I HIDE from Jake during seventh-period lunch. I successfully make it to the last bell without seeing him or his girlfriend Natalie again. The only person I feel like seeing right now is Ruth. She doesn't want to go shopping today, though, even though I dearly need the diversion. She says she has to go home. Jessica is home from the hospital and needs her company.

She says we'll go shopping this weekend. Ruth even sends me a picture of Natalie Portman in a frilly Dior dress as what she thinks I should wear to the dance. She's so sweet. I can't believe she compared me to Natalie Portman! I send back a picture of Keira Knightly in her slinky forest-green Atonement dress. Yeah, if Ruth resembled a celebrity, it would be Keira. They both had that striking, knife-sharp jaw and that air of effortless sophistication.

Speaking of atonement, I need to get working on those Billy's cupcakes. I tell myself that maybe, I'll wait until Jessica is settled at home first before I stop by for a girl's evening.

Ruth sends back a wink emoji and promises that we'll both be dressed up like we're attending the Oscars for this dance. I hope my meager allowance would cover Ruth's crazy visions, but she says we can check out What Goes Around Comes Around, a consignment store in Soho first. Then, maybe we'll hit Zara.

Okay, I breathe a sigh of relief. At least my wallet can handle Zara.

I try to call up Nick to do something after school, but he has practice. I guess I have no choice but to eat dinner by myself at Wendy's again. It's snowing as I walk across the sky bridge to Chambers Street.

A hand grabs my right shoulder as I wait at the stoplight across from McDonald's. I nearly jump out of my skin as I expect it to be Dave, ready to hail me off into an unmarked van.

Thank God! It's only Jake.

Jake's dressed in a black puffer jacket that somehow suggests he's even more muscular than he already is. He looks so dashing with the flecks of white snow in his charcoal hair that I almost forget that he's dating my mortal enemy.

"Hey, are you avoiding me, Queens?"

"Not you. Your girlfriend."

"What girlfriend?"

"Na-ta-lie," I reply through clenched teeth. "Don't make me say that name again, ever."

"What did she do to you?" Jake asks with a dismissive laugh. His breath is foggy in the freezing winter air. I open my mouth to air my grievances, but Jake stops me. "Gimme a second. Is it a long story? Want to grab a slice of hole-in-the-wall pizza with me?"

"I really need to go home and study."

"Go home? Where your number one fan, Dave, is probably waiting for you?"

"Good point — okay, okay, just one bite of pizza," I grumble and follow along.

We grab our pizzas, but the seats in the tiny pizza joint (all two and a half of them) are taken. Jake and I end up balancing our paper plates in our gloved hands standing in front pizza joint's flickering neon sign. Jake yanks his gloves off with his teeth in that way that boys do to show you they don't care that the gloves had once touched public door handles and subway poles. He's too macho to concern himself with germs.

"I broke up with Natalie," Jake absently tells me as he chews the blistering slice thoughtfully. I'm surprised he hasn't scarfed the entire thing down in three bites. He let me have the free soda that came with the two-slice package.

"I'm sorry?" I ask in a tone that conveys that I can hardly care less about his emotional turmoil. At least he is now free of that dumb cashmere skirt-wearing Judas.

"We never really hit it off," Jake says as he licks up a piece of melted cheese that's dribbling onto his fingers. I don't know how Jake can make such a silly act look hot, but he does. It must be his boyish smile, chiseled cheeks, and razor-sharp jawline. It was hot enough for Natalie to go bonkers for him even though she's a stuck up, future Karen.

I wonder if she'll consider Jake the boy who got away. I can see her thinking that. Jake is practically a shy high school girl's wildest fantasy come to life.

But not mine. My imagination is already too wild for everyone's liking.

Maybe now Natalie can find herself a loveless marriage to a poor, boring UES dude in a sweater vest. On second thought, even the sweater-vest guy deserves better than a shrew like Natalie.

"She didn't take it well," Jake says. I nod, but I don't ask him to elaborate. "I don't see why. We never did anything physical together."

I wonder if Natalie will blame me for Jake breaking up with her too. Well, if she does, I'm #notsorry.

"Well, that sucks."

