1. And where did he serve his mission?
2. A warm October day down by the Provo River
3. Orem's not so bad when you give it a chance
4. I can rely on myself
5. Jared gets drunk and gets laid
6. Forget about her, Jared
7. A story I never tell anyone

• (character chart)
• Warning/Disclaimer

1. Young Women's
2. Youth Conference
3. Saturday's Warrior
4. Brigham Young University
• Gratuitous Love Scene
5. Polygamist
6. Temple Wedding
7. Orem High
8. Bordeaux Mission
9. Exmo Conference

Monday

On Monday I was really dreading going to my French class. I waited until the very last second before the bell to go to the classroom. It was natural to arrive a little later for that class anyway because it was the class right after the period when I had seminary, which was in a different building.

When I arrived at French class, Tanya was already there of course. Her seat was right next to mine. As soon as she saw me she gave me this huge smile and said "Hi Jared." I just glared at her and turned the other way as I took my seat.

The teacher started class by saying "Bonjour les elèves," and then started saying a bunch of stuff in French.

Tanya put a small folded-up paper on my desk. I opened it up. She had written "RUOK? What's wrong?"

I wrote "You're talking about me behind my back." I folded it back up and handed it back to her.

Then she wrote something and passed the paper to me. She had written "Quoi ? Moi ?"

"I know you did," I wrote back.

Then she wrote "Andrea told me what she said, but it's not true! I never said that!"

I wrote back "I don't believe you."

Then she wrote "You can't take Andrea seriously! She says strange things for no reason sometimes!"

It looked like the teacher had maybe noticed the note, so I quickly hid it away in my pocket. I was sure she was lying. After all, how would Andrea have known that I sucked at French and that Tanya sometimes helped me if Tanya hadn't told her?

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Tanya could be pretty cocky sometimes about the fact that she always knew the right answer. She wasn't all that cute either. She wasn't really fat, but she wasn't thin. She had kind of a round face and short, straight hair all dyed black, and she wore too much dark eye make-up. And she had kind of a squeaky voice when she was correcting people.

Soon the teacher finished lecturing and passed out a worksheet for us to work on. Of course Tanya immediately started scribbling furiously on it. I turned to that day's chapter in the textbook and started looking for some of the words from the worksheet.

"Do you need any help?" Tanya asked softly.

"No," I said, "I don't need any help from you." I looked back down at the worksheet. I really had no freaking clue about any of it. But I figured I could get it done if I spent some time on it calmly at home. I didn't need someone else to do my homework for me. Especially not Tanya.

For the rest of the day at school, I looked for Andrea in the halls every time we switched classes. For the rest of the week as well. I saw her a few times. Every time I did, I said hi to her and she said hi back and gave me a big smile, but I couldn't think of anything else to say to her. I really wanted to get together with her and talk to her more, but there was never any opportunity.

I thought a lot about Andrea over the weekend, and I decided that I really needed to do something. I figured that maybe I could tell her that I'd realized she was right about the whole God question. That might make her warm up to me. Then maybe I could ask her out. I was really nervous about the idea of asking her out on a date, but I didn't see anything else I could do.

The next week I was determined that I would talk to her and ask her out. I saw her a few times on Monday and Tuesday and said hi to her, but she was always with other girls, and there was no way I could ask her out in front of them. Finally on Wednesday I saw her walking down the hall alone. I figured that it was now or never, so I got up all of my courage and went over to talk to her.

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