You Give Love A Bad Name

(one month later)

Imagine the coldest, cruelest, most cringe-worthy epsode of MTV's Dismissed.

One in which the guy pretends to like one girl, even though her competition for the guy's affections is hotter and whorier than she could ever be. So the guy really plays it up, and the ugly girl thinks she has a shot, even though it's obvious to everyone else-- the hotter, whorier girl, the camera crew, the viewing audience- that she will be humiliated- harshly- at the end of the half hour. But the ugly girl doesn't see this; she's blinded by the guy's charms. And she gets excited thinking about how personality has won out over whoriness, and fantasizing about her future with this great guy. Then when is comes time for the Dismissal, the guy who has restored her faith in the opposite sex turns to the girl and says, "I wouldn't do you if you were the last piece of pussy on the planet." And then he looks right into the camera and laughs and laughs and laughs.

That's about one-bazzilionth as bad as what happened to me today, when J.T. did the thing he assured me he would never do. He broke my heart on Valentine's Day.

J.T.'s Dumping Speech:

"It's not you. It's me. And it's also my mom. She really doens't like you very much, and it's made it difficult to spend time with you, and I though it would be hard to continue a relationshitp with someone I can never see. Also, my future is very important to me and I can't help buit fell that since i've been with you, my priorites have shifted but not in a positive, productive way. Lately I have realized that we had opposing views on important suject, including, but not limited, sexual relations before marriage. I feel that I've gotten all I can from this life experience, and that the best thing for both of us is if we put an end to this now, so we can move on to a more fufilling future." Liberty, get out of there!

When I didn't respond, he shook my hand in a very businesslike way, then departed.

J.T. broke up with ME. ON VALENTINE'S DAY.

I guess its better than his breaking up with me the day after Valentine's Day, knowing all along that he wanteded to break up with me on Valentine's Day.

NO IT'S NOT. IT STILL SUCKS.

I went home and cried and slept.

The next morning I had about 5 messages on my phone.

"Guess what?" I heard Paige's voice ring through my ears. "J.T. broke up with you so he could hook up with Manny. I'm so sorry, Del." You got it. I'd always though Manny was after Craig again, but she was after J.T. And she got him. Just like she gets every guy she's ever gone after. Ever. ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGH. And I was too obsessed with the idea of her seducing Craig to even notice.

Serves me right. How did my life become tabloid fodder? Because I'm a moron. Take my brain for scientific rsearch, I apparently don't need it.

I went back to school a week later, still sad. Amanda had told me to practice conducting myself with quiet, dignified grace.

One of Manny's little friends comes up behind me in the hall before homeroom. "Omigod! Don't you just want to die when you see J.T. and Manny together?" She shrieks.

"I haven't seen them.

"Look!" Then she grabbed me by the shoulders and spun me in the opposite direction, just in time to see J.T. kiss Manny on the hand in parting, like he was a knight and se was a goddamned damsel or something. 'Quiet, dignified grace,' I thought to myself.

"Omigod! Don't you want to die?"

"No," I said calmly. "Not really."

"If my boyfriend humiliated me the way J.T. leveled you, I would want to die!"

"Well, it's a good thing that you do't have a boyfriend, isn't it?" I replies in a tone as sickly sweet and artificial as Equal. "Come to think of it, you've never had a boyfriend, have you?"

That shut her up and sent her stoming into homeroom.I had my eyed closed and my head pressed against my locker door when i felt a tap on my shoulder. I had a very definite idea of who I wanted it to be.

"Um, Delia."

Instead I got the last person I wanted to see.

Quiet, dignified grace, I reminded myself as I opened my eyes.

"What is it, J.T."

"I just wanted to. Um. Apologize for hurting you."

I held up my hands to cut him off.

"First of all, spare me your apology becasue it's more abougt making yourself feel less guilty than it is about looking for forgiveness. Second of all, don't flatter yourself by thinking you hur mt. you're either an egomanic or a psychotic like your mother if you tihnk you hurt me."

Yeah, that's right. I sunk to a yo mama lever. Whatever. He deserved it.

"You blindsided me, that's for sure. And I was pissed off. Not so much about you hoking up with Manny, beasue everyone knows you're just the latest trick in her hobad. No, I was pissed for only one reason: you broke up with me before I had the chance to break up with you. And that makes me an even bigger asshole than you are. But at least I know it!" When I fisihed, there was applause, I was so taken with my tirade that I hadn't noticed the crowd of onlookers. Paige, Spinner, Sean, Emma, and a whole bunch of faces I didn't even recognize were all clapping as J.T. slunk away, feeling every inch the huge sphincter he is.

Thelast bell rand and the odies scattered toward thier respective homerooms. That when I finally heard his voice from behind.

"So much for quiet, dignified grace," Craig said, his lips pressed together, and his arms folded over the picture of Sid Vicious on his chest.

"Not my style," I said, wondering how he knew. "I'm more of a loud, offensive mess."

"Yes," he said, slowly breaking into the grin I know so well. "Yes, you are."

As we walked into homeroom together, I decided that his assurance of okayness was better late than never.

[A/N: What do you think? This chapter is sort of confusing, but basically J.T. dumps Delia, Delia stays home, J.T hooks up with Manny, Delia lectures J.T., and Craig reassures Delia. If anyone has noticed, all of the episode titles are 80's songs. If you can name everyone and the artist who sang them, you will be a character in my next story!]