"Yeah."

"I mean, good for Natalie. You had HPV. You gave it to me."

"What?" Jake asks and nearly chokes on his pizza. "I'm so sorry. Are you sure?"

"It's okay. It's gone now. I followed up two weeks with my doctor, and I'm clear now, so no harm done."

"Geesus, I'm sorry."

"It's okay. Natalie probably deserves it if you did give it to her. She made a fake Twitter account with some of my writing on it. Now, Mr. Kleeman thinks I posted my story online. You know — the one that he was going to submit to the Times." I take a long sip of my coke. "She's not completely wrong. I did post bits and pieces of it on my account. I guess I don't know how to write without sharing it with everyone."

"Wow, that's some serious double-crossing."

"Yeah," I put my half-eaten pizza down on the dusty ledge that had been decorated with old wads of bubble gum from Piotr students past. "I just wanted to know for a second to know how it feels to stand in a book store and hold my book in my hands. That's all I wanted. It's silly, I know. Book stores are failing all over NYC. Pretty soon, they'll exist only in museums."

"Yeah," Jake agrees with a snort. "Soon, there won't even be a New York Times. Everyone will get their news from Twitter."

"Probably."

Jake reaches over and takes my hand. I don't know if he's trying to comfort me or if it has a deeper, more unacceptable meaning. Yet, I let him hold my hand. There's a part of me that loves Jake Villin. She's the side of me that needs WilderLuna15. She's the side that craves attention, that needs to send these stories about werewolves into the internet abyss.

Jake Villin believes in that side of me, in a way that no one else ever has. In a way that perhaps, even Corrine never did.

He loves me — not for being the perfect preppy cool-girl that dates Nick and is best friends with Ruth — but the side that no one sees.

Somehow, someway, over the years, just by typing my thoughts onto the internet, I've developed this entire secret life, this special part of me. WilderLuna15 is here to stay, and as Jake holds my hand and smiles at me, I start to understand. It's her magical gold-flecked irises that he sees as he stares into my ordinary hazel eyes.

He sees me. He really sees me in a way that no one, not even my own parents, have seen me before.

I smile back at him, and Jake leans in. He steals a kiss from my lips.

It's nothing, I tell myself. It's almost a friendly kiss. Nick won't care. Except my lips are tingling for Jake's mouth. I want him to kiss me again, to force that hard body against me. And, in my darkest of hearts, I know it would be better because I don't have to be ashamed of anything. He knows every last kinky, weird, lustful fantasy that has ever crossed my mind.

"I'm sorry," Jake whispers into my ear. He rests his forehead against mine, and it feels natural to me like we belong together like this. Like deep down, I had been waiting for this. His breath is hot against my cheek. "I know you have a boyfriend."

"It's okay," I whisper back. "Though, I should go . . .before . . ."

"Before it gets dark, yeah," Jake says and steps back. "I know, your mom checks on you."

"Jake, wait," I step forward and grabs Jake by the back of his skull. I don't know why I do what I do next. Maybe it's because I see Natalie's friends from class walking across the other side of the street, and they're glancing at us. Maybe, it's the way Jake looks standing there, like a figure from one of my stories. I seize him and pull his face up close to mine.

It's right then that a snowball hits me squarely in the temple.

"Ouch!" I exclaim and jump back.

I can't believe Natalie's friends threw a snowball at me! Wait, can high school girls throw like that? From across the street?

I wipe the snow from my face and glance around. No, the girls are still on the other side of the street. They have their cell phones out and are probably clicking away. The snowball came from a figure who is standing only a couple of feet from us.

I barely have time to react to what happens next. Jake's face turns into a snarl. There is a flurry of activity as Jake throws down his backpack and lunges at the tall, shady man wiping snow from his bare hands.

It takes me a second to comprehend that it wasn't one of my classmates who had thrown the snowball. It's a tall, middle-aged man wearing a black hoodie sweatshirt.

For a second, I almost think it's Nick who had skipped practice for some reason. Then I realize Nick isn't going to walk around in the snow wearing stained sweat pants and a dirty, mud flecked hoodie.

It's Dave.

He had been following me all along.