“What the heck are you thinking?”


“What do you mean?” Rachel asked me as she broke the window to the Owens’ house. “I just want to know why he doesn’t love me!”

“Rachel, you’re crazy and you have no idea what you’re doing!” I tried to reason with her. “Let’s go home and you can cool down while we watch The Notebook. How does that sound?”

“Jessica, you have no idea how bad this guy hurt me. I loved him and he broke my heart! I have to know why.” She told me through tears. “And now I’m going to find out.”

“Rachel! Listen to me. The only thing you’ve ever said to this guy is, ‘You’re welcome,’ when you lent him a pencil.”

“I know but I thought we had something.” She cried into my shoulder.

Meet my best friend Rachel. We’ve been friends since the second grade when she was the only person who didn’t laugh at me when I fell off the top of the monkey bars. Since then we’ve been inseparable. If Rachel jumped off a bridge I would, too. Our social lives can be represented by all those kids laughing at me in the second grade, except they are laughing at both of us now. There are so many things to pick on about us. For instance, we both have a 4.0 and that is so not cool, as most of our class would put it. It doesn’t help that my mom is a teacher and Rachel’s dad is the principal. Our social status hadn’t been a problem until Rachel fell in love with Dustin Blake, the star quarterback on our school’s football team. There was no way Dustin could have seen this coming, no way to prevent it. All he did was borrow a pencil from her and Rachel was hooked. It doesn’t help that Dustin looks like he stepped out of a Hollister ad. Rachel and I always knew that we could never get a guy like that and we had accepted it, well, at least I had. The problem was Dustin has manners. If Dustin hadn’t said “thank you” I would not be in my current situation, which happens to be, Rachel breaking into his house to find out if he kept the love letters she wrote to him. Apparently, if he still has them then there is hope for their future. If they are gone then she might actually jump off of a bridge.

You are probably wondering what made Rachel crack. Well, Dustin asked Sarah Hanson to prom and that is a sure sign that Dustin doesn’t love Rachel. So, one would naturally assume that Dustin is intentionally trying to break Rachel’s heart, or at least that is what Rachel assumes.

“Did you even check to see if he was home?” I asked. “We could be breaking in to a house full of people, and then we would definitely get caught.”

“Jessica, relax the lights are off.”

“Rachel, he could have somebody-“

“Whoa! Do NOT say what I think you might say! He does not have someone in the house with him. Okay?” She told me forcefully.

“All right, whatever, can we just go home?” I was pretty sure my toes were about to fall off because they were so cold.

“No, I’m almost-“

“HEY! WHAT ARE YOU DOING, RACHEL?” Dustin was standing on the other side of the window Rachel had just broken into. Sadly, Sarah Hanson was standing on the other side of him.

“You remembered my name!” Rachel whispered.

“Of course I remembered your name, what are you doing to my house?” He asked somewhat calmly whose window had just been broken by a girl who should probably be put in the insane asylum.

“Well, I just thought we had some kind of connection when I lent you my pencil, but then you asked out Sarah and I just… How could you do that to me?” she sighed.

“We didn’t have anything, Rachel. Borrowing a pencil from you doesn’t mean we had a connection. I don’t even know what that means! Anyway, I just called the cops. I’m sorry; I didn’t know I was going to know the burglar. But, I won’t press charges or anything. Just go home.” He told her. Unfortunately, as he said that the cop arrived and he happened to be someone we knew.

“Jesse? You’re a cop?” Rachel asked my cousin who was only a year younger than us but substantially cooler with the kids at school.

“Well, no I’m job shadowing today and I saw that I knew you guys so I thought there probably wasn’t a big problem. The guy I’m shadowing said I could do this one on my own,” he explained.

“Wow, so you’ve been, like, saving people all day long?” Rachel asked admiringly. “That is so cool.”

Rachel had just fallen for my cousin. She has the attention span of a fish. Fortunately, Jesse was eating it up.



“Well yeah, I could tell you about it as I walk you home if you’d like,” he said hopefully.

“Oh, well that would be great,” she said dreamily. “Sorry about the window Dustin.”

And that’s all it took for Rachel to change her mind about Dustin. She had never even looked at Jesse before. I guess I don’t have to worry about Dustin anymore, and Jesse actually likes Rachel. I’m sure there will be a night when we’ll breaking into Jesse’s house, but hopefully not for a long time.