A/N: I'll admit to having the ending to this story already written out.

Only I didn't really know how to win Nathan back. To my knowledge, I had done nothing wrong – he just wanted to see what it would be like to be without me. That's when the genius struck, as I sat in Calculus class, doodling as the professor droned on. I would make it hell for him to be without me! Cheering mentally, I did a wiggling sort of victory dance.

"Hey." The boy beside me was staring intently. I pretended not to notice; instead, I added a tentacle to my sea-monster doodle and continued my plotting.

A harsh poke in my ribcage made me jump, but I turned away purposefully. Another poke. Poke. Poke. "Girl, don't ignore me," came the low murmur.

I whipped around and came face-to-face with a familiar, tattoo-sleeved boy-man. His intimidating face, full of hard lines, was only inches away. "Fine, what?" My voice wavered uncertainly. A handsome smile split his lips, revealing even teeth – save for the one chipped incisor that somehow made him seem a touch more devil-may-care.

"That's more like it. Now, would you mind passing these fliers around campus?" He made it sound more like a demand than a question. "It's for this bar downtown, great place – a friends band is playing there this weekend." I silently marveled, having already deemed him to be rude and obnoxious. Maybe he wasn't so bad, if he was helping out his friends like this.

I suppose it wouldn't hurt, I thought to myself. Tentatively, I took the stack of papers, avoiding touching his hand at all costs (though why never really occurred to me). "What if I accidentally draw on them?" I had a bad habit of sketching monsters and occasionally food all over any paper I carried with me.

His laugh was so loud it made the professor shoot a dark glare all the way up to where we sat in the tenth row. "Then they'll be even more eye-catching, I guess," he drawled, reaching over and moving my notebook around to see my monster.

I froze, hyper-aware of his fingers brushing my arm. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I heard his voice complimenting my artistic 'skill.' "You're all up in my personal triangle," I blurted without warning, swiveling around to face him while simultaneously shaking his hand off of my person.

"Well, honey, these seats are a bit small for someone my size," as he spoke, he slung an arm over the back of my chair, hand dangling by my far arm. At my startled glare he added, scathingly, "so I guess you'll just have to deal with it."

He had nerve, I'd give him that. Why, most people that said something so audacious to me I'd have skinned alive, pushed into a pit of snakes, set a small fire ablaze in their backpack – sidetracked by a small cough, I cut my eyes to the boy I now deemed 'the jerkface.'

Jerkface had already gone back to taking notes, face blank as he processed information about numbers and whatever we were supposed to be learning about – I'd already forgotten which class I was in. "Jerkface," I insulted softly, purposefully digging my shoulder into his arm. I was ignored. In retaliation for ignoring me, I spent the rest of class drawing all over every single flier... even though I wasn't sure if that was a bad thing or not.

"Class dismissed; go on, get." Everyone began getting up, but I was trapped until Jerkface left. He blocked the aisle with his stupid, bulky body. Each book went into his bag with antagonizing slowness. Finally, when I couldn't stand the waiting, I spoke up.

"'cuse me, can you move please?" He didn't turn around and for a second I thought he might not reply.

"Go around."

With a huff, I decided he was obviously a polar bear. "You mean bipolar," someone helpfully pipped up as they walked down the center aisle. Oh god, I said it out loud. Out... loud. Gasping, I dodged past Jerkface – ignoring the uncomfortable way I had to brush up against him – and sprinted away.

Slipping around corners and narrowly dodging protesting bystanders, I exited the building so quickly that I ended up flat on my ass. My phone vibrated, caught between the cement and my jeans. I fished it out, ignoring the looks I was getting for sitting on the ground in front of the door.

Meet me at Subway, 13:00. Got ideas for PlanA1 to be executed immediately. I jumped up and hurried towards the small plaza where Subway was after typing a quick 'omw' in reply. Anna was always reluctant to join any of my schemes, plans, or adventures, but somehow always managed to militarize the entire process – as an army brat, she figured organization and planning was her job. Mine was to carry out the instructions... and to occasionally blow the plan to pieces. I figured this plan would go no differently than all the others.

