“Hey!” Jennifer said, giving her a smile. “Let me guess. Shopping for a dress for the dance?”
“A new dress is the last thing I need. I’m sure I’ll find something in my closet. I’m here with Claudia and Eden. They’re the ones shopping.”
“Claudia’s here?” Jennifer decided to leave before running into her. Otherwise she was going to open her mouth and get herself into some sort of mess.
“Uh-huh. And not very happy. She’s hated every dress she’s tried on.”
“I’ll come back later. The last person I want to see is her. I’m sure she’ll gloat about winning the romance test.”
Natalie rolled her eyes. “That’s all she’s been talking about the entire afternoon.”
“What did you think of it?”
“Can you say disaster?” Natalie asked. “Tom was so mad at me.”
“It wasn’t your fault. You guys haven’t been dating very long.”
“Neither have you and Will,” Natalie pointed out. “Look how well the two of you did.”
“Some couples mesh more quickly than others.”
“I guess.” Natalie sighed.
Jennifer could sense that something was bothering Natalie. “Is everything okay? Do you want to talk? I don’t have to get to work for another hour. We could grab a latte in the food court.”
“I’m okay. Just sorting out some personal stuff.”
Jennifer wondered if that personal stuff had to do with Tom, but didn’t ask.
“Things seem to be going great with you and Will,” Natalie said. “I’m glad.”
Jennifer could see that Natalie meant it and it made her like her even more. It also made her want to ask her a question. She couldn’t ask Violet because she needed an honest answer from someone who didn’t know the situation she was in.
“How can you tell if a guy really likes you?”
“Easy,” Natalie said. “He’ll come right out and tell you. Sometimes he’ll even show you.”
Natalie sounded like she was talking from personal experience. “He will? How?”
“He’ll get physical. You know, with a kiss.”
Will had kissed her. But it hadn’t been a real kiss. Or had it? Had he been trying to fool her? She didn’t know!
“What if he doesn’t tell you?” Jennifer asked. “Or show you?”
“Then it’s up to you,” Natalie said. “If you really like the guy, you should tell him. Especially if you think he might like you. You know how guys can get sometimes. They’re shy and they don’t always tell us what they’re feeling or thinking. We have to drag it out of them.”
“Would you tell him?” Jennifer asked.
Natalie thought about it for a second and then she nodded. Jennifer couldn’t help but notice that she seemed . . . happier. Like a weight had been lifted from her shoulders. “I would. Definitely.”
“Thanks for the advice,” Jennifer said, wondering what she was going to do the next time she saw Will.
Eden was in the House of Fashion dressing room. Usually, she loved trying on new clothes and checking herself out from all angles in one of those fabulous three-way mirrors. But today her heart wasn’t in it. She hadn’t liked any of the dresses she had tried on. What did it matter what she was wearing? It wasn’t like she was dressing for anyone. But Claudia had dragged her and Natalie to the mall with her, insisting that they all had to find new dresses for the Valentine’s Day dance. Natalie was still outside searching through the racks, while Eden kept giving Claudia her opinion.
“What do you think of this one?” Claudia asked as she modeled in front of Eden. She was wearing a hot pink baby-doll dress.
“It’s adorable,” Eden said.
“I hate it!” Claudia exclaimed, ripping the dress off and hurling it at Eden. She collected a bunch of hangers with dresses she had already tried on and shoved them into Eden’s arms. “And I hate these! Go hang them back up while I try on something else!”
Eden smothered a sigh. She didn’t know how many more of Claudia’s temper tantrums she could take. All the dresses had looked stunning on her. What did she want?
As she walked out of the dressing room, she ran into Dexter’s sister Angie, who was wearing one of the outfits she’d given her. She was in a purple and black, plaid-pleated mini-skirt, black striped turtleneck, black tights, and high-heeled Mary Janes. The look was very funky and fresh.
“That looks better on you then it did on me,” Eden complimented her.
“Hey, Eden! Buying a dress for the dance?”
