A/N - This little thing called school totally took up a whole lot of my time. Yeah, it sucks. A lot. Please do me a favor and vote on my poll. I'm so sorry for the late update! BTW, I know that over 90 people have alerted this story. I challenge you alerters to review. I wanna see who'll review and who won't. I'll make a mental note of it.

"You're kidding me," I say to Mrs. Gallagher. So it's after school and I'm sitting in the comfy recliner and she's sitting across from me at her desk, hands neatly folded.

"Jenny, I don't joke around about the plays," she says.

"Uh, please care to take a look at me." I point to my cast.

"I don't see why that would hold you back." She shrugs. I roll my eyes and pull my hair. "So it's settled; you'll help Caroline with production. Excellent."

How could this happen? What was the whole point of me injuring myself? Oh yeah, to get away from Nate. But stubborn drama director just won't give me a break, huh? You know what she said to me to even get me in her office? 'By auditioning, you offered all voluntary help that you could physically contribute.'

Bullshit if you ask me. And if I didn't help, she also mentioned that it'd be a bad mark on my record for college; refusing to help something you auditioned for in the first place. It's for college, it's for college I remind myself. I get up from the recliner and walk out the door, making sure to slam it. Yeah, I'm pissed. No, more than pissed. I'm furious. I need some way to take out my anger.

XoLAGOHxO

"Jenny, are you alright?" Shane asks me in his car. I did all my homework in the library while waiting for him to finish football practice.

"Grey Bear, I need for you to do me a favor." I give him a devious smile. Perfect time to make my boyfriend more presentable yet release my anger.

"Sure, what do you have in mind?"

"Oh, just make a right by that diner," I say.

After about three minutes of listening to my directions, we pull up to a place called Elegant Nails. Yup, my cousin Linh's nail salon. "What are we doing here?" Shane asks, following me to the door.

"Oh, you'll find out soon," I say.

You see, this is the nail salon that I work at each summer. I encounter a lot of girls from Green Oak, but I guess it's no big deal. You know, a little girl doing nails. So after I greeted my cousins and aunts that were working there, I sat Shane down in a chair, but not just any chair.

"Why are they laughing?" Shane asks. A couple of my cousins were already starting to snicker.

"Just close your eyes and everything will be fine," I assure him. He does so and I pull the waxing cart next to me.

"What the heck are you doing?!" he shrieks.

"Oh, just putting hot wax on your eyebrows . Move and the entire thing will get ripped off," I warn.

His hands grip the handles of the chair. I use my one free hand to put that piece of fabric on the wax, and after rubbing it in, I pull it off. "OW!" he yells rather loudly. "Okay, no more waxing my eyebrows!"

I laugh as I hand him a mirror. So now one of his eyebrows was half decent while the other still looked absolutely horrible. "Fine, continue," he grumbles. "But only because I don't want one good eyebrow and a crappy one," he adds.

After some more waxing and several screams, I finish and give him back the mirror. I'm so good, I managed to make his eyebrows perfect with only one hand. Oh yes, the Jenny Huynh is absolutely amazing. He thoroughly inspects his eyebrows and hands me back the mirror.

"They're okay," he mumbles.

That's just Shane talk for admitting defeat. Oh yes, the girlfriend wins in the end. And soon enough, we were in Shane's car on the way back to my house.

"Grey Bear, your eyebrows really do look a lot better, and not in a faggish way, either," I say. Really, they still looked like his old ones, just more natural looking.

"You are so lucky that you're you, because if you weren't, you'd be dead," he jokes.

"Oh yes, I'm definitely feeling the love right now." I roll my eyes and laugh. Talking to Shane really does lighten my mood.

It seemed like I was always happy every single time I was with him. Well, mostly, but whatever. He didn't know why I wasn't fine, but he didn't push for the answer. All in all, he's for lack of a better word.. Perfect. There may be no such thing as perfection in this life, but in my eyes, he's my definition of perfect. He's funny, he makes me happy, and I haven't seen signs of him going back to his whore-ish ways. I guess I like him a lot, but it'll be a long time before I say that one word, the extremely debatable word, to him.

XoLAGOHxO

"Jenny!" Caroline perkily greets me at play rehearsal the next day after school. "So, if you're working with me, we'll just be deciding which scenes to rehearse and when. We'll also give the actors and actresses some tips on how to say things. This will be really fun, trust me."

I space out as she continues talking about the play, what scenes were important, the names of the actors and actresses. I guess I was just her little advisor, there because Mrs. Gallagher sentenced me to prison in the auditorium after school each day for the next two weeks or so. As for how I managed to ignore Nate, I didn't. He always pulled me aside to talk to me during our classes somehow. It was mainly taunting about how I was still a part of the play. I was almost positive that he set up Mrs. Gallagher to do it, but maybe the evil woman could've thought it up herself. What was I thinking? Of course it was Nate!

