January 8, 1998

Today, Zach was being really friendly with our group. Jenna was the first to tell me that he said he was going to dump Amanda Collins. She made me swear not to tell anyone. I don’t know why she did that.

Then today after school, Zach called me. He said, “I hope you’re happy. I dumped Amanda.”

I said, “Why would that make me happy?” all cool.

He made an exasperated noise and said, “Whatever. That’s not the reason I called.” I was anxious to hear the reason he called, but I also wanted to save myself the trouble of having to make a difficult decision if the reason was to ask me out again, so when he took a breath to continue, I cut him off with something stupid.

Finally he said, “Go to the seventh-grade dance tomorrow night.” I said, “Obviously, I can’t. I’m only in sixth grade and so are you.”

“So what?” He answered, “I’m sneaking in. I need someone to hang around with once I’m there.”

I snapped, “Hang around with Amanda Collins.”

“Noooo,” he whined.

Then my mom told me to get off the phone because I’m grounded from it. Zach said to call him later, but obviously I can’t.

I really have no idea how to feel about Zach. I can’t help having a humongous crush on him, but I want to kick myself for it. When he dumps me, I get mad at myself for letting him walk all over me, and I promise myself I will never under any circumstances go out with him again. But then when he asks me out again, I swoon and forget my earlier determinations.

[After all this, I still had “no idea how to feel” about this guy?]