A/N: Okay, I know some people are going to hate me for the next few chapters, but I promise everything is going to work out! Please review!

"Think about it this way," Boo said as we sat down in English the next morning. "Now that he proved he's a jerk, you won't have to be embarrassed about going out with him."

I glared at her. "Thanks, Boo, that's so helpful." I rolled my eyes and rested my head against my books. I was planning on taking my daily English class nap, but if I fell asleep, I might start dreaming about Dez, and I was not ready for that to happen. My heart was still bleeding from the night before, and I didn't need a reminder about how stupid I was for trusting a thing he'd said.

"C'mon, Mel, I mean, it's not like you were in love with him. You'll be fine." I nodded, despite my head resting on my books, but I wasn't sure that statement was entirely accurate. I hoped to hell I wasn't in love with him, but I couldn't make any guarantees. Just one more thing to add to the pile of shit that was my life.

"I just want to forget about it for a while," I said. Boo nodded understandingly and turned back to her notebook. A paper airplane flew onto her desk, and she opened it to find "hey, beautiful" written in Carl's handwriting. I almost gagged. I hate people sometimes. And Boo and Carl were far too lovey for me. I looked over and saw them smiling at each other from across the room. "Oh, just go sit with him!" I know, I snapped, but she was doing everything I wanted but didn't have the chance to do. I wanted someone who'd send me a paper plane with "hey, beautiful" written on it, or who'd smile at me from across the room.

I turned around and saw a paper plane fall onto my desk. Alright, I'll admit, my first thought was that Dez had decided to tell Charlie and he was sending me a cute message to apologize. I opened the plane and found "hey, beautiful" scrawled inside. My heart started to pound. It was happening! I glanced up and saw Jeff smiling at me from two desks over, and my heart rate immediately decreased. When I said I wanted someone to do what Carl had done for Boo, I really should have specified that I didn't want it to be Jeff. I wanted it to be Dez.

I was perfectly content to just go about my day and try to keep the pain in. But people kept bringing it up. At lunch, Sasha actually suggested we have a pity party for me. In the last class of the day, Jeff told me he had only sent me the paper plane because he thought I looked sad and felt bad for me. And aside from that being extremely insulting, he was blushing, which made me think he wasn't really telling the truth. Ginny had hugged me so hard at my locker after school that I literally started gasping before she would let me go. And of course, Michelle kept me after ballet to talk to me and make sure I was okay. Which was oddly unusual of her, but I think there was a lot of that going on, so I let it slide.

And then I had to go home and deal with Charlie. Who, despite his good intentions, still had douche status for a while. If he hadn't gone over there, none of this would have happened. And even though I knew blaming him was the wrong thing to do, it was the easiest thing to do, so I would do it until I could handle the truth.

"Mel."

I froze where I was. What the hell was he doing in my house?

"Mel, I want to talk to you." I turned around to face none other than the guy who had bruised my unbruisable heart last night.

"Well, I don't, Dez." I found the strength to keep walking and I breezed by him on my way to the stairs. Before I could get up even the first step, his hand snaked out and grabbed my wrist. His heat radiated up my arm, just like it had the night before. Why did he have to affect me this way. It wasn't fair! The one thing I wanted most was something that didn't want me. It figured. I pulled my arm out of his grip. "Not today, Dez." I continued up the stairs, but this time he didn't follow me.

"Mel, can I please take you out Friday night?"

I couldn't believe him. He was actually asking me out again after what he'd done? But I refused to show him how much he'd hurt me. I tried to tell myself that's why I said it, but really I just wanted to hurt him as much as he'd hurt me. "I can't. I have a date with Jeff."

It occurred to me once I was safely in my bedroom that me going out with another boy on Friday night wouldn't have bothered him because he didn't like me, but it had shut him up, so I was willing to overlook that for the moment. I didn't even like Jeff, but I figured the best way to get over the non-relationship I'd had with Dez was to get back up on the horse. Poor Jeff, I thought. I hoped he didn't like me too much, because if he did, we were both going to end up in the same boat. A heartbroken one. Then again, I'd seen him flirting with Boo recently, so he couldn't like me that much.

Even to me, the rationalization sounded shitty, but it was, yet again, something I'd needed, so I let it slide for a little while. I was doing a lot of that at that time. I didn't realize until later that that meant that I was hurt by it more than I thought.