Subway was crowded, as usual. This was no surprise because, well, everyone ate at Subway. I thought idly of last class and, with a devious smile, began pasting fliers all over the glass, the counter, and to backpacks that had been left unattended. Each flier was colorfully decorated with monsters, doodles of jerkface, or just swirls of colored pencil. "ADE," Anna's voice, even when loud, tended to blend into the background; this was probably the third or fourth time she'd tried to get my attention.

"Oh, hey chica," I made sure to speak with a Spanish accent. She snatched my arm and pulled me into a booth, lips pressed into a thin line. This was probably because she knew Spanish better than I did, but couldn't do any convincing accents. "So I came up with something," I said, hoping to distract her. Anna shot me a skeptical look and opened her mouth to say something. "I have to make his life miserable SO that he'll realize how great he had it with me." I cut her off.

"Yes, we know that, goofball. The point to the plan is how we do that." Anna had a way of making me feel stupid without meaning to. "Did you think of what you'll do first?" I already knew she had a plan, she'd said so herself. Whatever I thought of would probably be worse than what she had planned, so I lied and told her I didn't.

Her eyes were glinting as she told me. Jealousy, that was her plan. It was perfect: if Nathan still loved me, then he wouldn't want me to be with someone else. It was simple. Fool-proof, it was not. Even as we plotted, happily, to get another guy to play the part of the new guy in my life, I was thinking 'but, what if he doesn't love me anymore?'

The thought haunted me as I stumbled to my next class – the class I knew I had with Nathan. He has to love me, I was thinking as I walked to the front of the lecture hall and planted myself in the front row. The place was empty. Being early wasn't something I was used to. Nathan and I were on-time, but never early. Moodily, I likened the emptiness to my emptiness at not having Nathan anymore.

I tried to remember what Anna would say to me right now. Adeline, really, you've got to pull yourself together. You're not the type to be so pessimistic! You have a plan, you have me, and since when have we ever not gotten something we went after? Her eyes would be sympathetic, but determined. In my head, I imagined her wearing a cape.

At some point during my imagined pep-talk, the professor and about one-hundred and two students came in. Shaking away my thoughts, I pulled out my binder and tried to forget that Nathan was somewhere in this very room. A stack of fliers cascaded out of my backpack, colored and begging to be distributed. Suddenly, I had a plan.

"Professor!" I hopped up to the balding man right as he cleared his throat to start class. "Can I just say something and give out these fliers to the class?" Bobbing my head, I thanked him before he had a chance to reply at all. It was my way of asking... without actually asking at all.

I ambled with more confidence than I felt to stand before the first row. Could I really talk clearly in front of this many people? Yes? No? Nathan would have told me to go for it, that they'd love me for what I was about to do.

I decided to do it quickly, like pulling off a band-aid. "ATTENTION STUDENTS," my outdoors voice was enough to make everyone curiously look to me, ready to laugh if I should say the wrong thing. "PARTY AT MUGS PUB THIS WEEKEND, BLINDED BY ANIMOSITY WILL BE PLAYING – LIVE. ALSO ALCOHOL AND OTHER BAR STUFF. BE THERE."

Blushing now, I went up through the aisles, throwing fliers up as high as I could. "Miss! Stop that!" The professor was red, but not from embarrassment – from anger. I was scared of getting in trouble; I happened to have a flawless student record. Instead of taking my seat, I raced to the back of the hall, making sure fliers were fluttering in my wake. My manic grin must have been contagious because everyone I passed high-fived me and happily announced that they would be there.

There was a moment, before I threw the door to the hall open and raced out, that I saw him. Nathan had been laughing, watching me with his you're-so-silly smile. He'd even winked when our eyes met. This would be good for the plan, I thought. He still liked me and all my crazy, silly quirks. I could still talk and hang out with him as a friend, then. Yes, this would bode well for the plan.

I leaned against the wall and allowed myself to think, just once, that this was more than a plan. This was an attempt to stop my swiftly breaking heart. Then, straightening, I continued on with the day.

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