Reprogram her cell phone.

If she wanted "proof" that Pete was doing something wrong, I could fool her by changing Pete's number in her phone to someone she would she wouldn't expect. One of the beautiful things about preprogrammed phones is nobody (except for me) pays attention to remembering actual phone numbers. I doubt she paid any attention to numbers after they were saved. She had more important things to worry about, like school. I only had a few minutes, so I dug in her satchel for the phone and replaced Pete's number with a number that I knew would make her suspicious. I slipped the phone back into place just as she walked around the corner.

"Jess, I really hope you don't hold what I said against me. I just have trouble trusting in the goodness of people. But Pete is definitely one of the most honest I know."

"Yes, he is. That's why we're together. I could never be with someone who didn't think I was worth telling the truth to." She seemed to have redirected her anger from me to some past event that had made her feel betrayed. Perfect.

"Maybe you could give him a call, to let him know you're on your way. He might be awake enough to set up something romantic."

"Sounds good. I'll see you later." With that goodbye, she exited the library into the falling snow, pressing speed dial as she walked.

I really wanted to walk with her to see if my setup worked, but I decided to wait in the library. If the conversation went as I thought (and hoped) it would she would be back soon. I started reviewing the study material while I waited. Ten minutes later, Jess marched back into the library and right up to my table.

"When you said Pete was cheating, what did you mean?"

"Jess, I said I was sorry about that. It's not my place to say anything."

She pulled out the chair she had just vacated ten minutes before and sat across from me. "What did you mean? That he's cheating on me?"

"I don't want to hurt you, Jess."

"Then don't try to hide things from me! Just tell me the truth!"

"Okay." I paused as if I was finding a way to tell her bad news, even though I had worked out how to pull off this lie in the time it took her to make the call. "I don't know anything for certain. I heard some girls talking about how nice he was. I didn't think there was anything weird about it because he is nice. But then I heard the same girl say similar things other days: how considerate he was for picking up her pen, how she liked that he was a vegan, stuff like that."

"Did she say anything else?"