Page 56 of The Ugly Stepsister Strikes Back

She picked up one of my pillows and started smacking me with it. "For someone so smart, you can be so dumb."

Yes, I knew this. It was what I had been crying about for the last few hours.

She dropped the pillow on the ground. "He came up to me because he was looking for you, you big idiot. We were both looking for you and couldn't find you. I called you and called you to tell you."

"What?" I was so tired of my emotional Jake rollercoaster. I didn't have any desire to get back on. But Ella made me hope.

"Why didn't you answer your phone?"

I realized that I didn't have my purse or my phone. "I think I left it on the bar at the dance."

She sat down sadly on my bed. "Why can't you believe in yourself, Tilly? Why can't you see what an awesome person you are? Because everyone else can."

My tears welled up again at the defeated tone in her voice. I was not awesome or amazing. Deep down, I knew that I was basically unlikable and unlovable. It made sense that I would feel that way—my own mom didn't even love me. How could that not affect me? How could I ever see myself as anything other than a rejected loser?

"Because it's easier to believe the bad stuff."

"Jake likes you. He told me. He was going to tell you. And you ran away. Why?"

"I just couldn't believe that he would ever like me. Even all dressed up I still felt like a fraud. Like nothing with me is real."

"It is very real." She let out a long sigh. "I'm exhausted. I'm going to bed."

I wanted to stop her, call her back and have her convince me that she was right and I was wrong.

But I didn't say anything.

Because it was time for me to make up my own mind. I had let myself be caught up in everyone else's opinions. Who cared what my mom thought? What Mercedes Bentley thought? I realized all the power I had given them over me. I'd let them control me. Ella was always saying how strong I was—but I was weak enough to let mean people push me around and alter my perceptions. I'd let them interfere with the one thing I had wanted more than anything else since I was nine years old. I had let them take it away from me without a fight.

What if I could conquer all my stupid insecurities? What if I could shut out every other voice, including my own scared one, and could just let things be?

I thought of the past couple of weeks. Of all the times I'd talked to Jake.

Without all the other sounds in my head, I could see what had really been.

Jake hadn't lied to me. He was interested in me. He had tried to kiss me. He had taken me on a date. He had wanted to be with me at the dance tonight.

And I had been horrible and confusing and mean to him. What must he think of me? I knew how awful it made me feel when he was mean and angry to me.

What was wrong with me?

I'd had my one shot with him, and I had totally destroyed it.

I lay back down and stared up at my ceiling, too sad and tired to even get up and turn off the light.

Ella came back in my room a little while later, dressed in her pajamas. "I just got a text from you."

"From me?"

"From your phone. It's from Jake."

My hand shook as I took her phone. "How does he have my phone?"

"I told him what you looked like at the dance. He must have gone back to the bar and found it."

So despite his cool act, he had noticed me. I must have caught his eye. But he didn't make a move on me like Scott did. Because he wanted Mattie.

I clicked on the message.

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