Love (n.): an intense feeling of deep affection.

Lust (n.): an intense feeling of deep sexual desire.

Hypothetically speaking, which do I prefer?

Preference is such a strong word. Let's go with which offers me the most amount of emotional self-preservation as a side dish to a main course of happiness?

Going on the first definition alone, my life's story was not a love story. I was no Jane Austen, Sylvia Day, or even Stephanie Meyer. Fuck, Jane Gooddall had a better romance story while she studied ape mating patterns in the middle of fuck knows where.

They say you never forget your first love though...

Giant ape isn't that far off either, but let me back up.

I wasn't even sure who the fuck 'they' were when people tossed out 'They say...' sayings. I always assumed anyone that vague gave their personal opinions without the balls to directly express them.

For 'their sake,' I'd never been told those 'You never forget your first love' bullshit words in person. For the best, since I would've punched - junk or ovaries, my equal-opportunity fists didn't discriminate - anyone who tried to tell me that I'd never forget 'my first.'

One side of my brain assumed that the phrase was contrived by some lackey in Hallmark Cards' creative department who tried to get laid by a girl out of his league. The other side of my brain interjected.

Fair enough. Do you ever forget your first crush?

So far, for me, the answer was a big fat fucking no. I wished with every sexually-charged cell in my body that I forgot my V-card holder. Every fiber of my being also wished he hadn't been my first kiss and every other fucking first that existed.

I hate him.

I hated his stupid face, his stupid shit-eating grin, his stupid muscles that rippled like water when his stupid body flexed and moved, and his stupid, stupid, stupid, cocky, arrogant attitude.

That might not be enough stupids to fully express what I'm aiming for here.

The problem was, I couldn't have walked away from this guy if I tried. Not even flashing my favorite finger gesture. Again.

Believe me, I've tried... to the point of a new phone, changed number, and my ass hauling out of town.

As much as I wanted to, shit as much as I needed to for the sake of all the motivational shit that self-help books and television evangelists preached on about moving forwards, I couldn't...

...because he was my best friend's brother.

How cliché. Like that story hasn't been told over and over ad nauseum.

Jake Fucking Harrison.

The thought of his name flooded mixed emotions through me. Not feelings, no squishy, high school crush pining happened in my body. Hindsight was my best bitch and I had enough baggage as a family that didn't believe in birth control. There was no way in hell I ever admitted the truth to Jake, but he'd done me a solid favor, stripping the junior high school fangirl emotions out of me.

He left me with the more colorful emotions that lingered up to today.

Anger.

Resentment.

Hatred.

Guilt? No, I'd done one thing that I felt guilty about. That was what I did to Jake's sister in high school, not him.

Ehh, I was doing him... behind her back.

One of my hands pinched the bridge of my nose at the flood of bad decisions that rushed through my brain. I paused this pointless inner monologue, glancing around my intact bedroom. Wrinkling my nose at the walls being as pink as they were when I was six, I took a mental inventory that what I needed was packed.

With a soft scrape, my pink nails ran over the rejected clothes in my closet. Pushing each hanger across the bar, my fingers reached the crinkling plastic covering the stash of Homecoming, Prom, and graduation gowns from high school.

I should burn these.

I paused at the picture frame collection on my dresser, pressing my lips and debating how lame taking my favorite pictures of me and my best friend Ellie was. Tracing my thumb over our smiling faces, years of memories flooded through me, some happy, few regretful.

Physically and personality-wise, we couldn't have been more different.

And she's now moved forwards while I'm still stuck.

Not for long.

A frown creased my blonde eyebrows when I saw the corner of Jake's face in my last frame picture, and smacked it down on my dresser. Ellie and I sat in the stands at our first high school football game, after which Jake rushed up and snuck his toothy grin into the corner of our picture.

At the risk of type-casting Jake, he was also a cocky-ass mother-fucking football player. I had zero proof he'd fucked someone's mother. No offense to mothers, but I wouldn't have been surprised that his dick boarded any MILF-train with a one-way trip to orgasm station. Every action that asshole took was selfish, dick-driven...

Didn't mind when his dick was driving into me.

For the sake of anyone younger than eighteen who found my not-love story by 'accident,' I need to get to Ellie.

My best friend, not that I deserved that status, was Eleanor Harrison, Ellie for short. For a while in high school, she went by Elle, growing out of that after our senior year. Ellie's life story was a lot more dramatic and interesting. I was positive that any author of Ellie's love life story swooned for a gratuitous shout-out, but somehow the focus shifted towards my side of life.