I follow Caroline and sit next to here in the front row as she shouts directions to everyone. My eyes were almost asleep when I heard her yell, "Nate, you're actually here!"

My head shoots up from it's place in the crook of my arm and I try to smooth out my messy hair. There was Nate, some sweat still on him. I guess he got an early dismissal from practice or something.

"So, what scene should I do?" he asks Caroline, not me.

"What do you think?" Caroline asks me.

I smirk and say, "How about that kiss with Christie?"

"Excellent idea!" Caroline says. "Christie, time to practice the kiss with Nate!"

"What?!" Christie yells from the opposite side of the auditorium. She was going over her script, obviously.

"Since Nate's actually here, we might as well rehearse your biggest parts," Caroline reasons.

"Oh, I'd be glad to!" Man, I know that she likes him, but could the girl be any more obvious? Nate's internal battle to not get his ass out of here was really giving me some sick form of satisfaction. You mess with me, I mess with you.

"Is it really important right now?" he asks.

"That's one of the only things that you do in the entire play. Might as well rehearse that small part since you're here. Just over two weeks until the first performance," I taunt.

Nate and Christie walk up on the stage, one being excited, the other begrudgingly obeying. Since the line before the kiss was with one of the Darcy sisters, Nate pretends to say it to someone then turns and faces Christie. I look at the script in my hand. It was a simple short kiss, nothing serious. I'm not sure, but I can swear that Nate's sweating even more now. I see his Adam's apple move as Christie leans up to kiss him. He closes his eyes, almost bracing himself for something horrible.

I was seriously about to fall out of my seat in anticipation. But then Christie does the unthinkable, well, at least in my opinion. She kisses his cheek, blushes, then runs down the stage and yells to us, "I forgot! I had a doctor's appointment after school!"

Nate's expression really is hilarious. He just looks shocked. Not happy or amused, just really shocked. Caroline's mouth is open while everyone in the auditorium looks at the door in which Christie just left. And then it's me that breaks the silence. The large auditorium gets filled with the sound of my uncontrolled laughter. I fall out of my seat and sit on the ground, clutching my stomach.

"What's so funny?!" Nate asks once he breaks out of his reverie.

"She-sh-sh. You totally got rejected!" I manage to say. My laughs die down pretty soon and I get up and point at Nate. "Rejected, rejected. You just got rejected! R-E, J-E, C-T-E-D, rejected!" It was the perfect moment to use the cheer from Zoey 101.

"No, I didn't get rejected," Nate says, "she was just afraid of my incredible hotness."

"Oh, 'afraid of your incredible hotness.' Really, how lamer can you get?" I retort.

"Really, all girls are attracted to me at some point, it's the inevitable."

"Jenny, Nate's pretty hot," Caroline says.

"We need to get Christie!" I realize.

I run up to the auditorium's entrance doors and rush out. Christie was nowhere in sight. I slow down and walk out of the school, looking around the front for any sign of her. Behind one of the building supports, she was standing there, looking at the ground, arms across her chest. She was facing away from me, so I tiptoe my way to her and tap her shoulder. She screams and turns around. Wow, what an overreaction.

"My God, you nearly gave me a heart attack!"

"Uh, all I did was tap your shoulder," I say.

"Whoops, sorry. I guess I was too dazed and in thought." She shrugs.

"Why did you run away?" I ask her. This was like déjà vu. When Nate first kissed me, he ran away, too.

She runs her hands through her hair in exasperation and slides down the column support. "Jenny, you should know why," she mumbles.

"You don't have to tell me, but I'm just concerned. I know that you like Nate," I say.

"That's the thing; I like him. But so do you! I'm your friend, so I can't just steal a guy from you like that." Man, first the guy code, now it's the girl code. But us girls always break it, right? Ha, only the backstabbing bitches.

"Christie, I don't like Nate anymore. You're free to pursue him, don't worry. I'm pretty sure that he will like you, too." She looks up at me, a gleam of hope in her eyes.

"Really?" she asks.

"Yeah," I assure her, "I'm totally positive about it."

I pull her up just as a black Jeep pulls up by us. The car honks and Christie walks to the front door and opens it. "I really did have a doctor's appointment." She winks, gets in, and leaves. Wow, perfect time to get a check-up if you ask me. A giggle escapes my lips as I sit down next to Caroline in the auditorium once again.

"So, what was up with Christie?" she asks.

"She had a doctor's appointment to go to," I reply.

"Wow."

"Yeah. 'Wow.'"

A/N - I know it sucked, and I have no excuse except that I'm wondering what the grade I got on that History essay was. We had to do research over the weekend and write the essay during one period in class. You know, comparing Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping's political and economic views. Took me an hour to write…

Let's celebrate over 100,000 words! Please reward me with undeserved reviews. Once again, so sorry for the late update. BTW, make sure to vote in my poll about a new story idea.