Miley grabbed onto Lily's arm and squeezed it with all of her might. "Tell me the plan!" she beseeched. "Ouch!" Lily squealed, fighting her way out of Miley's clutch. "How can you hold on that hard?" Miley smiled slightly and said, "Arms of a singer. I have to dance and hold a, like, twenty pound microphone at the same time." Lily shrugged and giggled a bit.
Miley gave her a cocky smile and released her grip. Right when Lily was relaxing, Miley tightened it again and whispered into her ear, "Tell me the plan!" Lily responded, "Wait until lunchtime." Miley rolled her eyes. "It is lunch time!" Lily sighed and said, "Oh, well in that case, I'm going to have to tell you now. Darn it."
"How is that a bad thing?" Miley called after as Lily ran down to the cafeteria. "She probably doesn't even have a plan. She probably just wants to sound smart," Miley told herself silently as she waited for Erik to lock his locker.
When they got to their lunch table, Lily had set up a poster board that lay flat on the table. Miley put her lunch beside it and studied it silently while Lily waited. When Miley had finished, she smiled a bit. "That's a pretty good plan, but doesn't that make a lot of suffering on my part?" she asked. "You've got to suffer a little bit for a lot of happiness," Lily said in a philosophical tone. Miley rolled her eyes in a joking way. Lily reviewed the plan verbally. "Okay, so Erik, you tell Jake that Miley broke up with you because you didn't treat her well and you never wanted to kiss her. Be really sad and upset. Tell him that she's looking for an assertive, cute, and semi-devious boy. He'll immediately get the idea in his egoistic brain that he should ask her out, and so he will. Miley will say yes, and then they'll go out semi-secretly. Miley will see if his apology was serious, and if it is, then we'll decide what to do with him. If it wasn't, and he's still a jerk who doesn't care about the girl, just the looks, then we'll also decide."
Erik frowned. "So me and Miley can't act like we're going out during this plan?" he asked sadly. Lily patted his shoulder. "You guys can still date outside of school. Just as long as it's a place where Jake can't find you!" Erik nodded sadly. Miley pecked him on the lips and told him, "It'll be alright. I won't enjoy pretend-dating Jake, I totally promise." Erik smiled. "I figured that."
Miley giggled and then addressed her next question to Lily. "That's a great plan and all, but the ending is really incomplete. What are some of your ideas when you say, 'we'll decide what to do with him?'" Lily sheepishly answered, "Well, I don't have any for sure, but I'll think about them while the plan's going on." Erik quickly piped up, "Exactly how long do you think that will be?" Lily smiled and said, "A week tops." Erik's face dropped, so Miley pecked him again and said, "We can go to the movies every day, I promise. But you might have to move lunch tables." Erik shrugged and said, "Every day I sit at a different table, you have to make it up to me!" Miley responded, "Alright, fine," as if this were a task she'd rather not do.
The next day, Erik came up to Jake and started tearing up. Excuse me, I mean Lake. Lake looked at Erik and backed away. "Dude, what's up with you?" he said in a disgusted voice. Erik moaned. "Miley broke up with me. She said I wasn't assertive enough and that every time she wanted to kiss me I'd push her away! She says that she wants her next boyfriend to be cute, sort of devious, and assertive. Everything I wasn't!" Erik was a good actor, and Lake was convinced. A smile spread across his face. "Sounds like me. It actually sounds like she's hinting for me! Don't you think?" Erik looked up at him. "I guess so. I don't care who she ends up with, as long as she's happy." Erik trudged away, wiping his eye with a tissue. Jake thrust his perfectly marveled chest forward and marched over to Miley's locker, where she was vigorously scrubbing off "I Love Erik" from her whiteboard. She whipped around and saw Jake. She assumed her flirtiest pose and tucked a strand of wavy brown hair behind her ear. "Hey, Jake." Jake ran his hand through his hair and said, "Hey, Miley…" Miley grabbed Jake and instantly kissed him hard. It was cold, uncomfortable, and heartless to Miley. To Jake, it was warm, comfortable, and inviting. When Miley broke the kiss, she scribbled "I Love Lake/Jake" on her whiteboard and winked at him. Then she slammed her locker and walked to her class. Jake just stood there happily until the bell rang, when he rushed to his class. It was fourth period, one of the classes with Lake. When he entered the classroom, he sat down in the desk next to Miley's and grabbed her hand. He kissed it like a hot prince. Miley gave him a goo-goo look, then turned around to Lily and pantomimed puking. Lily giggled silently then turned around as Ms. Kunkle said, "Good morning class."
Everybody responded, "Good morning Ms. Kunkle," in monotones. She went off in full-speech mode. "Today, I want you to write a fun little essay about your favorite bone in your body. Write all about why it is your favorite, and then, for educational purposes, write all about its features and how it contributes to your body. The assignment is to be turned in before the bell rings, or it is homework. Each paragraph is worth ten points. If you write five paragraphs, the highest possible score is fifty points. You will be graded on grammar, spelling, fact credibility, and neatness. Go." For the rest of the class, the only sound you could hear was pencils scratching against notebook paper. Lake desperately wanted to talk to Miley, but knew he couldn't without the rest of the class hearing. So he waited. After the period, he ran up to her and asked if she'd like to come over after school and watch a movie. She responded, "I'd love to." Then she stuck up her index and middle finger, put them together, kissed them both, and pressed them against Jake's lips. She turned quickly, whipping Jake with her hair.
That day, after school, Miley told her father she was going to hang out at Lily's. "Don't call their home phone. Lily's mom is really busy and she's probably going to be on the line all day. Call my cell phone if you need me," she told him. Then she dressed in a cute outfit and left in the direction of Lily's house. When her father wasn't looking, she called Lily. Lily had just turned sixteen and already had her driver's license. She picked up Miley and drove her to Jake's. Miley nervously noticed that the garage was open and there were no cars in it. It would just be here and Jake. She shuddered as memories of the day that started this whole fight flew into her head.
"Good luck," Lily wished her friend, and then she drove off. Miley rang the doorbell unsurely. Jake opened the door, wearing a cute graphic T-shirt and dark-wash baggy jeans. "Come on in," he said. Miley got a glance of the movie star's house. It was really nice. But not as nice as what she could do if she was Hannah Montana all the time. Jake and Miley sat down on the leather couch. Miley thought this was extremely awkward. Jake thought it was romantic. He lit the electric fire and turned on the movie. It was a romance film about a girl who gets kidnapped by this extremely cute boy her age because she's so beautiful. Miley thought it was a mega snoozer. She could predict the ending a quarter-way through the movie. Then she realized why Jake had picked such a boring movie. So she'd want to spend the whole time making out! She got mad. But she couldn't let him know she wasn't totally into him or the plan would be ruined. Jake moved in closer.
"Oh, Brian! I didn't know you loved me!" lamented the blonde on the TV screen. A hunky brunette replied, "Of course I did, sugar. Why else would I kidnap and distress such a beauty?" The two characters started moving in towards each other. Jake followed suit. When Miley saw him leaning in, she did, too, pretending she was about to kiss Erik, not Jake stuck-up, snotty, egoistic Ryan. When their lips finally met, Miley felt a jolt rush down her spine. She was reminded of their first kiss at Rico's. And all the times they'd spent together. She remembered the "wooly-mammoth" premiere and the flowers he'd sent her. She reminisced on telling him her secret and how well he received it. And then she felt something else, too.
Love.