No stretch of my imagination guessed why anyone wanted to be in my headspace. For all Ellie's over-thinking, she was smarter, kinder, loving, a hopeless romantic fit for gratuitously long, slowburn novels. In comparison, my brain was as empty as my bed the past three months.

On my productive days, my brain was a catch-all repository for all vulgar female thoughts and swear words. Half the time my brain argued with itself over pointless shit, like how to forget about someone who, most recently, I insulted and pushed away.

It's for the best. I don't do relationships. I really don't do long distance ones with a guy who can't keep his dick in his pants for more than two days.

And as for feelings? Please.

The only feelings I was interested in was the steam of a hot, sweaty man's body over mine.

Or under. Or from behind. Sideways or upside-down work too.

I hadn't tried the upside-down part, someday maybe.

A girl's gotta have some goals in life.

The last shred of related relevant information, other than Ellie was my best friend, fine my only friend, was her shacking up with her own quarterback Adonis, Logan Hightower, at the University of Washington. Logan was on the same football skillset caliber-level as Jake, better by everyone's standards except Jake.

After his first year at UW, NFL scouts sniffed Logan's ass like a new dog that arrived at a dog park. His team overall wasn't as good as USC and while he won a (insert whatever corporate sponsor's bullshit bowl title here) bowl game last year, it wasn't the national title.

No, that national college-level title went to my dickhead first-crush Jake Harrison, quarterback for the University of Southern California. Unlike the entire female college-aged population and - let's be honest - MILF's and cougars around Los Angeles, my crush had nothing to do with his quarterback football position. In fact, Jake being among the college circuit's elite players made my lady bits drier than a barren desert.

Barren lady bits desert describes the recent drought pretty well.

Ellie and Logan managed to accomplish the one thing that none of the rest of us in our high school social circle had. Even apart for three years, after his asshat decision butted into Ellie's fractured past, now they were together again like a redemption Hallmark movie moment. Last year, Logan transferred to UW and they rekindled their slow burn love last year.

Life hadn't been easy for my friend but those two showed that maybe love stories existed.

Their story, mind you, not mine, has enough love for at least three separate books.

My love history couldn't have filled more than three paragraphs even if I rambled aimlessly.

The perfect example of my failure at love traced straight back to my first crush. I grew up with Jake and Ellie. His middle name wasn't Fucking, but Isaac. Jacob Isaac Harrison. After a few fucked up encounters in high school I was sure resurfaced like bad morning-after breath, we called a truce at the end of our senior year of high school, parting amicably.

Despite one tiny, smidgen, four-day lapse of judgment during our last Christmas vacation, I came - to my senses, that is. I successfully avoided Jake since, to the extent that all our encounters over the past nine months were awkward head-nod acknowledgments. I pretended he didn't check out my rack the way I drooled over a display case of Blvgari's and I didn't do a dick-tent check.

And it was going so well too...

After an assumed drunken night before our senior year of college started, the asshole texted me early the very morning I was primed to drive down to my new school, the University of California-Los Angeles. And by 'early' I meant after eleven am because, like walks of shame, I didn't do mornings.

unknown number: This is your fault. 🍆

Despite the unsaved number, which I renamed, my teeth clamped so tight that my molars crunched at how he found me. Avoiding Jake was the main reason that I got a new phone before switching schools. My dad's extreme paranoia also contributed to that decision, but a strangled grumble throttled itself in my throat as I glared down at his... eggplant.

How, how, how did he get my new number!?

If I was in a love story, then at this point I pined over each and every word - except the emoji - until I beat to death the meaning behind them, then sobbed into my teddy-bear shaped pillow. After my last snotty tear fell, I submerged myself into a wagon full of rocky road ice cream with a shovel for a spoon, squirted canned whip cream into my mouth, and lamented in self-pity until I jumped over a gigantic, character-building arc and declared myself able to live without him in a moment of post-feminism, self-empowered, euphoric moment of independence.

But I'm not in a love story.

And I'll fucking repeat that as many times as needed until I've convinced, well, everyone.

So, given all this gratuitous background shit, the response I muttered at my phone screen was a quite reasonable, "What the fuck!?"

No, no, fuck no.

With my best, yet questionable, self-preservation methods, I tried to live without the guy. He was a weakness, my vagina's Achilles heel, and my fingers moved on their own and indulged in his stupidity. His California-sized ego made him my favorite ball-busting target. If he was a bear, then I relished in being a hot poker right into his stubborn, arrogant ass.

I relished not when I knocked Jake Harrison off his pedestal but smashed the entire damn foundation out from underneath him... then used it to beat the shit out of his ego.

