For a moment, I’m disoriented… and then I remember.

He will never come for me again.

1

Eighteen Months Earlier

Nora

I’m seventeen years old when I first meet him.

Seventeen and crazy about Jake.

“Nora, come on, this is boring,” Leah says as we sit on the bleachers watching the game. Football. Something I know nothing about, but pretend I love because that’s where I see him. Out there on that field, practicing every day.

I’m not the only girl watching Jake, of course. He’s the quarterback and the hottest guy on the planet—or at least in the Chicago suburb of Oak Lawn, Illinois.

“It’s not boring,” I tell her. “Football is a lot of fun.”

Leah rolls her eyes. “Yeah, yeah. Just go talk to him already. You’re not shy. Why don’t you just make him notice you?”

I shrug. Jake and I don’t run in the same circles. He’s got cheerleaders climbing all over him, and I’ve been watching him long enough to know that he goes for tall blond girls, not short brunettes.

Besides, for now it’s kind of fun to just enjoy the attraction. And I know that’s what this feeling is. Lust. Hormones, pure and simple. I have no idea if I’ll like Jake as a person, but I certainly love how he looks without his shirt. Whenever he walks by, I feel my heart beating faster from excitement. I feel warm inside, and I want to squirm in my seat.

I also dream about him. Sexy dreams, sensual dreams, where he holds my hand, touches my face, kisses me. Our bodies touch, rub against each other. Our clothes come off.

I try to imagine what sex with Jake would be like.

Last year, when I was dating Rob, we nearly went all the way, but then I found out he slept with another girl at a party while drunk. He groveled profusely when I confronted him about it, but I couldn’t trust him again and we broke up. Now I’m much more careful about the guys I date, although I know not all of them are like Rob.

Jake might be, though. He’s just too popular not to be a player. Still, if there’s anybody I’d want to have my first time with, it’s definitely Jake.

“Let’s go out tonight,” Leah says. “Just us girls. We can go to Chicago, celebrate your birthday.”

“My birthday is not for another week,” I remind her, even though I know she’s got the date marked on her calendar.

“So what? We can get a head start.”

I grin. She’s always so eager to party. “I don’t know. What if they throw us out again? Those IDs are just not that good—”

“We’ll go to another place. It doesn’t have to be Aristotle.”

Aristotle is by far the coolest club in the city. But Leah was right—there were others.

“Okay,” I say. “Let’s do it. Let’s get a head start.”

Leah picks me up at 9 p.m.