Back with Harold and Leshawna, the two of them stood in awkward silence in front of each other. "I thought you were better than to do something like this, Harold," Leshawna said.

"So did I," Harold replied. "But I hadn't made any progress with you after the show and when Heather made her suggestion, I was desperate enough to go along with it."

Leshawna didn't entirely believe that this was all Heather's idea. It was definitely the kind of thing Heather would come up with and her going along with the plan if Harold came up with it didn't seem very likely. But considering this current development and Heather's past actions, Leshawna knew better than to take anything involving Heather at face value.

"I know you don't have much reason to believe anything we're saying," Harold continued, sensing Leshawna's doubts, "but Heather and I have been friends for a while now. She was just trying to help me out."

"I'll buy that for now," Leshawna said. "But what about all this stuff with her apologizing, getting money from you when Gwen and I turned down her apology and giving me a check for one hundred dollars?" Leshawna asked loudly.

"Oh that," Harold said. "Heather was actually trying to apologize because she is sorry about the stuff she's done before. As for the bet, she gave back the money she won from me: that was her idea of passive-aggressively showing you and Gwen just how emotionally invested you two are in hating her guts. I think she was hoping to shock you two into realizing how far you'd go with being unwilling to forgive her and it might make you realize that you need to be more reasonable."

"And by claiming to date you, she could show us that maybe she has changed. Aren't you bothered that she was using you?"

"No. I was using her to play hard to get with you and she was using me to prove to you and Gwen that she's actually human: that seemed pretty fair to me."

Leshawna stood silent with her mouth open as she pondered a few things. Because of how vindictive she could be (which Heather had proved earlier), she had been very eager to accuse Heather of wrong doing with using Harold: so eager that she had ignored how benign Heather's actions really were. She also realized that because of her vindictiveness, she had never considered that Heather might be sincerely trying to apologize, even after giving her a check for one hundred dollars.

Leshawna decided that as soon as she could, she would cash Heather's check and let go of her grudge against the Asian girl.

...

"But why would you go out your way like this to help Harold?" Gwen asked Heather. She was still suspicious about Heather's motives and wanted an acceptable answer.

"Because Harold helped me out when I needed it the most," Heather began. "When I became a social pariah at my high school, Harold was the only person to not hate my guts and extend a hand of friendship. I was a little pissed off that after the kindness he showed me, Leshawna only saw him as just another nerd. So I decided to repay Harold and take out my frustrations with Leshawna by getting them together."

Gwen wasn't sure how she felt about Heather's motives. On one hand, Gwen felt the urge to tell Heather that she was morally full of herself for thinking that just because she didn't like how things worked out between Harold and Leshawna, that it gave her the right to interfere with their lives. On the other hand, Gwen knew that if she was crushing hard on Trent and not getting anywhere, she'd defenitly want one of her friends to help out.

"Bottom line Gwen," Trent said, sensing her confusion, "Heather did the wrong thing for the right reasons. Compared to when we first met her and she did the wrong things for the bitchy reasons, that's a pretty big improvement."

He then faced Heather. "That being said Heather," Trent continued, "If you liked Harold so much and were concerned about his love life, why didn't you just date him yourself?"

"Well it's not like that never occurred to me," Heather said, then her eyes widened in shock when she realized what she just said. Trent sticking up for her and his friendliness had had a disarming effect on Heather. She took a deep breath and put her hand on her forehead as prepared to explain herself.

"If I were to date Harold while he was still enamored with Leshawna," Heather began, "I would get really pissed off about how he wouldn't appreciate me. There would be a big fight at some point and I'd lose the only friend I have right now. Even if no big fight broke out, I have too much of my old pride for that to seem like a good idea. But since I wanted to show Harold how much I cared about him helping me, I decided to do it by getting him together with his dream girl."

Gwen was processing this information, not quite sure how she felt about it. Either Heather's an Oscar worthy actress or she's telling the truth, Gwen thought in regards to the possibility of Heather lying.

