Hey, it's me again. While my Mediator and SOTP story are on hiatus—since I'm having the hardest time thinking up what to happen next—I'm keeping myself occupied with this story. It's been an idea that has been back and forth inside my head ever since Meg Cabot put up the synopsis for Missing You, the last book.

Heidi

Summary: Seven years ago, Jess and Rob broke up because Jess wanted to explore the world and go places and get out of her little hick town, while Rob just wanted to stay in Indiana—actually, their fight turned ended up to be a little more than that, but we'll get into that part later. Now it's seven years later, Jess just having turned twenty-three, and Rob being twenty-five. What if suddenly, they realize at the same time that they don't care about whatever else they wanted, all they wanted is each other? And what if this happened at the same time, a dangerous serial killer, looking to kill anyone they could get their hands on? Especially someone who could get the FBI's most powerful weapon, Lightening Girl, to do whatever they wanted?

Disclaimer: Everything belongs to Meg Cabot except the plot of this story and the couple of characters that I made up.

Happy Birthday, Jess!

I woke not to the dulcet tones of the singing birds outside my apartment nor the diabolical tone of the alarm clock, but to someone banging on my bedroom door going, "Jess, come on, get up!"

I looked over at my alarm clock. Six thirty in the morning? Six thirty? On a Saturday morning? Were they out of their mind?

But I dragged myself out of the bed anyways just to tell them to stop the banging.

You could see how surprised I was when I came out, a bunch of people—mostly from work—were standing there screaming, "Happy birthday, Jess!" at the top of their lungs…with my best friend Cecelia holding a banner that read, "Another Year Older Could Only Mean Another Year Better." Another year better my ass.

Then I remembered. My birthday, of course. Ditzy me, forgetting my own birthday. But I had an excuse, because unlike normal people, I don't like my birthday.

Not because I was born on an "unlucky day" or something corny like that. No, because my birthday reminded me of that day seven years ago…with him.

How we'd been talking about our futures and what we wanted to do. He said he wanted to open his own garage in Indiana and make a living there, but I had said that I wanted to go all over the world and travel. You know, maybe join a law enforcement team.

Then it started. A fight, I mean. He told me that he didn't want me to do law enforcement because it was dangerous. And then one thing lead to another and boom, ten minutes later we were in a raging fight. And we were both pouring in gasoline by the gallons into the fire.

And just like that. It was over.

So now, seven years later, I am here with my stupid law enforcement team.

Yes, I give I joined the FBI, okay? It's just that, after I graduated high school. I could no longer bear to see him again. So I moved. And called up Cyrus Krantz. I feel totally guilty about it. Not about calling him up. But the thing is, I didn't tell my family.

Well, that's not exactly true. I told Doug. But I plead him not to tell anybody, because I wanted to start a new life where no one knew me as Jessica Mastriani, girl with anger management problems. Or Jessica Mastriani, girl who Skip, Ruth's twin brother, has a crush on.

And I couldn't start a new life with people from my old life calling me up all the time or driving—or flying—over here demanding to see me. And also, if they—okay, one specific person—came over to see me, I knew I'd break.

I know it's totally wrong for me to cut my family, the people who gave me so much unconditional love, out of my life completely, but if that's what I have to do to keep him away from breaking me up into pieces—for a lack of a better cliché—again, that's what I'll do.

That's what I did.

But I'll tell you a little secret, if you promise not to tell anybody. I still love him. And I've thought so many times to go back to Indiana and find him. But I didn't, because these seven years that I've been ignoring him would have been a total waste.

"Jess?" Cecelia woke me from my thoughts. "Earth to Jess?" she said, waving a hand in front of my face.

I smiled at her. "Yeah. Okay. What do you have planned?"

Cecelia grinned from ear to ear. She loved planning parties. She told me that she's been planning them ever since she was thirteen. Cecelia's great like that. You know, she's all tough at work, but totally sweet anywhere else.

Then she started to explain what we had planned for the party.

And I tuned out to 97.7 Jess's Thoughts About Rob F.M., because I was thinking about him again.

Don't worry, though. This happened every year. There would be a moment of weakness where I really wanted to go see him, and it would be out of my system by the end of the day.

But this year. . .This urge was stronger than the urges from all six years I haven't seen him, combined.

I had a feeling that this year, the urge—the emotions rushing up to my brain, telling me that I should go see him, and say "screw you" to everything else—wasn't going anywhere unless I do something about it.


I'm sorry that this first chapter was short—just treat it as a prologue. I just needed to know if people liked this idea. Please review. I'll put up the second chapter once I have three reviews. :-)

Heidi