In 8th grade, Melissa Rochester is a shy, geeky girl who has a huge crush on Drew Hesler, the most popular boy in her junior high school. When her missing notebook, with her doodles of hers and Drew's name together, is handed in to the school reception, it is passed around and falls in the hands of Drew and the popular group. They decide to play a prank on Melissa and leave a note in her locker from Drew who tells her to come up to him at lunch and wait to be asked out. Ecstatic after reading the note, and encouraged by her best friend Gabby, Melissa approaches Drew during lunch, but Drew and his friends humiliate her by telling her it was a joke in front of the whole school, prompting Melissa to run away. We are told later in the movie that both Melissa and Gabby transferred to a Catholic high school instead of the regular high school that Drew and the rest of her class attended.