American Girl: Can't I Just Be Chloe?

A full month had passed since I saw either the Jonas or the Geiger families. It was early March and I was sleeping over at a friend’s house. We were sitting around watching music videos when something I recognized came on. This video that came on was Inever knew by, you guessed it, Drop/Slap. But, what really bothered me about the video was that I was in it. Scenes from my sixteenth birthday, specifically their performance of this song, played out before me, interspersed with pictures of me and Frankie. I sat there in utter shock. I had always wondered what Frankie and the band decided to do for this video when their original video got scrapped. Now I knew. He replaced Victoria with me. Plus, now I understood why Teddy had that video camera with him; he was filming the performance for this video. The video ended with the shot of Frankie coming down from the stage and hugging me, followed by the picture that Denise took of us seven and a half years ago.

My friend, Nina’s, jaw dropped. “You know Frankie Jonas?” she asked me in confusion. See, I never exactly told Nina that I knew them. I wanted to forget that part of my life.

“Well, you saw the video!” I exclaimed. There was no doubt in my mind of the fact that I was going to have to have a talk with Betsy, who probably insisted that her husband film the performance. They must have planned to film the video then, since they obviously had not come up with a concept for the video until then. But, I was in the video. That was not going to bode well. “What do you think, Nina? Do you think I’m friends with him?”

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Nina asked.

“Because of certain things that happened over the past few months,” I said with a heavy sigh. Thinking about this made me tear up as I hadn’t really thought about all of this since my birthday. “You would never even begin to comprehend the unfortunate circumstances that caused me to end my association with the Jonas or Geiger families and come out here.”

“What’s the reason?” she asked.

I rolled my eyes, knowing that this was going to bring back some very painful memories. To my utter delight, I had been able to get over my feelings for Frankie. Of course, now that Nina had asked me about Frankie, I was afraid that my feelings for Frankie would come back. I didn’t want that to happen; I couldn’t let that happen to me. Not at all. “Oh, well, do you remember Frankie’s relationship with Victoria Roberts? Well, that relationship caused me so much pain because I lost my best friend as a result of her. Victoria entered my life and came close to tearing me away from the boy I love. I flew out here after Thanksgiving to get away from him and was able to until my birthday last month.”

Nina’s eyes widened. “You’re in love with Frankie? If you’re in love with Frankie, why don’t you tell him what’ going on? He needs to know the truth,” Nina told me.

“I couldn’t do that,” I explained to Nina. “Nick tried to convince me to tell Frankie of my feelings for him, but I never got the chance to do so because he introduced me to Victoria as his girlfriend. It broke my heart to find out that he had a girlfriend because I had loved him for two long years. Even after they broke up, I couldn’t do it. A good friend of mine—Joe’s wife’s half-sister, Dana Martin— began dating Frankie. She’s a friend and the one person—other than me—that I could even bear to see dating my best friend.”

“But, you need to tell him, Chloe. I’m sure that you should. I think that song is trying to tell you something,” Nina said. “If you claim that Frankie knows nothing of how you feel about him, I think you’re wrong. He knows what’s going on and he’s trying to tell you.”

“I don’t think that’s possible,” I retorted.

“Really? Well, I think that I’m going to find out,” Nina said, grabbing my phone. She then began dialing a number, one I was sure belonged to a Jonas. With my luck, it was probably Frankie. As I soon saw, Nina turned my phone on speakerphone and set it down on the table.

“Hello?” Frankie asked.

“Yeah, hi, Frankie. I need you to tell Chloe the story behind the video for [iI never knew. You need to tell her the reason you put her in the video,” Nina explained. “I’m a friend of hers out here in D.C. and, despite the fact that I’ve only known her for a short time, even I know the reason that she was put in the video. So, tell her. Tell Chloe why she’s in the video.”

Frankie sighed. “Okay, hold on.” There was a pause before I heard Frankie speak again. “Look, Chloe, I know you haven’t spoken to me since November 3rd when Betsy’s son was born, but after Victoria was arrested, I began planning to put you in the video. You disappeared after that party though. You flew out to D.C. and away from all of us. After you left on Thanksgiving, I went home myself and found the letter you wrote. Wanting to find out what was going on, I headed to your house along with your parents and spied on you from outside. I heard what you told your parents. And, that conversation was part of the reason that you’re the one in the video. I talked to the producers and they agreed that I should put you in the video. The only problem was that I couldn’t exactly film the video without you. So, I borrowed Big Rob’s phone and contacted you the day you left. You told me everything, including the fact that you’ve been in love with me for two years. When I found out that, I knew that you had to be in the video. Hell, the song was written for you anyway.

