Sweet Valley University #44: Love Me Always

Everyone is in love and everyone is having problems. Danny keeps sitting by Isabella’s hospital bed, hoping that she’ll wake up and recover from everything that happened. The doctor tells him to encourage her other senses so he brings in her favorite clothes, perfume and tape. After draping the shirt over her, making her smell the perfume and putting the tape on, she starts moving. Isabella wakes up, but he’s heartbroken to learn that she has amnesia and doesn’t remember anyone.

Winston starts taking dating advice from Bruce because he’s desperate to get Denise back. Yes, Bruce Patman who he should know isn’t the best person to ask for help from. He buys her a cute charm shaped like an elephant, but it’s made out of ivory and sets her off. Now I thought it was illegal to sell ivory, but what do I know?

He then brings her another gift, which turns out to be a wrapped up cheeseburger. He explains that all the layers represent their love, but she thinks he should stop trying to bribe her to make her love him again. Then he shows up outside her window and serenades her with their favorite Beatles song and she finally gives in and they get back together.

Liz and Tom are back together, but she keeps harping on the Dana thing. She literally brings it up every 10 pages, wanting to know what happened. Apparently Dana is a leper on campus, which is really funny. Everyone heard about her hiding Tom’s love letter and now no one will have anything to do with her. It’s funny that anyone cares! If the school is really as big as everyone keeps saying, this shouldn’t affect more like 6 people total.

Because Liz is “so great” though, she starts feeling bad about Dana getting left out. She decides to confront her and after a few bad starts, they actually sit down and start talking. Then Liz starts in about how she’s glad Dana and Tom never slept together and Dana starts laughing/crying. She tells Liz that they did have sex, but then feels bad when Liz runs off crying.

Liz then confronts Tom at the station and he tries to play it off. She keeps pushing the issue until he confesses that he did sleep with Dana. She runs off and tells Jessica what happened, which leads to her sister freaking out over Tom being such an asshole and trying to make Liz feel better.

Okay, I have to ask: what is the big fucking deal? Liz says Tom didn’t stay faithful to her and by sleeping with Dana, he cheated on her. Um, no, he didn’t cheat on you because you weren’t dating then! Tom points out that they weren’t together and that he didn’t think they’d get back together, but she says that doesn’t matter. Apparently if you date a Wakefield twin and break up, you can never touch another woman on the off chance that you might get back together again.

There’s also a scene where she runs into Todd on campus. She wants to tell him all about what happened with Tom and ask for his advice. Then she decides not to because it wouldn’t be awkward since his girlfriend died in the past. Wouldn’t it be awkward because she and Todd dated when she was broken up with Tom? Or how about award because Todd dumped her over sex?

The big story involves Jessica and Nick. Nick’s in a safe house because of the DiPalma trial and Jessica apparently doesn’t get what “safe house” means because she keeps asking the cops to take her there and let her see him. She’s told to stay away from the trial because DiPalma wants her dead, so she turns up in a disguise and Nick recognizes her.

She keeps pushing the issue until the cops finally agree to let her see Nick because you know, rules mean nothing to the twins. She thinks that Nick will give up on the whole idea of witness protection once he sees her and pouts when he doesn’t. Then she decides that they should just elope and then she can go with him. He puts down the idea because he knows she won’t stay away from Liz. I love how this is like the 5th time Jess fell in love this year and the second time she wants to get married and no one blinks an eye!

Jessica shows up at court again, but this time gets busted and asks that the cops get a note to Nick. Nick reads it and sneaks off to meet with her, where they make out and pledge their love yet again. Jess keeps saying that things will be fine once DiPalma’s found guilty, but Nick knows that the guy swore to kill him, no matter the results.

Nick sends Jess home and she gets there just in time to see the verdict read. DiPalma is found guilty and she does a little happy dance because it means that Nick can come home. I really don’t understand why she doesn’t get that he has to go into witness protection. Suddenly she spots someone off to the side and sees that he has a gun. He shoots Nick and the twins run to the courthouse.

Jessica sees them put Nick in a body bag, but keeps talking about a plastic sheet. She wants them to take it off so he can breathe and then demands they take her to the hospital. One of the cops finally comes out and tells Jessica that Nick was shot three times. He didn’t make it.

This book kind of pisses me off. Everyone acts like Jessica is completely in love with Nick and has never been in love before, even though she falls “in love” every other book. Mike, James, Louis, Randy all came before Nick…just this year! Not to mention AJ, Sam and Ken in high school. It’s also laughable to imagine Jessica hiding herself in witness protection, when she constantly needs to be the center of attention!