How to seduce a nerd

Chapter 1: The Breakup The worst part about being broken up with in a high school hallway isn't the heartbreak. It's the audience. "Look, Chelsy, I'm just not feeling this anymore," Sam said, shoving his hands into his designer jeans like he hadn't just ripped my chest open. Around us, students pretended to care about their lockers, their phones, literally anything except the fact that my entire world was imploding in front of them. "Not feeling it?" I repeated, my voice hollow even to my own ears. "We've been together for eight months, Sam. We were supposed to go to Homecoming together. You literally asked me two weeks ago with that whole flower thing—" "Yeah, well, I changed my mind." He shrugged. Actually shrugged. Like I was a shirt he'd decided didn't fit anymore. "You're boring, Chelsy. You don't do anything spontaneous. You don't challenge me. And honestly? I can get any girl at this school. Why should I settle for someone who just... exists next to me?" The hallway seemed to get quieter. Or maybe my ears were just ringing. I couldn't tell anymore. I felt my eyes burn—that awful, humiliating prickling that comes right before tears—and I forced it down with pure spite. No. No way was I crying over Sam Mitchell right here in front of everyone. Not now. Not ever. So instead, I did what I'd always done when things hurt too much: I smiled. A bright, practiced smile that didn't reach my eyes. The same smile I used in my i********: photos, the one that made me look effortlessly perfect. "You know what, Sam? You're right," I said, keeping my voice light and airy, like I didn't care. Like my heart wasn't breaking into pieces on the linoleum floor. "Good luck finding someone desperate enough to put up with your s**t. I'm sure you'll find plenty of girls willing to stroke your ego, but none of them will actually love you." His face flushed red—a small victory, but I'd take it. I turned and walked away without waiting for a response, my head held high even though my hands were shaking. I could feel everyone's eyes on me as I moved through the crowd, could hear the whispers starting already. Did you hear that? He dumped her. I thought they were perfect together. She seems fine though. Look at her smile. If only they knew. If only anyone knew that "fine" was just a mask I'd gotten really good at wearing. ... I made it to the bathroom before the tears came. Thank God for empty periods and a school big enough that the senior bathroom was usually deserted during first block. I locked myself in a stall and let myself fall apart for exactly three minutes. That was my rule: three minutes of real, ugly crying. Then I'd wash my face, fix my makeup, and go back to being Chelsy—the girl who had it all together, who didn't let boys define her, who was too cool for heartbreak. Except this time, it didn't feel like a performance. It felt like a lie I was starting to believe. ... By the time lunch rolled around, the news had spread like wildfire through the school. Everyone knew. Everyone had an opinion. My friends Madison and Merge found me in the cafeteria, sliding into the seats across from me with the kind of concern that only best friends can pull off without it being completely patronizing. "Don't talk about it," I said before they could even open their mouths. I stabbed at my salad—which I wasn't even hungry for—and tried to focus on looking unbothered. "We weren't going to—" Madison started, but I cut her off. "Seriously. I'm fine. Sam's an asshole. I'm over it. Done. Moving on." I wasn't fine. I wasn't done. And I definitely wasn't over it. But saying it out loud sometimes made it feel more true. Merge exchanged a look with Madison, that silent conversation best friends have perfected over years of knowing each other. They both saw right through me. They always did. "What if," Madison said slowly, leaning forward with that mischievous glint in her eye that usually meant trouble, "you didn't just move on? What if you got even?" I looked up from my salad. "How?" "New boyfriend," Merge said simply. "Someone so completely different from Sam that it would drive him crazy. Someone who would make it clear that you're not boring. That you're desirable. That he made the biggest mistake of his life." The idea was absolutely ridiculous. It was petty, immature, and completely beneath me. I loved it immediately. "It would have to be someone Sam would hate," I said, my mind already spinning. "Someone so unlike him that it wouldn't make sense. That way, when he sees us together, he'll realize what he lost." "Exactly," Madison said, grinning. "So who's the unluckiest guy at this school?" Merge pointed across the cafeteria without even looking. I followed her gaze to a table in the corner—the lonely table, the one where the misfits and nerds sat by themselves. There, surrounded by textbooks and what looked like the remains of a robot, sat Brian Chen. He had his nose buried in a thick physics textbook, completely oblivious to the world around him. His dark hair was messy, like he'd run his hands through it too many times while thinking. He wore a hoodie with some kind of coding joke printed on it—something about JavaScript that I definitely didn't understand. And when he reached for his juice box—an actual juice box, not even a sports drink like a normal high school boy—I felt something click into place. He was perfect. Not because he was attractive or charming or any of the things that usually made a guy "perfect" in the high school hierarchy. He was perfect because he was the exact opposite of everything Sam was. He was quiet where Sam was loud. He was genuine where Sam was a narcissistic asshole. He probably had no idea what he was doing when it came to girls, which meant seducing him would be laughably easy. "Brian Chen," I said, and it felt like the start of something. "I'm going to make him fall for me." Madison's eyes widened. "Wait, you're serious?" "Completely serious." "Brian doesn't even talk to girls," Merge pointed out. "He literally walked past Jessica Martinez last week when she tried to flirt with him. She was devastated." "Then I guess I'll have to be more convincing than Jessica." I smiled—that real smile, the one that came from genuine confidence. Not the hurt smile from earlier. This was different. This was a plan. This was control. This was me taking back the power that Sam had stripped away from me. I looked back at Brian, still completely absorbed in his textbook, completely unaware that I was about to turn his world upside down. "How hard could it be?" I said to Madison and Merge. "He's a nerd. They're like... easy to manipulate. All you have to do is show interest in their weird hobbies and they fall all over themselves." Madison bit her lip, clearly torn between excitement and concern. "Chelsy, are you sure about this? I mean, Brian's kind of... sweet. What if he actually develops real feelings?" I didn't even hesitate. "Then he'll learn what everyone learns eventually—that feelings are temporary and people are disappointing. Besides, this isn't about hurting Brian. It's about showing Sam that I'm not boring. That I'm desirable. That I can seduce literally anyone." ... Looking back now, I realize I was completely full of s**t. But at that moment, sitting in the cafeteria with the taste of heartbreak still bitter on my tongue, I believed every word. I was going to seduce Brian Chen. I was going to make him fall for me. And when I was done, I was going to prove I could walk away just like Sam had. I was going to prove I wasn't boring,I was going to prove that could have anyone and I'm going to prove that I was fine,and I wasn't thinking about what happened after. I wasn't thinking about him at all. Unfortunately,I was wrong about literally everything.