Page 89 of What's in a Kiss?

“We go through this every time,” he says. “You stare at the menu for ten minutes, then you order strawberry in a waffle cone and proclaim it the perfect flavor. And we have a zipline to catch.”

I know he’s right, but what feels wrong is I have no idea what kind of ice creamhelikes. Thus I re-enter my wobbly shame spiral... until it hits me that, actually, I do know. Rum raisin.He’s the one person in either realm who likes it. I know this from prom, that interdimensional colossus straddling both domains.

“Rum raisin,” I proudly tell the teenaged Scoops employee. “Sugar cone.”

Ice creams in hand, Jake and I stroll Crescent Ave. It crosses a tiny, touristy downtown full of rock shops and T-shirt stands, before winding around a rocky coastline. We pass the art deco casino, where big bands of the thirties and forties serenaded elaborate soirees in the world’s largest circular ballroom. We pass the white umbrellas of Descanso Beach Club and its pebbly shore. It’s still spring, too early in the season for peak summer crowds, so the town has a sleepy local vibe that makes me want to linger. It makes me want to make new memories with Jake, ones that I can access, too.

“Taste this,” he says, through a mouthful of ice cream. “Maybe the best rum raisin ever.”

“I’d rather bob for garbage in that trash can over there. I swear, if you make our kids like rum raisin...” I trail off, wishing I could snatch the words out of the air.

Where didthatcome from? And how can Jake seem so unfazed by it?

“Oh yeah, that’s all you’re going to eat while pregnant. Then you can partner with Baskin-Robbins and writeDr. Josslyn Munro’s Rum Raisin Pregnancy Diet. You’ll be a pariah in the medical community, but our kids will be biologically programmed. Master plan.”

“Not going to happen.” I mean it lightly, but it comes out with such gravity that Jake stops walking. He hears that I don’tonly mean his ice cream master plan. I mean all of it—the future as he sees it.

“Uh-oh,” he says. “What’s that look?”

“Jake, what I said on the boat—”

He groans. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“I need to explain why I acted that way,” I say. “And it’s going to sound crazy. But at that Yankees game, Amy discovered the wrong person.”

“That wastenyears ago—”

“It shouldn’t have been me,” I say, my voice rising. “It was supposed to be you.”

“What do you mean, ‘supposed to’? According to what? Your imposter syndrome?”

“According to reality,” I say. My mind hurts and I know I’m making things worse, but maybe that’s a necessary stop on the way toward the truth.

“I care about Amy Reisenbachalmostas little as she cares about me, so why are we talking about her?”

“Because you should care about her. Because she should care about you.” I put my hands on his chest and look into his beautiful green eyes. I’ve stared at them in magazines for years. I can’t keep them all to myself. It feels like I’m robbing the world of Jake and robbing Jake of the world.

“Doesn’t some part of you feel it? Don’t you know that your life was supposed to be glorious?”

“My lifeisglorious. I found you.”

“You wouldn’t say that if you knew what I know,” I say. “I’ve seen... things you haven’t. You were destined for a lot more than you’re getting. With me. I’m not even supposed to be here.”

“Is this a passive-aggressive way of saying you’re not happy?”

“I’m not happy.” What truth serum is in this Scoops ice cream? Suddenly I can’t stop myself telling him as much of the truth as he might be able to hear.

He sucks in a breath and cuts his eyes at me. “Oh.”

“I’m not happy with anything—except you. And I don’t know if I’m staying or going, but if I stay—”

“If you stay?”

“Then I need to—I need the chance to help you get a piece of the life you deserve. And that’s why we have to go find Amy at the zip line. So you can be the star, not me.”

“Just because you don’t think you deserve your success,” Jake says coldly, walking so fast I have to run to keep up with him. “Because it’s not up to Juilliard standards... because it cost you your relationship with your mother—”

“I told you that?”