"While we're talking, I have something for you," Heather said as she reached into her pocket and took out her checkbook. She went to a nearby table in the room, grabbed a pen and filled it out. She presented Gwen with another check for one hundred dollars.

"You don't have to do this, Heather," Gwen said as she took the check. After everything that just happened, Gwen was sure that Heather really was trying to make amends. Gwen decided that she was going to cash the check instead of destroying it like the first one.

"I know," Heather replied. "But I want to."

With that, Heather turned and left the room.

….

"All right," Leshawna said to Harold. "We need to talk about you and me. I'm sorry Harold, but I just don't like you that way." Leshawna decided that she needed to deal with Harold once and for all.

"I see," Harold said as he slumped his head. He was very disappointed to hear this. He wasn't certain what he was going to do wit his life now: he knew it couldn't involve Leshawna, but everything else was a question mark. As he was thinking these things, Leshawna loudly cleared her throat.

"This is the part where you say you're sorry," Leshawna said.

"About that," Harold said as he nervously rubbed the back of his head. "I am not sorry that I fell for a vision of voluptuous loveliness such as yourself so hard that I did not feel like giving up at the first sign of adversity. And I am definitely not sorry that I let Heather help me, even if the nature of her help was morally questionable."

Leshawna just glared at him angrily then turned to walk away. While walking away, she raised her arm and flipped off Harold.

Well, I've officially burned down that bridge, Harold thought.

While Harold was saddened by this turn of events, he wasn't going to mope about it. Even if the plan had worked, Harold thought, the fact that I had to something like this just to get her attention means it probably wouldn't have worked out anyway.

Once Harold was done attempting to console himself with that line of reasoning, he wondered what he would do next with his life. He briefly considered the possibility of trying to be more than friends with Heather, but realized that that was ridiculous.

Or is it, He asked himself. He recalled each of the times Heather had kissed him, particularly the time in front of Leshawna where she had used her tongue. At the time, Harold had been too fixated on Leshawna to think much of it, but now he wondered if Heather had done that because she had feelings for him.

But then why would she try to help me get together Leshawna, Harold wondered. He then remembered the explanation Heather had given to Leshawna about her motives.

I can be such an idiot, Harold thought. He came to the conclusion that by being so smitten with Leshawna, he had been shooting himself in the foot by giving Heather a good reason to ignore whatever hypothetical feelings she might have. I know what I have to now.

A few minutes later, Heather came back to her and Harold's room after her conversation with Gwen. "How did things with Leshawna go?" she asked.

"Badly," Harold replied.

"I'm sorry," Heather said.

"I'm not," Harold said. "You have been a great friend to me Heather. When people have picked on me, you cheered me up. When I attempted to share my hobbies with you, you went along with it. When I had no luck with Leshawna, you tried to help me."

"What's your point?" Heather asked.

"My point is…" Harold began then stopped as he lost his nerve. This was a big step he was about to take and he was nervous. He had trouble finding the right words to express his new intentions towards Heather. He then remembered that show beats tell and decided to do something rash. He walked up to Heather, leaned forward and kissed her. Their lips touched for about ten seconds and then Harold backed away.

Heather's eyes widened a bit with this pleasant surprise. She came to the (correct) conclusion that Harold had decided to give up on pining for Leshawna and give her a chance. Heather was so ecstatic about this turn of events that she grabbed Harold's shirt by the shoulder areas, pulled him towards her and began making out with him. Harold began reciprocating and they put their arms around each other.

As Heather had her arms around Harold she felt how lanky Harold was, especially compared to the jocks she used to date. However, she never respected any of those jocks nearly as much as she did Harold, so she didn't care about that.

Similarly, Harold noted that Heather was not as curvaceous or well endowed as he had been expecting when he was hoping to do this kind of thing with Leshawna. But Heather was so passionate about kissing him that he forgot why he cared about that. All that mattered now was that Leshawna was in the past and Heather was in the present.

After a few minutes of making out, they separated to take in air. They looked into each other's eyes for a while and began making out again.