My skin burned with heat, rushing it up to my hairline. I palmed the headache that threatened my so-far decent mood.

I think a few brain cells got incinerated, rest in peace.

Up to this point, I felt hopeful that 'anything,' and that term was as loose as us in high school, between us was over. We reached the 'polite tight-lipped smile of acknowledgement even though I hate your fucking guts despite the fact you smell delicious, like sex' stage the last time I saw him over spring break. We saw, passed, blinked, offered tight-lipped nods, then nothing happened between March and now in late August.

For me, these cold exchanges were glorious. I enjoyed the two middle fingers I stuck up behind his back while we passed like two ships in the night. Lack of a conversation, for us, was progress. The fact we hadn't attempted physical contact was monumental.

I embraced and rejoiced in how our silent exchanges were evidence that the two of us had stepped forwards onto our separate escalators of life. We rode up rather than ran down while the stairs still ascended, getting nowhere but sweaty and frustrated.

Perhaps he needs a reminder of my true feelings. Let's give dick for brains some clarity.

me: Fuck you, Jake.

Despite how the words 'dickhead is typing...' pulled up the corners of my lips, my smile dissolved when I saw his message.

dickhead: That's the idea.

"Arrogant prick," I grumbled. These days, I shared more conversations with my phone screen than actual face-to-face people, but I welcomed that type of detached exchange with Jake.

The perils of staying home for college when your friends didn't. Again, until now...

A surge of irritation flaring my nostrils like a bull in heat was the only reminder I needed. Even remote-distance Jake annoyed the shit out of me in two short texts. My thumbs twitched.

me: Enlighten me, please.

dickhead: Roses are red, my balls are blue
                      I can't wait to come over and fuck you

"You are not going to pull that card." Puffing my cheeks, I sighed at his lame attempt poking into our past. Still, in my non-love story book, he got points for how direct and straight to the eggplant-emoji's point he was.

Negative points, of course.

me: Hilarious. So original, coming from you and your two blood-deprived brain cells.

My left eye spasmed, closing my lashes and twitching my cheek. Or my ovaries exploded, I wasn't sure. I couldn't think straight, Jake had that effect on me.

Why couldn't he have just stayed silent? And why can't I resist how satisfying it feels to bust his balls?

No, no, NO Harper. Do not think about those.

Jake responded, relaxing my clammed up shoulders at the suggestion both his hands were available. His choice of words, like always, were no comparison to my insults.

dickhead: That won't be the only thing coming.

"Of course that's the only word he sees." I groaned, vibrating my throat. For the record, it was not a sexual groan but more 'why are you in my life after six months of blissful phone silence and why the fuck am I entertaining this right now' groan.

me: Enjoy your hand, Jake. 🤏

I flashed him the 'measuring a tiny distance' emoji on purpose. The traitorous warmth following up my thighs reminded me how well-endowed his 'weapon of ass destruction' was without his arrogant reminders.

Dick-for-brains doesn't pick up on subtle though.

Too many smacks on his own ass, I guess.

dickhead: I know you'll be down here. In more ways than one.

Tipping my chin up to the ceiling, my eyes rolled exorcism-style at his ridiculous sexual innuendo. Jake was as subtle as a rusty nail dishing those out. I thought that added to his charm, although that information would never reach his ego if I had anything to say or do about it.

me: Sorry, my standards have improved. I don't fuck annoying little boys anymore.

dickhead: We both know I'm not that little.
dickhead: [ image attached ]

Jake hung that picture out there like... I had no idea. An olive branch, perhaps, or a low-hanging fruit. No, this was Jake Harrison, the only low-hanging pictures he ever sent me were of his testicles.

Which, for the record, no girl wants to see the wrinkled avocado pairs. Not even those hideous silver nutsacks hung on truck hitches.

Despite my better judgment, my pink manicured thumb clicked on the picture. Sure enough, Jake had sent me a nude.

The image blurred like a rejected social media selfie but the subject matter was not a visual disappointment. Sad to say, the guy had sprouted more chest hair than when my hands had splayed all over his chest like I stumbled blind in the dark, hit a wall, and fumbled for the light switch.

In my hands' defense, I was sexually deprived as fuck, out my normal senses at the time, and one drink away from fondling myself for release that night.

Like a predator that stumbled upon weakened prey, Jake pounced. Quite penetratingly, to be honest. One look at him now flashed me back to how he lit my body up like a Christmas tree and turned my ego into a bitter, charred lump of coal.