“I’m trying to, but I can’t find anything I like,” she said as she hung up the dresses Claudia had tried on.
“Who are you going with?” Angie asked as she followed her.
“No one.”
“You mean Dexter hasn’t worked up his courage yet?”
“To do what?” Eden absently asked as she tried to hang a dress back on a crowded rack.
“Ask you to the dance!” Angie exclaimed.
Eden dropped the dresses she was holding and whirled around to face Angie. “What did you say?”
“Dexter wants to take you to the Valentine’s Day dance.”
“He does?” Eden asked in disbelief.
“All he ever talks about is you,” Angie said.
Eden bent down to pick up the dresses she had dropped. “I thought maybe he might like me, but I wasn’t sure. I thought I was imagining things.”
“Oh, he likes you. Trust me. He likes you a lot. He’s just too shy to do anything about it!” One of Angie’s friends called out to her. “Gotta go!” she told Eden.
After Angie left, Eden went back to the dress racks with renewed determination. This time she was going to find a dress. If she didn’t find one here, then she’d go to every store in the mall.
She had to.
Because it looked like she might have a date for the Valentine’s Day dance after all!
Everywhere Jennifer looked in DeVille’s, people were shopping for Valentine’s Day. The candy department was filled with shoppers waiting in line with cute stuffed animals and heart-shaped boxes of chocolate. The jewelry department was a madhouse as salesclerks hurried to open glass-topped cases so they could take out shiny necklaces, bracelets, and rings. Other shoppers had bouquets of flowers tucked under their arms. Love was in the air!
Jennifer couldn’t wait until the following day. She was finally going to have a valentine.
Okay, technically he wasn’t a real valentine, but maybe . . .
Just maybe . . .
After leaving Natalie, Jennifer had thought about her advice. And she had made a decision. She was going to tell Will how she felt about him. She had to. Once the Valentine’s Day dance was over, they would no longer be a couple and she didn’t want that to happen. She wanted to keep being Will’s girlfriend, but for real. She could only hope that once she told him how she felt, he would tell her that he had feelings for her, too.
But he had to! She was sensing something developing between them. It couldn’t be her imagination.
At that moment, the doors to the elevator across from Jennifer’s cash register opened and Will came walking out. His overcoat was open and she could see he was wearing the suit they’d bought earlier in the week. He looked so good in it! Like he’d stepped out of the pages of a fashion magazine.
Jennifer’s heart began beating nervously. Why was Will all dressed up and coming to see her? Was he planning to do something romantic? She walked out from behind her cash register. “Hi! This is a surprise.”
“I swung by your house and your mom told me you were working. I wanted to talk to you about something.”
“I wanted to talk to you about something, too,” Jennifer said, taking Will by the hand and leading him to the storeroom in the back. “Let’s go where we can have some privacy.” She was going to do it. She was going to tell him how she felt. If she didn’t do it now, she might never do it.
“I can’t stay away from my register very long,” she said, as they stepped int
o a room filled with wedding gowns hanging in plastic bags. “Like I said, I wanted to talk to you about something, but I also wanted to give you something.”
“What?”
“An early Valentine’s Day present.”
Then Jennifer threw her arms around Will and gave him a kiss. She’d been wanting to do this since the moment he’d ended their last kiss. And now she was.
But as she pressed her lips against Will’s, she realized something was wrong.
This kiss wasn’t as special as the last one they’d shared.
Maybe that was because Will wasn’t kissing her back.
Jennifer broke the kiss and stepped away from Will, totally confused. Should she not have made the first move? Was Will upset about that? Was that why he hadn’t kissed her back? She had expected a completely different reaction than the one she was getting. He was staring at her with an uncomfortable look on his face. Her kiss couldn’t have been that bad, could it?
“Is something wrong?” she asked him.
Will quickly shook his head. “No, that was nice,” he said. “Very nice.”
“I wanted to thank you for being so sweet,” she said, rushing to do damage control. After the way he’d responded to her kiss she wasn’t about to confess her feelings. “You know, for helping me out.”
