Chapter Ten
The second time I fell in love with Jacob, I was thirteen.
That isn’t to say I’d fallen out of love with him at any point between five and thirteen. It was just that he gave me another reason to love him. It was like he kept adding dandelions to my pile of love for him and then metaphorically making me tons of flower crowns with them.
By eighth grade, Jacob was the golden boy of our junior high. He was, literally, golden: golden hair, golden skin. Every time he smiled, his teeth sparkled like out of some toothpaste commercial. I swear a theme song played in my head anytime he walked past me—that theme song being the saxophone solo from “Careless Whisper.” Every. Damn. Time. I heard that stupid saxophone in my brain when I saw Jacob.
“Do you think he ever smells bad?” I aske
