Sweet Valley Confidential: Ten Years Later by Francine Pascal

and shamed forever, never forgotten. It would always be the talk of Sweet Valley. It would stain their lives as they had stained hers.
    Dumb and childish, and far too brutal a scene for Elizabeth to enjoy.
    But there were other scenarios.
    In one of Elizabeth’s favorites, she would write a letter to Jessica describing her intimate times with Todd while he was cheating with Jessica, which would be like he was cheating on Jessica with Elizabeth.
    Maybe that was too much of a reach, but it would certainly hurt. Lots of tears. Even more childish.
    Or …
    Another letter reporting all the horrible things Todd had said about Jessica through those many years. And there were plenty. They’d have a big fight, and Jessica would be in tears.
    Jessica’s tears. Was that the best she could hope for? Not nearly enough to avenge what they had done to her life.
    By the time Elizabeth got through all these scenarios, she would have drifted off, somewhat satisfied until the morning, when she would wake up miserable again. She still hadn’t found the perfect revenge.
    But she would.

4
    Sweet Valley
     
    That night, as on so many agonizing nights in these past months, there was no way Jessica could find sleep. Elizabeth was waiting in every corner of her mind.
    Was it worth it?
    A question answered with one look at Todd’s sleeping face and an involuntary rush of love. His face was relaxed and untroubled, softened by the safety of sleep—a rare sight these last several months.
    There was a sweetness on his face, just like the look she remembered from that night, five years earlier, when she first saw him.
    She was taking a little liberty there. Yes, she had known him since kindergarten, but she’d never really seen him until that night. The night of Jim Regis’s party; that terrible night in their senior year at SVU when Elizabeth was sick and Jessica did her another of her fabulous favors.
    Since then, Jessica had rearranged the real events of that evening a thousand ways, but it always came out the same. Truth was too powerful to lie to. And that something so precious as their love, hers and Todd’s, should have had such an ugly nascence was an unalterable truth, and no matter how far and how gloriously it had transformed, there was no escaping its beginning.
    She remembered every minute of that beginning, starting from her standing in front of Mrs. Schriker’s house, their college rental, that night, waiting for Todd to pick her up. She was dressed almost entirely in borrowed clothes. Everything belonged to Elizabeth, including Todd.

     
    Right from the first, when he pulls up in his black Audi convertible, it feels slightly strange. And when I open the door and slide in, it’s more than strange; it’s weird. I’ve been in his car hundreds of times but always in the backseat. The front seat is Elizabeth’s place, but now here I am.
    “Hey,” I say, pulling the door shut.
    “Hey.”
    Straining to make normal chitchat proves so too much for both of us, and after two blocks the little wisps of attempted conversation drift down like snowflakes into a blanketing silence. The discomfort is like excruciating, forcing me to make another effort. This time I aim for the smallest talk: weather. Except that in Southern California, unless you have storms or earthquakes or mudslides, none of which are expected, there is no weather. It’s all like sun. And more sun.
    More silence. We are two very uncomfortable people. The evening that could have been like a fun idea isn’t turning out to be as easy as it sounded. Or, maybe, it’s just me. Todd probably doesn’t even notice.
    When we arrive at the frat house the party is already going full blast. I excuse myself and take my jacket to the bedroom. Lianne Kane, the host, Jim Regis’s girlfriend, is there.
    “Hey,” she says. “Jim was worried that you two wouldn’t make it. Todd is with you, right?”
    “Absolutely. Come on, I’ll introduce you.”
    And Lianne and I go out to the