“The video was filmed on your sixteenth birthday, despite the fact that you didn’t want me to be there. I had to play the song for you though. You needed to know why that song was written. And, I was going to tell you on Thanksgiving, but you left before I could. It didn’t help that you were complaining about Victoria—though I guess you had every right to—and trying to get rid of her. Sure, she was a Video Girl, but the fact of the matter was that she helped me get my mind off the girl that I was really in love with, a girl that I thought was never going to love me back. Turns out that I was wrong. She did love me. I just never knew.”

When Frankie stopped speaking, I was about ready to scream. Not only did I just learn that my best friend had spied on me on Thanksgiving, but I also learn that he had been in love with me as well. How much sense did that make? I groaned. It seemed that I was going to have to break my promise and talk to Frankie. “Unbelievable, Frankie! You should have told me. Do you know how much pain you’ve caused me by dating Victoria? Of course I was jealous of Victoria dating you, Frankie. I mean, two years, Frankie. Since you were using Big Rob’s phone to contact me and keep me unaware of the fact that you were contacting me, you know that you were the only one who didn’t know how much I was in love with you. Nick found out the day Rebecca was born and has wanted me to tell you. I couldn’t though, particularly once you decided to introduce me to Victoria.”

“I guess that explains why my brothers were so against me dating Victoria,” Frankie realized. “They knew that we were in love with each other, but neither one of us would admit it.”

“Did everyone know?” I asked.

“Yeah. Amanda found out and told Betsy, who later confronted me about it. She told my brothers. Nick wanted me to tell you, but I never did. It actually wasn’t that early in our friendship, actually before your ninth birthday. So, I guess it’s been seven years since I realized that I loved you. Two since Betsy confronted me about my feelings for you.”

When I heard what Frankie said about how long he had been in love with me, I wondered what that picture he gave me for my ninth birthday represented. I ran to over to my suitcase and found the picture of him and me. It was still sitting in the zippered compartment that I hid it in so I wouldn’t have to see this picture. Apparently, I never sent the picture back to Frankie, despite my initial intentions to do so. Since it was still in my suitcase, I pulled it out and removed the picture from its frame. Flipping it over to the back, I found that there was a note taped to the back of the picture. I knew now what the note was going to say, but still I removed the note from the back of the picture and opened it to find out what was going on. It was dated seven years ago when we were both eight.

Saturday, September 26th, 2009

Dear Chloe,

I think I need to write this out. Sure, we’re only eight, but I think I’m in love with you. I know it doesn’t help that we only met last month, but I know that this is the case. And, you may not find this note for years and years, but I’m sure that I’ll be in love with you by the time you do read this. When you do find this, let me know. We really do need to talk.

Frankie

With the note in hand, I went back over to the phone. I needed to understand why Frankie never told me about this, but rather wrote it out. “Frankie, a note? Is that really how you intended on telling me that you were in love with me? You should have told me instead of using a note.”

“You finally found the note I attached to the picture, huh? I wondered when you were going to find that. Apparently, it was seven years that I would have to wait for you to find this. Maybe I should have at least hinted at the fact that it was there. Maybe then, what happened over the past few months never would have happened. Well, now that you found it, maybe we can fix all of this. There’s a plane from D.C. to L.A. tomorrow morning. If you forgive me for everything that’s happened, come out on that flight. I’ll be at LAX waiting for you to see if you forgive me for what happened. It’s a little late I know, but at least I apologized for what I did. I never meant for any of that to happen, particularly not my Take a Breath quote,” Frankie explained. “Not in the way you thought, at least.”

“And, what way did you mean it?” I asked.

“We were kids when we made that promise. And, by that time, I was already in love with you. We made that promise and I had already broken it. That was what I meant by people change and promises are broken,” Frankie said. “That’s what I initially meant by that.”

“I have to think about it,” I said.

Nina closed my phone and turned to me. “You really do need to forgive him. I told you that the song was trying to send you a message. And, I was evidently right about that.”

“But, he’s dating Dana,” I objected.

“Yeah, but you’re saying she’s Joe’s half-sister-in-law, right?” Nina asked. “Well, if that’s the case, I think the whole Frana relationship was a ruse. Dana must be helping Frankie with all of this. Everyone must be. And now, I am going to do something to help you. You are taking that flight out to California to see Frankie. I’m forcing you to go out there.”