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By third grade, Pineville Elementary School’s reigning prepubescent bitch realized that Valentine’s Day could serve as a sadistic competition. Nadine LaDieu declared that she was only giving Valentines to boys. Not just any boys, mind you, but only the ones she considered cute and/or cool enough to be part of the elementary-school elite. All the girls agreed to do the same, my Smuckers-spined self included. Then she made all the boys promise that they would only give valentines to the girls they thought were cute and/or cool enough.

I gave one to Len Levy. This is when he was still fairly popular, before he developed a case of socially crippling purple-all-over acne.

I went home empty-handed. And brokenhearted.

It’s gotten worse as we’ve gotten older. On no other day does the world find as much delight in reminding those of us not fortunate enough to be getting down with a significant other on a regular basis just how pathetic and undesirable we really are.

I thought Scotty might give me an ironic V-Day gift, like those chalky candies with messages like Hot Stuffand Sweet Lips on them. He could have given them to me as a friend, for laughs. But deep down I would’ve known that the effort involved meant it wasn’t a joke at all. But he didn’t. And I can’t blame him. Especially after my lukewarm reaction to the birthday rose. Not to mention that most boyfriends fail to deliver what girls want on V-Day. And Scotty is not my boyfriend.

The only person who showed any romantic interest in me was this tiny black kid who sits in front of me in French class. Even I outweigh him—he wrestles in the 103-pound weight class. For the past few weeks he’s been giving me these goofy, googly-eyed grins or turning around at random intervals to say, Bonjour, mon amie. Today he asked me a bizillion times if I had a Valentine. Conclusion: He has a huge Pepe Le Pew–like crush on me. I don’t know how this is possible because he’s one of those freshmen who looks too young to have a working set of nads. (Though, with my menstrual cycle MIA, I’m one to talk.)

Of course, I bitched and moaned about my bad luck. Why would this half-pint choose me as the object of his affection? The only info he has on me is what he’s found out via our forced French I Q&A sessions: Je m’appelle Jessica. J’ai seize ans. J’aime courir. (My name is Jessica. I’m sixteen years old. I like to run.) That’s what I get for wanting to be trilingual and taking an academic elective with freshmen.

By the time eighth period rolled around, I was more depressed about my loser love life than ever. I decided to cheer myself up by watching Paul Parlipiano leave his AP Physics class. As he glided out of the lab, I thought about how perfect he looked in his khakis and plaid button-down shirt. He was laughing, so I wondered what he thought was so funny. I saw ink scrawled all over his book covers and wanted to read what it said. I fantasized about what it would feel like if I wrapped one of his sandy blond curls around my pinky finger. At that moment, what I wanted most in the world—more than world peace, more than a cure for cancer, even more than Hope moving back to Pineville—was for Paul Parlipiano to smile at me and say, Hey, Jessica. What’s up?

Then it hit me: I’m Paul Parlipiano’s Pepe Le Pew.

That was my Valentine’s Day epiphany.

the twenty-fifth

I’m pretty sure I’m losing my mind.

I forgot my locker combination today. This wouldn’t be so weird if I had just returned from vacation. But today is Friday. I opened my locker twenty times this week with no problem. However, when I got to my locker this morning before homeroom, my hand had no clue what to do. My mind was blank. Left nothing, right nothing, left nothing.

I turned the knob, hoping that my subconscious would kick in and instinctively stop on the correct numbers. It didn’t. Then I furiously tugged on the lock, hoping that it would miraculously pop open. It didn’t. I got all panicky when the warning bell rang