I only had a crush on one boy in my short life: Marco Hunt.

Back when I was smaller I used to write down my wishes on bits of paper and lock them in my nightstand drawer. I had been told a rumor that if you wrote something you really wanted on a piece of paper and kept it long enough it'd come true. Last April during one of my mothers annual spring cleaning sprees I took out those pieces of paper and put them in the trash for good.

I'd given up on wishes and dreams, what was the point?

The prettiest boy in school always ends up with the prettiest girl in school and that was reality.

I was up in my bedroom and it was finally evening. I flipped through Marco Hunt's pictures on my tablet. Most of the photos he posted were either with his soccer buddies or with Cara and her friends. The pictures were all tasteful, nothing that showed him or Cara being anything close to a couple. Actually, most of the pictures showed Marco staring at Cara affectionately and her seeming completely indifferent.

How was I supposed to get him to notice me when he only had eyes for Cara?

"Kitty! You have a friend here at the door!" My mother was calling me.

A friend? It couldn't be Suzy, if it was Suzy, she'd have said so.

I was wearing the wrong clothes for meeting people. My old gray sweat pants, brown tee, big glasses and my hair was a mess from rolling around on my bed. I couldn't be seen like this!

"Who is it?" I called out.

After a moment my mother shouted back. "It's a boy named Blake!"

Relief filled me at first, then irritation. Why was he coming over to my house?

I tucked away my tablet and slid off my bed. Fuzzy-slippers and all I went down my stairs to meet my mother by the front door. My mother—who is a beautiful woman in her 30's—stood holding the door and looked like she was filled with pride at meeting my very first boy visitor.

"Well, don't mind my shock, it's just little Kitty's never had a boy over before so, you can understand my surprise," my mother explained to him before she waved at him to come inside. "Come on in!"

"Thank you Ms. Summers! Kitty and I were supposed to study Spanish together so, I brought her my notes." He held up his notebooks with the words "Spanish Studies" written boldly in sharpie marker ink. Inside his other hand, he had a plastic baggie.

I lifted up my hand to greet Blake with a, "Sup?"

My mother glanced to me disapprovingly over my outfit. I could tell because she did that thing she always would do with her lips when she hated something I was wearing. "Right, well, stay in the dining room. No taking a boy up to your bedroom. And Blake, you can't stay past 8:30. So good luck and hurry with your studying."

As my mother turned up the stairs to pass me she whispered into my ear, "He's cute!" But my mother had a way of whispering too loud—if that's even possible for a human-being to do—so naturally Blake was all smiles when he heard this.

Great mom, just what he needs, his already huge ego inflated some more.

I stomped down the steps loudly, and stood squarely in front of Blake with my arms crossed. He still looked just as amazing as he did earlier in the day and I was in my "off-mode". I decided to call it my "off-mode" whenever I was just being myself and not trying to execute my vengeance. I guess for Blake though he didn't have an off-mode, maybe this was his new permanent look.

He looked me up and down. "Wow, it's like night and day. You went from hot to—"

"—if you finish that sentence I will seriously strangle you. Fighting game style." I warned him, lifting up the smallest and most non-threatening fist ever.

Blake raised up both his hands in surrender, but he seemed to really enjoy my empty threats way too much. "Alright, alright, calm down and retract the claws. I realized that social networking wise, we don't look like a legitimate couple. The same way people post those stupid pictures of what they're eating or the cute stuff their dog did last night, we need pictures of us doing cute things that Cara and Marco will see on their feed."

I wasn't much of a social networking person and neither was Blake. Posting endless selfies was for pretty people, narcissist and validation seekers. I really didn't think I needed to have a constant flow of daily selfies, but Blake was right. We were now one of those "pretty" people and we needed to play the part of being vain and wanting to make everyone jealous too.

"But I just got changed, can't we do it tomorrow at school?" I whined.

"Nope, we have to seem like we meet when we're not at school. What's cuter than seeming like we're studying over a piece of cake together?" He contested.

My interest was definitely sparked, but I tried to not make it so obvious. I had a monstrous sweet-tooth, one I had to suppress over the past eight months so I could get my body to fit into my new clothes. I twisted a bit, trying to be subtle. "What cake?"

Blake lifted up the baggie in hand, I could tell there was a small box inside it. "Kramer's Strawberry cheesecake, your favorite."

I sighed like Blake had just said the most romantic words to me in the world. Seriously, what was better than a really good piece of cheesecake? On my top ten list of things that make life amazing, cheesecake was number six. I snatched the bag from him and waved for him to follow me into the dining room.

I started removing the Cheesecake from its boxy prison and dug out the two plastic forks that hid at the bottom of the bag. "How did you get this? Kramer's cheesecakes are from out of town."

He reached into his pockets and pulled out a set of car keys. "This would be how. I got my driver's license and my mother bribed me with a car when she suggested for me to come back to Pleasant County. Isn't divorce great?"

