Disclaimer: I own nothing.

I'm with Gavin in his car. We're going to his house for a "make-out session". I'm tuning the radio looking for a station that has good music. I stop on the station that is playing "Just the Way you Are" by Bruno Mars. I start to sing along.

"You have a good voice." says Gavin looking at me briefly.

"I know." I reply, grinning. He begins to try to sing along.

"Just the way you aaa-rrree." His voice cracks on the "are".

"Please stop! Save the ears of people all around the world." I laugh. He complies.

XxX

We arrive at his house and go straight to his bedroom. His parents aren't home so the upstairs is empty. He sits on the bed and looks at me expectantly.

"Hmmm," I say, "I wonder what you want to do." A smile is playing at my lips. He pulls me onto the bed and kisses me full on the mouth. We kiss and kiss and kiss on his bed. I feel as if I'm floating when he kisses me. It's magical. Well… close to magical. Our shirts are off as they always are, but something is different. It takes me a while to realize that my pants are loose. He's unbuttoned them and is reaching to slide them over my hips.

"Stop." I say pulling away at my position on top of him. He looks at me questioningly, as though he's wondering why I've stopped him. I wonder why I've stopped him too. My friends and I have imagined how this would happen many times and always resolved that, yes it would be Gavin the one who "striped me of my maidenhood". I guess maybe I just didn't see it happening like this, on such an inconsequential day in such a random way. And so, I end up sitting atop and him looking at him, searching for an excuse.

"My parents," I finally decide sliding off, "Would totally kill me if I had sex. And I know they'd find out because, well because, it's like my dad can read minds." I add the last part because he is giving me a "how would they even find out" look. I get up, looking at the time.

"I have to go." I say abruptly pulling my shirt on and climbing off of him. I am about to leave when I turn back.

"I love you." I say quietly. His shirt is still off.

"I know," he says running his hand through his hair, "I know."

XxX

"We were so close Rainy." I say into the phone. I've called Rain after my little episode with Gavin because Rain gives the best advice. "But then I stopped him. I don't know why."

"Maybe it was because you weren't ready." She says.

"Maybe, but there was something else there, something I couldn't quite put my finger on."

"Maybe, you just don't want it to be him."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that maybe, subconsciously, you don't really want to grow up and say that you lost it to Gavin Hanes."

"But, I love him. I think."

"That's just the thing. If you have to post script saying 'I love him' with 'I think', then maybe you don't love him, at least not as much as you think you do."

XxX

I am speaking with my mother. She's just finished telling me the story of her, my dad and Jake.

"So I'm totally distressed your father has left and I'm looking for an adrenaline rush just so I can see him, well a mirage of him, but still. So I decided to go cliff diving." She says with a slight smile on her face, "And so I jumped into the water, not knowing what to do and I'm like totally submerged and can't breathe. I can suddenly see this, this mirage of your father reaching out to me." She laughs mostly to herself, "And then Jacob reached out and pulled me out of the water."

"Why would you want to go cliff-diving?" I ask.

"Well I saw some guys doing it while I was with Jake, so I thought it would be a perfect way to see your father. The only way this could happen was if I did something that gave me a big adrenaline rush." she answers.

Suddenly, an idea pops into my head but I suppress it quickly, afraid my daddy will hear. I start to think about school and the reading we're doing in English. I almost, almost let go of it, but I know I wouldn't really, not until I see Jake.

XxX

"Hey, Jake." I say into the phone an hour or two later while my parents were safely at the store. "Can you come pick me up?"

XxX

We are standing near the precipice of the world. Waves are crashing beneath us, the sun high in the sky. There are flowers near the trees far from where we stand. They are acacias and moonflowers. I'm kind of wondering how the hell acacias got in Washington (they indigenous to Eastern Africa), but I forget as it is so beautiful here.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Jake asks with a very, very questioning look on his face.

"Yes. YES!" I exclaim, bouncing with excitement. He sighs. Heavily.

"Fine but we have to go together."

"Oooo, dirty." I say in a Lorelai Gilmore-esque tone. He gives me a "be serious" look and grabs my hand.

"On my count." He says, "One." I tense.

"Two." I breathe deeply.

"Three." And we jump.

We land in the water, low waves lapping at our skin. It was a strangely quick fall with a lot less of an adrenaline rush than I thought. But it was still fun.

And then I spot it. There's a small cave that seems to be carved into the mountain.

"Let's go over there." I say, loudly over the waves. He nods and we swim over. We end up in a small hole and are forced to swim on. After a while, we end up on a high "ceilinged" stretch of sand. We walk on to it. The sand is very clean and white and sparkly and it feels good between my toes. It's cool in here. There are crystal like structures hanging off of the ceiling, and they sparkle just like the sand.

"It's beautiful." I say.

"Yeah." Agrees Jake. We sit in the sand silently at first, and then we start talking. We talk about everything, about his mom, about school, and home, and life, and forever. And somehow we begin talking about Gavin.

"Do you love him?" He asks looking at me intently.

"Yes." I say quickly, too quickly "Well, no, well I don't know."

"Oh." he says, slightly smug.

"What?" I ask.

"Nothing."

"Tell me." He's making me angry now, "Are you questioning my relationship with Gavin?"

Now he looks angry, "Just forget it." I look at my watch.

"We should probably go." I say quietly, suddenly doubting my feelings. For Gavin, for Jacob, for everything. We stand just as a wave comes in and laps at our feet. I see a soggy flower and pick it up. It's one of the acacias from the cliff. How did it even get all the way down here? Never mind that, the important thing is what it means. That'll probably help me figure out why it's here. I read a big book of flower meaning and I remember acacia's one of the first that I read about. Acacia, acacia, what's the meaning? I'm starting to get frustrated when "secret love" suddenly pops into my head. Secret love. What would a flower meaning secret love be doing down here? And then something clicked. The universe was trying to tell me something, and I needed to listen.

I snap my head up and look at Jacob. He is looking at the sand perplexed.

"Jacob." I say, a sudden desperation in my voice. He looks up. I am breathing hard from the idea that is in my head. Quickly, so quickly I press my lips firmly to his. I wrap my arms around his neck and pull him tightly into me. He is at first surprised, then guilty, but he quickly wraps his arms around my waist and holds me extra tight. Somehow I have been backed up against a wall, so I have enough leverage to wrap my legs around his waist. I kiss him harder and pull him tighter. His face is buried in my neck and his hands were on my back.

And then all of a sudden I remember Gavin. I remember not wanting to have sex with him, and always wondering if I really loved him. And then I realized, no, I didn't love him. I guess I hadn't understood at the time that I'd said it that I'd really only said I love him because he had. I love Jacob; more than anything in the world. I love him. But Gavin doesn't deserve this. And so grudgingly, for the second time today, I say, "Stop." He lets me drop to my feet and I tell him everything I realized, everything I think, and then I finally say, "I think we should really go now Jacob."