“I’m always there for my friends. You know that better than anyone else. Which is what I wanted to talk to you about.” Will paused and gazed down at the floor. It was almost like he was trying to work up his courage for what he had to say next. Then he gazed back at Jennifer. “That’s why I dropped by last night,” he continued. “But Violet was there and the timing didn’t seem right. And today we never really had a chance to be alone.”
He’s breaking up with me, Jennifer thought. He’s decided he can’t go through with this anymore. Wait, wait, wait! He can’t be breaking up with me because there’s nothing to break up. We’re not a couple.
Her frantic thoughts must have registered on her face because Will laughed. “Don’t look so panicked,” he said. “It’s not bad news.”
“Then why are you acting so strangely?” Jennifer asked.
“Because I’m not sure how you’re going to react when I tell you.”
“Then just tell me,” she told him. “The suspense is killing me!”
“Do you know Kristy Jenkins?”
Jennifer shook her head. The name rang no bells with her.
“She’s a girl I went out with a couple of times. We’re still friends. She goes to St. Bernadette’s. Anyway, I ran into her on Sunday afternoon and she asked if I’d do her a favor.”
“What kind of favor?”
“She has a party to go to tonight and she asked if I’d go with her. Her boyfriend broke up with her and she doesn’t want to go alone. All her friends are coupled up.”
“What did you tell her?”
“I said yes.”
Jennifer couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “You said yes? But why?”
“Why not?”
“Because you’re supposed to be my boyfriend.” She stared at Will in the suit she thought he had worn for her. But he hadn’t. He was wearing it for another girl. And then she remembered helping him shop for it. She had asked him why he needed a suit and he hadn’t told her. But he’d known that he needed the suit for tonight. Okay, he hadn’t technically lied, but he’d withheld information from her! She’d thought she was dressing Will for herself, but she’d actually been dressing him for Kristy! “How is it going to look if people find out you’re on a date with another girl? You know how everyone at North Ridge High gossips. All we need is for Mindy Yee to be at this party and we’re sunk!”
“It will look like you trust me,” Will said. “And it’s not a real date. It’s like what I’m doing for you by pretending to be your boyfriend. A favor. I’m helping a friend. It’s the same thing.”
Will’s words rang through Jennifer’s head: Pretending to be your boyfriend . . . a favor . . . helping a friend. She’d just gotten a cold dose of reality. Will didn’t have feelings for her. If he did, he wouldn’t be saying those words. He’d be saying something else.
Something she wasn’t ever going to get to hear from him.
Like: I love you.
Okay, maybe it was a bit too early for Will to be declaring his love, but at some point maybe he would have.
“Why are you freaking out?” Will asked, breaking into her thoughts. “I thought you’d be cool with it.”
“Well, I’m not.”
“Why? What’s the big deal?”
Do you even have to ask that question? she wanted to scream. Because I’m jealous!!! I don’t want you spending time with another girl. I want you spending time with me. I know how great you are and Kristy Jenkins probably does, too. I wouldn’t be surprised if she made a play for you!
It’s a big deal because I’m falling for you and I don’t want to lose you. I don’t want you going out with some other girl. I want you going out with me. Only me.
And then Jennifer remembered something that made her feel like an idiot. The necklace she had seen Will buying. She’d thought he was buying it for her, but he wasn’t. Why would he? It wasn’t the kind of Valentine’s Day gift a guy would give to a girl who was “just” a friend. A guy gave a gift like that to a girl whom he cared about. That wasn’t her. Will had made that perfectly clear.
So whom had he bought the necklace for? Kristy Jenkins?
Or some other girl?
“I’ve got to get back to my register,” Jennifer said, needing to get away from Will before she said something she’d regret. Part of her wanted to ask him whom he had bought the necklace for while another part of her wanted to scream and shout at him and ask why he hadn’t bought the necklace for her. “Do whatever you need to do.”
