Better Than Revenge [Unedited - 2012 Version]

Chapter Fourteen

He shook his head in amusement. “I hope you haven’t started any Anti-Jake Bueller clubs or websites.” 

“Not yet,” I teased. “No, but seriously. You’re actually one of the few young actors I ever liked.” 

“Seriously?” He seemed pretty happy to hear this. “Awesome. I feel accomplished now.”

I grinned. “Oh, shut up.” 

He laughed and said, “No, really, I do.” 

“I suppose you’re going to go home and cross that off your bucket list now?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

He smiled and I saw that his smile was vaguely similar to Christian’s devilishly handsome half-smile. “Of course.”

After this, we talked about the most random things for a few minutes. After our food arrived, and it arrived very quickly, Jake pursed his lips, appearing deep in thought.

“What?” I questioned, taking a sip of my iced tea.

“It’s just… I don’t know if I should ask you this,” he began slowly. 

“Ask me what?” I was beyond curious by then.

He paused momentarily to take a bite out of his food. “It’s just… I’m having some relationship issues and… I… well, I need advice,” Jake explained, running a hand thorough his short, brown hair nervously.

I gave him a reassuring smile. This was beyond adorable. “Then you’ve definitely come to the right person. I was Sally for my high school’s newspaper’s ‘Ask Sally” advice column.” 

His eyes shone with amusement. “Well, then you probably heard this kind of thing all the time.” It wasn’t a question, more of a statement. 

“Pretty much,” I said, nodding. “And then some…”

He smiled. “Alright. Well… I’ve been with my girlfriend… er, ex-girlfriend, I guess… I’ve been with Faye for four years. She was my first love and she’s all I’ve ever known, basically. I thought things were going good but then, all of a sudden, she breaks up with me.” 

I furrowed my eyebrows. “Just completely out of the blue?” 

He nodded gravely. “Pretty much.” 

“She didn’t show any warning signs?” I couldn’t quite believe that this had been completely out of the blue. My guess was that she had, in fact, dropped hints that all was not well, but Jake had just failed to pick up on them. 

He paused momentarily. “No… at least, I don’t think she did…” 

I decided to just tell him what I thought. He came to me for my opinion, after all, and this was it. “I think she probably dropped subtle hints about it, but you just didn’t notice, which is pretty understandable.” 

“Probably,” he admitted sheepishly. “I’m kind of clueless with this shit.” 

“Most guys are,” I reassured him. “What did she say when she broke up with you?” 

“She said we needed to break things off because I was her first serious relationship and we’d been dating for years.” 

I raised an eyebrow. “Er… last I heard, that wasn’t a bad thing.” 

He shook his head. “Normally it isn’t, but to her, in a way it was. She heard that it was bad to settle with your first real relationship because you haven’t even tried it with anyone else.”

I bit my lip. “No offense, but although I guess I can see where she’s coming from, I think that’s ridiculous. Hasn’t she heard that it’s never a good idea to leave behind something great in search of something better?"