The first week Jessie was in Florida with her grandparents, she followed their rules exactly as they wished. But after that first week, she was bored and sick of it. So she bent the rules as much as she could, without really breaking them. Soon after that she stopped caring and just ignored them. She came and went as she pleased, sometimes not coming home until the next morning. At least she was making friends.
One of those friends was Kyle. The others were Kayla and Amber. Amber and Kyle were together, and had been for a long time, while Kayla was his little sister. She was thirteen, but she and Kyle were good friends. She fit in with Kyle and Amber about as much as Jessie did, which wasn't all that much, but enough to be friends.
Kayla and Jessie usually ended up together because Kyle and Amber would wander off places. They became good friends very quickly. They told each other everything, and Kayla told Jessie her exact thoughts on Kyle and Amber's relationship.
"She came around about two years ago, new to town because she got kicked out of her boarding school somewhere in New York or something. She came back to live with her parents, and her and Kyle met at school. They 'cliqued' as he called it. I called it something more along the lines of fake-cliquing. You know, when you pretend to really clique with someone just for the attention or popularity or whatever the reason may be?
"Anyway, they've been together for three months now. Amber chased him from the day she got here to the day he asked her out. Now she has an actual reason to hang around, and she does so. But do you want to know what really bugs me about her?"
"What?" Jessie asked. They were sitting by a fire on the beach while Amber told this story. Jessie was entranced by it. Kayla was too, but they could both concentrate on the conversation.
"She's really only dating him to be his trophy, and so he can be hers. Those couples really bug me. She makes him buy everything for her, even though she's got more money than us, and she just treats him terribly. Almost like she's better than him and he's like…a servant or something."
"Doesn't he understand that?"
"Apparently not. I've explained it to him dozens of times, but he just kind of shrugs it off and says I'm wrong." Kayla paused, and her eyes suddenly got very wide. "Jessie, I have an idea!" The look on Kayla's face told Jessie to be a little worried. "You should convince Kyle that I'm right! You could do it. He'll listen to you. He trusts you a lot, you know. Probably more than me, which is why this is so great! This is going to work out perfectly. Will you do it?"
"Kayla, I don't know…I couldn't break up a relationship. I'd feel too bad. I understand where you're coming from, but I just can't do that. Kyle could find out later that I was trying to break them up and he might be really mad about it."
"Come on, Jessie! Please?" If you've ever tried saying no to a thirteen-year-old girl with a good puppy pout, it's hard to do. So Jessie agreed, but the terms were that she could do it in any way she wanted to.