“Thanks,” Will said, his voice filled with relief. “I’ll see you at school tomorrow.”
A feeling of sadness washed over Jennifer as she left the storeroom. She thought she had been special. She had thought she was the only girl who mattered to Will.
But she wasn’t.
She never had been.
Violet had been right.
The Heartbreaker had succeeded in breaking her heart.
“Happy Valentine’s Day!” Natalie exclaimed when Leo opened his front door the following morning.
Leo blinked at Natalie with sleepy eyes. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m taking you jogging. Weren’t you waiting for me? You’re wearing your sweats.”
“That’s ’cause I slept in them. My mom didn’t have a chance to do the laundry last night and I didn’t have any pajamas.” Leo yawned. “I’m finished with jogging. I told you that yesterday.”
Natalie walked into Leo’s foyer and closed the front door behind her. “But you can’t give up. I won’t let you!”
Natalie followed after Leo as he headed back to his bedroom and flopped down on his bed. It was a typical guy room, with posters of bikiniclad girls on the walls, stacks of DVDs next to his computer, books and magazines scattered on the floor, and piles of discarded clothes everywhere.
“Go away,” Leo mumbled, pulling the sheets and bedspread back over his head. “I need to sleep. If my parents hadn’t already left for work, I’d make them throw you out.”
Natalie shook her head. “It’s time to rise and shine!”
Leo sighed and sat up. “Jogging around some park isn’t going to help me lose weight.”
“Yes, it will.”
“No, it won’t. Look, Nat, it’s nice that you want to help me, but I’m not fooling myself. I’m always going to be fat.”
“You’re not,” Natalie insisted. “Not if you want to lose the weight badly enough. Do you want to lose it?”
Leo ran a hand through his curls. “Of course I do!”
“Then why won’t you try? What are you so afraid of?”
“What if I can’t do it?” Leo whispered. “I’ve tried before. I’ve lost a few poun
ds but never enough to make a difference. And then I’ve put it back on.”
“You can do it,” Natalie said.
“Why do you sound so sure?”
“It’s possible to lose the weight, Leo. I can prove it.”
Natalie reached into her backpack and pulled out a photo album, placing it in Leo’s lap. She’d never shown the album to anyone in North Ridge, but she trusted Leo. And she needed to do this. For him.
“What’s this?” he asked.
“You tell me.”
Leo began flipping through the pages of the photo album. “It’s filled with pictures of some fat girl.”
“You don’t recognize her?”
Leo peered more closely at one of the photos. “Should I?”
“That fat girl is me.”
Leo’s mouth opened in shock as he stared at the photos before him and back at Natalie. Then he did it again. And again.
“That’s you?” Leo gasped, pointing at a photo.
Natalie nodded. “That’s me. Hard to believe, isn’t it?”
Leo stared at the photos again. “I’ll say. It’s like you’re two different people.” He closed the album and stared at Natalie. His gaze was so intense that she started to squirm.
“What?” she asked, feeling self-conscious.
“Everything makes sense now. Why you’ve always been so nice to me. You used to be me.”
“I knew what you were going through. And I’d like to think I still would have been nice to you, even if I hadn’t been fat. I treat people the way I want them to treat me. With kindness and compassion.”
Natalie then told Leo about her life before moving to North Ridge. It was the first time she had ever told the story to one of her new friends. As the words spilled out, she felt like a huge load was being lifted off her shoulders. It felt good sharing her secret. And if it helped Leo, even better.
“If I can do it, you can do it,” she said when she finished. “I did it by myself, but I can help you, Leo.”
“I don’t think Tom would like that very much, do you?” Leo asked.
Tom. Natalie didn’t want to think about him. He still wasn’t talking to her after the way he’d blown up at her the day before. Even though she was his girlfriend, she didn’t feel like one. A girlfriend was supposed to feel special. Wanted. She’d never felt that way with Tom. When she was with him, she always felt like she was an accessory: the good-looking blonde that he needed to have on his arm.
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