Leave it to Blake to turn everything into a joke. I might have scolded him for it before, but right now I was in heaven. I sat in front of my beautiful slice of cheesecake and held my fork firmly in hand, but before I could indulge I realized there was only one piece of cheesecake and two forks. "You didn't get a piece for yourself..."

He pulled up a seat right beside mine and sat himself down. He stared me in the face and removed the fork from my all too anxious-to-eat hands to put it back on the table. "We only need one, because us eating it together is going to be the picture."

Right. The cake wasn't a nice gesture, the cake was the agenda.

"Fine, let me get put on my eyeliner and mascara and change the upper-half of my body." I sighed.

It didn't take me long, I only had to dress one half of myself. From the top up I was the new Kitty, and from the waist down I was still in old sweatpants and fuzzy slippers. As long as the shots were only from the torso up I was sure it'd be fine. I didn't bother to put in my contacts either, I'd just take off my glasses for a few pictures and put them back on when Blake was done.

When I stepped into the dining room I did a spin. "How do you like my look?" I asked him.

"So hot in those fuzzy slippers, I think they should definitely be in the pictures." Blake was joking with me, and now when he joked his mouth did a half-smile sort of action that made him really fit the whole rebel-boy look. I gave him a less than amused expression before I plopped down beside him and fiddled with my plastic fork.

"Right, so how are we doing this director?" I turned to ask him, but before I could even finish my last word I realized just how close he was to me. I could see his collarbone hidden inside his shirt and smell the scent of a boys shampoo in his hair. In all my years of seeing Blake and joking with him in the halls, I never really thought much of him in any way besides as a friend. But right now with him this close it dawned on me, that Blake was an attractive boy and I was an attracted girl.

Blake stuck his fork into my slice of cheese cake, he held up his phone with his other hand to try and get a good angle of us together. "You should lift a bite of cheese cake up to my mouth while I keep my fork like this."

I did as instructed, I was glad we weren't doing the mutual "I feed you, you feed me" style picture. Those were so tacky. I held up the bite of cake to Blake's lips and we both decided to go for making silly faces instead of cute or serious one. We took a few snaps of silly faces and playing with the cheesecake until I'd devoured most of it and he got in a few bites. When all was left was a strawberry stem and a few crumbs I picked at them with my fingertips. It was way too good to even let crumbs go to waste.

The pictures were finished, but we still sat close to each other. We examined the shot we took and decided on which ones were cute enough to post. It was kind of nice to be like this. I began to imagine what something like this would feel like if it were real. A girl who was actually in-love with her boyfriend taking pictures while they enjoyed her favorite food. If it were real, it'd be kind of romantic, but it wasn't.

All of this was for one person: Cara.

"Blake?" I had a question tugging at my brain.

"Hm?" he was still distractedly going through the pictures.

"Why did you like Cara? I mean, she's a total bitch. I want to know what it was you saw in her, is it because she's sexy?" I was genuinely curious. I knew Cara had the looks, but I couldn't understand how guys could be witness to her personality and still want to be with her.

"Well, back when Cara and I hung out I saw a different side to her. She's mean to people she doesn't like, but to people she gets along with, she can be fun to be around. When we were kids, the person who helped me figure out how to swim was Cara. Every time she was sad or upset, I was the person she came to. I didn't understand at the time that I'd been friend zoned. When I realized it and was ready to accept it, the incident in the cafeteria happened. Then we weren't even friends anymore, she didn't want or need rumors about me because she was scared they'd keep Marco from being interested in her."

I listened to him and sympathetically placed a hand on his shoulder to rub gently in a comforting motion.

"I know it can seem wrong to want to hurt someone the way they hurt you, it's not that I really want that. I just want her to see that she was wrong about me, that I'm not some—"

"—Hobbit?" I finished for him with a caring smile.

He returned the smile, "Yeah."

I reached up my fingers to ruffle at Blake's hair. I'd never touched a boys hair before, but with him I didn't feel the least bit embarrassed to do so. "Well, you're definitely no hobbit now, you're hot."

His eyes met mine when I called him hot and in an instant we became aware of each other. His face was dangerously close to mine, my fingers still lingered in his hair and his mouth was only inches away from me. We weren't saying anything, we were just staring at each other. We weren't moving, even our chests as we breathed seemed to slow down to match each others pace.

"Okay kids, it's 8:30! Time to wrap it up!"

My mother's voice made us spring away from each other like two cats thrown in water. We threw ourselves so far away from each other that my chair actually hit the floor and Blake was standing straight up holding his phone in hand with a guilty expression on his face.

Lucky for both of us, my mother was just calling us from the staircase and wasn't actually in the dining room to witness our embarrassment. I quickly and in a panic regained my senses and started to scramble to collect Blake's Spanish notes, shoving them into his arms.

"Here's your notes now go!" I quickly emphasized and pushed against his back to guide him towards the front door.

"Wait!" Blake protested, but he couldn't do much about it. I already shoved him out the door, before he could even turn around and say anything else I quickly called to him. "See you at school, bye!" And closed the door in his face.