A similar small, temptatious line of dark hair trailed down beneath his navel, in a knee-weakening sexy and not 'okay this Sasquatch needs back waxing for sure in a couple years' way. As much as I wanted to eye fuck his ridiculous, rock-hard pectoral and abdominal muscles, my eyes skimmed over the flat planes and divoted undulations. True to my nature, I zeroed in on the giant erection that jutted up between his bare legs like a red, swollen, heat-seeking missile primed for target.

Flicking my index finger and thumb, I zoomed in the picture. Hoping the action removed his dick from my screen, or somehow revealed he did not send me a red-flagged salute, I was... not disappointed. I magnified the red, mushroomed tip, the white, calloused pad of his thumb near the slit, shiny with -

Nope nope nope.

The obvious question is why, in the name of all the unholy things I'd done in my life, he thought I was the appropriate target.

Especially after what I told him the last time we were... whatever the hell we were.

Surely, the cute and misunderstood-upon-creation eggplant emoji could have been more effective if directed to the hundreds, possibly thousands, of vaginas willing to part quicker than the Red Sea for Moses within the radius of his finger snap.

My mind took a more direct approach, despite flying in twenty directions at once... nineteen of them in the gutter.

What the fuck!? Nine months later and Long-Dong-Silver thinks I want his nude drunken pickle salute?

My thoughts circled like a pack of rabid dogs chasing their own tails. Confusion led my pack of emotions, followed closely by disgust, with...

Oh shit.

Saliva possibly pooled under my tongue.

No, it didn't. I'm just thirsty.

In more ways than one, Harper.

Since high school, in an obvious imbalance of nature, the asshole managed to get more attractive. His dark hair was longer than I remembered. Rogue, tousled strands sat on the top, from him constantly playing with it and claiming he achieved some 'It's naturally like this' perfection.

The dark brown, almost black, strands curling around his ears that begged to be yanked were new. His brown eyes were dark and feral, my favorite look on him. His thin, pale pink lips curled up in a familiar smirk that my hands wanted to smack off his stupidly handsome face, say with a baseball bat, or do... something else.

Like sit on them.

Attempting to come to my senses, I dropped my phone on my bed. Inhaling, I smacked both cheeks with my palms, wincing at the staccato slaps.

Fuck, I hate my mind sometimes. Some days I even disturb myself.

Peering at my flat-lying phone, Jake had no problems showing off how his muscles had packed more muscles on top of them, even from a slight distance on my screen. Inclined on a cushioned, white surface, bed pillows I assumed, he stretched the washboards on full display. One of his arms extended forwards to snap the selfie and the other hand cupped behind the nape of his neck with his elbow and stuck out like a chicken wing. The swollen bicep muscle flexed by his ear was no coincidence.

He's probably doing that to show off his stupid biceps.

My chin dipped as I picked up my phone. Also in the 'I'll never tell Jake department,' his arms looked amazing to be caged in between or sink one's hypothetical, sexually-deprived teeth into. His biceps and shoulder muscles were so taut, his skin looked stretched to a breaking point.

Apparently, he'd also gotten a tattoo. Small black writing was scrawled over his right rib cage, but I couldn't make out the words.

Fuck me is right.

I instantly shut off my phone and tossed it aside like Pandora's box. Yet, oddly similar to that analogy, I gazed at the black screen like a long-lost friend that begged forgiveness for our distance.

The worst part was, as much as I hated Jake, how his arrogance rubbed like sandpaper over my ears and his cologne smelled like morning-after regret, I wasn't completely disgusted. No, I felt more... intrigued.

No, don't give in. Curiosity killed the cat in heat, Harper.

I slid the phone into my back jeans pocket, tried not to think about the possibility that my ass sat on his nude picture, and headed out. At the moment, I couldn't deal with the rush of emotions that came only with the physical desires that dickhead rose up inside me. So, I did what any lack of self-respecting girl did under those circumstances.

I got the fuck out of there.

Unfortunately, that involved driving seven and a half hours away... to a university located ten minutes from his. And the last mental image I saw before a long drive of self-reflection was a seven-and-three-quarters inch mountain of sinful, lustful, intentional temptation.

Fuck, he did that on purpose. And now he knows...

Of course, Jake sent me the nude intentionally. His sentences were coherent, so he wasn't drunk. The worst part was, both of us knew full well what I drove myself towards, an arrogant, self-absorbed dick trap.

What I wasn't sure about was whether I should have canceled my transfer decision or flattened my car's accelerator with my lead foot and got down there as fast as I could.

Ha ha, down there... Shit, it's going to be a long ride.

Ahhh, fuck me sideways, I'm so screwed.