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help you through it. And since Jess took your heart and cut it up into ten million tiny pieces, I’m now your best friend by default.”
    “Thanks, Drew.”
    “Are you okay?”
    “Yeah.”
    “I’ll be at your house in an hour. I’ll take you kicking and screaming in your pajamas if I have to.”
    “I’m sure that will really help my reputation.”
    “Your reputation is going to need all the help it can get now that you’re Jess Tyler’s ex-girlfriend.”
    “Luckily, nobody at Franklin High knows about us. At least I don’t have to deal with that humiliation.”
    But I was wrong. I was oh so very, very wrong.

    People I had never seen before and who had no right on this earth to know my name turned their heads to watch as Drew and I made our way from her car to the front door of the high school. Hands covered mouths and eyes watched me pitifully as I walked to my locker, grabbed what I needed and headed into first period.
    “That was a really crappy thing of him to do.” I looked to the left of my desk to see Kate Bowman, a girl I’d said two words to in the past four years, hunched over my elbow. “I hear that the junior and senior guys are always taking advantage of sophomore girls.” She flipped a piece of hair out of her eye. “He was probably cheating on you anyway. Do you know if he was?”
    “He wasn’t cheating on her,” a voice behind me cut in. It was a girl who had transferred to Franklin from Highlands. I only knew her first name was Brynn. “He just wasn’t ready for a steady relationship. Carly Eisenhower heard the whole thing.”
    I turned around to face her, reeling to finally find out where all the rumors had started. “Carly?” I asked. “What did she hear?”
    “That you guys made out before he left for the summer, and now that he’s back, he doesn’t want to go out anymore.” Brynn looked over at Kate. “He probably met someone in California. Guys are always hooking up with girls in California.”
    I turned back to the front and felt my teeth grinding together. Someone was listening in on our conversation. Carly Eisenhower was listening in on our conversation, and now the entire world knew me as the girl that Jess Tyler dumped.
    The rumors only got worse as the day went on. By the time lunch was over, Jess had a supermodel girlfriend in Los Angeles, and I was just a horrible kisser with a bad case of halitosis. The saddest part was that even I was starting to believe them. When fourth period came around, I had to fish for my class schedule in the bottom of my bag. Since I had ditched it the day before, I had no idea where it was or even who my teacher was. I found where I was supposed to be at the very back, left corner of the C hall, and I tried to walk into class and sit down in a seat at the back as though I had been there the day before like everyone else.
    “You’re in my seat,” a tall, lengthy girl with way-too-short brown hair sneered. I looked up at her clenching an unfamiliar-looking book that I gathered the teacher had passed out the day before. I got up from the desk without saying a word and sluggishly looked around the room for another empty seat. But they were all taken. Every last one. Don’t tell me I’m in the wrong class—not again .
    The bell rang, and a tiny, old man who looked a good ten years passed his retirement date stood up in front of the classroom. “May I help you?” he said, peering at me over his glasses. The rest of the class watched me with deathly silence.
    “I think I’m in this class,” I said hesitantly. The last thing I wanted to do was cause a big scene like the last time this happened.
    “You think you’re in this class?” he repeated in a fake half-British accent. “Were you here yesterday?”
    “No,” I admitted. “I…I got held up.” I stepped closer to his desk, hoping we could keep this between him and me. But the gruff teacher had a different plan.
    “Held up?” he said loud enough for the janitor to hear.