being a sinner who must repent, repent, repent. Do not give into temptation. Worship. Pray. Beg for forgiveness.

But then the floodgates opened. Jess was untouchable, beautiful, proud. Vincent was tempting, seductive, too damn charming to resist. Back then, the reality of what I was facing hit me hard. I couldn’t choose one or the other. I couldn’t settle.

I couldn’t live as anything less than fully myself, unless I wanted to remain in an endless cycle of praying for forgiveness of my own nature.

The Jessica I’d known back then had surrounded herself with all the right people. She’d presented herself as picture-perfect. That’s what you did when you were pretending, when you were trying to prove that you belonged. The “right” people had been her armor and the “perfect” life was her own grand production. Her peers were her audience.

Now, the curtain was drawn and the costumes were gone. Jessica was just Jess, a woman trying to figure out who the hell she was like the rest of us.