Don’t Push Your Luck

I still can't figure out how I got tangled up with Jake Harrison in the first place.

It all started one random afternoon in elementary school.

He pulled my hair.

I slapped him right across the face.

And somehow, that legendary slap tied me to this CEO's son for half my life.

In elementary school, we were desk mates. I bent down to tie my shoelace.

He held my neck down, refusing to let me up.

In middle school, we were in the same class. I mentioned the wind was strong outside.

He told everyone sitting by the windows to open them all.

In high school, I thought I'd finally escaped him. But on the first day, he planted himself in the seat right behind me.

"Thought I'd gone off to private school, didn't you?"

With his sharp features and bright eyes, he still had that boyish charm.

"Sorry to disappoint, but I decided to earn my way into college."

"..."

Like your spot at Westbrook High wasn't pulled by connections!

I watched him transform from the kid everyone avoided in middle school to Mr. Popular with friends in every direction.

Partly because he got really handsome, but mostly because everyone finally realized: being rich is awesome.

At that age when everyone was kind of status-conscious, he casually gave everyone in our class a PSP for his birthday.

He taught us an early life lesson: Sure, all roads lead to Rome, but some people are just born there.

In high school, Jake copied all my homework.

Yet somehow ended up first in class every year.

It turns out it wasn't just natural talent - this guy was secretly grinding through practice problems at midnight.

His friends really backed the wrong horse.

During the day, he'd mess around with his buddies, not studying at all.

At night, he'd study like crazy - I even caught him online practicing vocabulary at 3 AM several times, betraying their whole "too cool for school" act.

When he decided to grind, he really went all in.

He changed from knowing nothing in middle school to acing everything in high school.

I asked him why.

He gave me that sly smile of his.

"With your grades being so good, how else am I gonna get into the same university as you?"

Talk about being haunted.

Looks like he was determined to follow up on that slap all the way to college.

But we didn't end up at the same university after all.

He went abroad - classic trust fund kid move.

I thought that was it for us, each heading off to our own adventures.

Then one day, he called me at 3 AM.

I reminded him about the time difference.

He just went "Oh."

Then told me to look outside my window.

I wondered what it could be.

Expected some cheesy line like "Behold the empire I've built for you."

Instead, there was a helicopter hovering over our campus quad.

The wind it stirred up had students from every residence hall pressing their faces against their windows.

"..."

Finally, I understood what that noise in the background of his call was.

...It was helicopter blades.

In the moonlight, his voice came through, low and husky, "I missed you."

"..."

Was it really me he missed?

Turns out he was craving the grilled cheese from that 24-hour diner by campus.

And their loaded fries.

"Nothing hits quite like this," he said between mouthfuls.

Meanwhile, I was having an existential crisis.

This guy, from 4,000 miles away, wanted a grilled cheese.

So he just hopped on his private jet, switched to a helicopter, and flew right over.

"..."

"Oh right, I was going to give this to you when I went home next, but since I'm here..."

Under the flickering neon lights of the diner, he pulled a small box from his pocket.

Inside was a necklace.

Actually, Jake had given me countless gifts before - snacks, school supplies, study guides, books - but he'd never given me anything like this...