I could practically recite every word, especially the part where the drunken pharmacist slapped a young George Bailey’s sore ear. I refrained at first, conscious of JD sitting next to me, but then I gave in to it, quoting softly a few of my favorite lines. JD didn’t look at me strangely. If anything, his eyes crinkled in the corners, and he seemed amused. “You could act this thing out better than Jimmy Stewart,” JD said. And just like that, I fell hard. Not because JD had praised me, but because he “got” me. I didn’t have to hold back, or rein myself in, or be anybody but who I was, and that fact was dizzying and terrifying and amazing all rolled into one. With Tyler, it had been about his looks. I had scrambled after him, accepting his crumbs, thinking I was entitled to no more. JD, in his own way, was every bit as good-looking as Tyler, but that wasn’t what mattered. Act unworthy of more, you get less.