The next day I stared into my locker. What exactly happened last night? What was that awkward moment I had with Blake? I reminded myself that this was the boy who I never had feelings for in the past, what exactly what going on? I considered myself very loyal to my feelings, even my unrequited feelings.

I was not into Blake, everything new about him wasn't really him. I had to tell myself that I was just momentarily confused and felt sympathy for him.

Yes! That was it.

It was sympathy. Thank god, it was sympathy, because if it wasn't sympathy then it'd mean that just for one second—I was attracted to him.

I pushed that thought far out of my head. It was just sympathy. Nothing more.

"Hey, Kitty?" Marco had walked up to my locker, and I hadn't even noticed until he spoke. Normally I'd see him coming from a mile away, but today I'd been so distracted.

"Hi Marco. I haven't seen Cara." I assumed this is what he wanted to know. Marco and I barely spoke, but usually if he did happen to question me it was to ask for Cara's whereabouts. I assumed this time wasn't any different.

Marco bit the corner of his mouth and smiled as his hand rubbed at the back of his neck in a shy sort of way. "Actually, I wanted to say sorry again."

Oh. Oh, I so was not expecting that.

"Did you really have a crush on me back then? I mean, before your boyfriend and all?" Marco Hunt was actually asking me about my crush on him. This was the most embarrassing and yet amazing conversation I'd ever had with him. What could I say to that?

"Yes—" Somehow I found my voice and found myself telling the truth into his dark, lovely eyes. "—but you never would have liked me back anyway. I'm not your type."

Marco didn't deny my words or confirm them, he just kind of nodded a bit to let me know he was listening. "Well, you and I could have been friends or something. It's just you were always so quiet."

Maybe it was my mascara talking, but suddenly I felt a surge of new found courage. People had started to notice me in the hallways and waved at me. I wasn't the quiet girl anymore. "I was so quiet around you because I liked you, it's hard to talk with someone you like. Especially when you know they'll never like you back. Don't feel bad about it either. It's okay that you didn't like me, I support you and Cara as a couple—"

"We are not a couple," Marco interrupted.

I released a quiet, "Oh."

"I mean, yeah, I wanted to be with Cara, but have you seen her instagram? She spent all summer taking pictures with all these guys she met in Cancun." He genuinely seemed frustrated by this fact.

Now it was my turn to say sorry. "I'm sorry. I'm sure she was just trying to make you jealous so you'd go out with her or something. Girls can be like that sometimes. They think if you see them as being desired by a lot of people you'll want to make them your own."

I can't believe I was actually trying to defend Cara.

"I don't like that. I want a girlfriend who does the kind of stuff with me that you and Blake do together." Marco admitted.

Wait, stuff Blake and I do?

What was he talking about?

Oh right. The pictures from last night. I guessed that Blake had wasted no time posting the photos and he made sure Marco saw them. If only Marco knew that none of it was real and that I was more fake that Cara. What would he think then?

I reminded myself that Cara was the enemy here, she'd go on to terrorize the lives of other unsuspecting girls unless I did something about it. So I decided to amp up my acting skills. I smiled at Marco and patted his arm gently.

"Marco, you could be with anyone, and you deserve better than Cara. If you want a girl who does nice things for you, then get a girl who does those things."

Wow, I couldn't believe the words coming from my lips. Three months ago I wouldn't have been able to even talk properly to Marco. But with new found confidence from my fake boyfriend situation I felt at ease when I spoke with him.

Marco looked at me in a way he never had in the past. He looked at me like he had just discovered something new for the very first time. It was as if he was finally able to really see me for me. If only he could have looked at me like that before my makeover. "You're a nice girl, Kitty. You know that's why Cara picked on you, right?"

"I guess." I closed my locker, held my books tight to my chest and gazed up at him. "If you'd have been my boyfriend, I'd never have treated you the way Cara does..."

I was being honest with that statement. If Marco had noticed me and given me a chance, I'd have been sure to never let him go, but now it was too late. I didn't want him to like me because I'd changed. I wanted him to somehow see through all the garbage and find the real me inside.

He watched me a bit before we both realized the bell had sounded. It was time to get to class. Before he completely turned though he looked back long enough to say. "Kitty, I was never bothered by the fact you had a crush on me before. I kind of wish you'd have told me over the summer instead of going out with Blake. I would have given you a chance."

I felt frozen in place for a moment. He didn't really mean that. He felt hurt by Cara, and for some reason he thought I was the only person he could turn to. He definitely wouldn't have gone out with me, he was just being nice to spare my feelings.

I nodded at him with a smile and went off to class. I didn't know Marco would catch me off guard like that. Just when I thought I was over him too. I quickly found myself pulled back into his orbit. I really didn't want to go down the route of trying to get Marco to date me and leave Cara. I really didn't want to play dirty like that. I also didn't want Marco to date me just because I was "New Kitty", but a part of me, a selfish part of me was starting to not care.

If I could date him, that would be revenge against Cara and me finally with my crush of five years. It might not be a love formed from the best of intentions, but I'd be good to him and try to make up for it.

If Blake's plan was to get with Cara, then I decided part of mine would be to finally date Marco Hunt...