Quote 1
"He was my first horse. I got him when I was seven. We used to compete in local rodeos together. Even won some. Now he spends his days out in this field munching grass."
"It's a nice life," I said, "for a horse, I mean." I shrugged. "I guess for a seven-year-old boy too. I mean what kid doesn't want his own horse." (14.8, 10)
Dani's right; Jake has had a pretty charmed life. Not only is he handsome and adored by everyone, but the kid grew up on a freaking horse farm—he has his own pony for goodness sake. Of course things are pretty different now, though. Jake's horse has grown up and so has he.
Quote 2
"We played the Game a month before Amy's death. It was the first time she'd been on the bus. She played and Blister was her partner, but he wasn't able to find her. I'd been the emcee, so I knew exactly where she was. I ran to get her, but the chair was empty. She was sitting nearby, untied, and crying. When I approached her, she ran up the road to her car and took off. We all convinced ourselves that she'd just freaked out being alone in the dark. But we never figured out how she'd untied herself, and she never spoke to any of us after that. The Game lost its sheen after that incident. Then she died and none of us played again." (22.13)
Death will ruin anyone's fun time, and it's not just Jake that's affected by Amy's death. The kids she hung out with that night knew something weird went down during the Game and so they decided to stop playing it. Their resolve doesn't last too long, but still, they tried.
Quote 3
"Even with a popularity status that bordered on legendary, he kept his head and his cool. Everyone adored him. Then when rumor got around that he'd said something cruel about Amy's weight, and she'd started crash dieting, some of the shine came off his armor. He really beat himself up about it. Not because people didn't think as highly of him, but because he couldn't stand that he had caused her pain. Then when she died and the town decided it was because of him, his whole life took a nose dive. His grades crashed, he had no interest in swimming, there was even a point where he started soaking his brain with alcohol. The town had convinced him that he'd caused Amy to kill herself. Never mind that no one in town had given her the time of day before that, but they needed someone to blame. And it all fell on Jake's shoulders. Dermott was the worst. Jake had considered him a friend, but Dermott made him feel like crap about the whole thing. Slowly, the hurt he was feeling faded. He started coming around again. Then you arrived. It was like the whole guilt trip began again." (28.27)
This is Jake in a nutshell. Everything was rainbows and lollipops for him until Amy died. But after, not only does the town see him differently, Jake sees himself differently. He's no longer the perfect and popular stud he always thought he was.