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somebody’s mom? And you’re practically crying about it? That’s, like, classic!” Thad laughs.
    “HE LOVES ME.”
    “Uhhh…Hmm,” Thad says. He looks at Sirina with wide
has she gone crazy?
eyes.
    “HE WAS GOING TO TAKE ME TO THE COTILLION.”
    “What’s a cotillion?”
    “The eighth-grade-graduation dance at our school. The Junior Cotillion. It’s like she thinks she’s going to marry the guy who takes her.” Sirina sighs. “I just don’t know what to do with her.”
    “Jeez.
Dude
. Tell her to stop falling for tool bags,” Thad says.
    “Can you
please
tell her how exactly to do that?”
    He shrugs. “It’s easy. You just…don’t.”
    “Is it such a crime to love?”
I ask. Very bravely.
    Thad says to Sirina, “Does she really believe in all that?”
    “Then lock me up!”
I say. But they continue to ignore me and my torment.
    Sirina sighs. “Completely,” she says to Thad. “No matter what I say, all she cares about is getting him back.”
    For a second, Thad says nothing. He just stands there with this bug-eyed look on his face. Then he asks, “Getting him
back
?”
    “Yep, that’s pretty much it,” she says. “Sick, right?”
    But he’s smiling. He looks at me. “Do you
really
want to get him back?”
    “Haven’t you heard
anything
I’ve been saying?”
    “You want him to start calling you again?” Thad asks.
    “Yes!”
    “What?
No
,” Sirina interjects.
    “And texting?”
    “Of course!”
    Sirina glares at him.
    “And…I don’t know, what? Bringing you flowers and stuff?”
    “With all my heart!”
    “Seriously?” Sirina asks Thad. “What are you doing?”
    “It’s okay.” He nods. “I think I can help.” He leans against the rail overlooking the food court. “I know how a guy thinks. I know what a guy wants. I can help you get him back. He’ll
fall in love
with you.”
    I ignore the ridiculous tone in his voice when he says The Words because I’m too fascinated with the idea of having Nick back. In Love. With Me.
    “Wait,” Sirina says. “That’s a horrible idea. That’s the last thing she needs. I mean, I know she sounds a little like a nut right now, but she’s not, really. Well, not in a
bad
way. The guy doesn’t deserve her!”
    “Yep, I get it,” Thad says. “That’s why there’s one condition.”
    “What’s that?” Sirina asks.
    “That she breaks his heart.”
    “Break his
heart
? I don’t want to break his heart!” I complain.
    “Wait,” Sirina says. “Why do you want to help her break his heart?”
    “Okay, obviously, I’m not a fan of the guy. I mean, I just—” He shakes his head. Then he looks up at Sirina. “I just think the guy’s a complete
wipe
.”
    “He
is
!” Sirina says, sounding satisfied, finally, while my heart screams in agony.
    “HE IS NOT!”
    “And also, so say I was a jerk in fourth grade. Hey, Collins, let me make it up to you now. You can have him begging for you.”
    “Think about Mariela,” Sirina tells me.
    “Who’s Mariela?” Thad asks.
    “Just someone from
La Vida Rica
,” Sirina tells him. Then she looks at me. “She’s someone who Mabry could learn something from. Someone who wouldn’t be crying over some guy.”
    I start to argue that you can’t make a fruit out of a flower—or was it a flower out of a fruit?—but they both look at me like I should be packed into a straitjacket, like Elisabet when she was found living in her dead sister’s husband’s attic, so I just say, “What about the Cotillion?”
    “Fine. You can lure him back. Let him ask you to that stupid dance. And that night—
bam
!
You stand him up.”
    “That sounds like an
awful
idea,” I say.
    Thad looks down and shrugs. To Sirina, he says, “Oh well, I guess she likes crying her eyes out over
meatwads
.”
    “No, I
don’t
!” I say immediately.
    He steps on his board. “Ah, never mind. That’s okay. I gotta go anyway.”
    “Wait!”
I say. If it’ll make Nick fall back in love with me, maybe I