Jenny McHenry

Quick Facts

Bold, beautiful, and complicated, Jenny McHenry is the popular cheerleader whose taunts spark the fake-dating story—and whose growth helps heal it.

• Role: Antagonist-turned-ally; catalyst of the central lie
• First appearance: Early in the novel during an English class discussion and the ensuing hallway/locker scenes
• Key relationships: Character: Becca Hart (former best friend turned estranged, then reconciled), Character: Brett Wells (same popular circle)
• Physical details: Post-freshman glow-up—braces off, taller, noticeable curves, curls she tucks behind her ears; often in a cheer uniform that matches the school colors on Brett’s varsity jacket
• Social status: Confident Eastwood High cheerleader; perceived as a “mean girl” before her vulnerabilities surface

Who They Are

Jenny is the novel’s stealth heart-check: the character who exposes how easy it is to confuse image with intimacy. She begins as the polished ex–best friend whose condescension pushes Becca into a lie, but she gradually becomes the person who insists on the truth—about friendship, about loneliness, and about love that doesn’t look like a movie. Her arc reframes the “popular girl” stereotype into something far more humane: a teenager performing confidence to cover isolation, then choosing accountability over status.

Personality & Traits

At first, Jenny weaponizes certainty—about romance, popularity, and what counts as “real”—to keep the upper hand. Later, she dismantles that armor herself.

• Condescending and judgmental (early): In English class, she dismisses Becca’s bookish stance—“Books are one thing. But real feelings are different”—and sneers at romance as naïve when it serves her social pose.
• Confrontational: At Becca’s locker, she needles relentlessly about Becca’s love life, provoking the lie that launches the fake relationship; her pointed “Prove it” escalates to the first kiss between Becca and Brett.
• Cruel by omission: After her glow-up, she once answered Becca with, “Do I know you?”—a tiny, devastating show of social ambition over loyalty.
• Apologetic and self-aware (later): At Lovers’ Lake, she owns the harm she caused and names the loneliness beneath her popularity.
• Supportive in action: She hands out Hart’s Cupcakes flyers to the football team, drives Becca home after the hotel fiasco, and finds her at the bridge when everything falls apart.
• Insightful: Her grounded talk on the bridge distinguishes storybook romance from messy, real attachment—and helps Becca locate what’s true.
• Vulnerable: She admits popularity didn’t cure feeling alone, revealing the anxiety behind the cheerleader veneer.

Character Journey

Jenny’s story moves from performance to presence. The girl who once prized image—mocking Becca’s “unrealistic” books and trading friendship for status—begins to choose substance in small, unshowy ways: distributing Hart’s Cupcakes flyers, offering rides, and showing up when it matters. Her apology at the marsh party is the hinge; after that, she becomes a quiet conscience in Becca’s life, reframing heartbreak as proof that love is lived, not theorized. In doing so, she embodies the novel’s Coming of Age and Self-Discovery: not just for Becca, but for herself—growing from a curator of appearances into a friend who tells the truth even when it costs her cool.

Key Relationships

• Becca Hart: With Character: Becca Hart (first mention), Jenny’s dynamic carries the novel’s sting and its salve. Her early taunts weaponize Becca’s love of fiction, pushing Becca into pretending. Their reconciliation—rooted in Jenny’s unguarded apology and steady, practical care—turns a rivalry into a mature friendship about forgiveness, boundaries, and showing up.
• Brett Wells: With Character: Brett Wells (first mention), Jenny shares status and scenes, making her seem like a “better match” on paper. But the relationship mostly functions as social context: her “Prove it” line pressures Brett into the first public display with Becca, revealing how crowd dynamics shape intimacy—and how Jenny ultimately rejects those dynamics in favor of honesty.

Defining Moments

Jenny’s arc turns on the moments she chooses truth over the performance of popularity.

• The English Class Debate

  • What happens: She challenges Becca’s cynicism, insisting love is “worth the risk, even if it can lead to heartbreak.”
  • Why it matters: Establishes their clashing worldviews—lived experience vs. literary ideals—and foreshadows the real-versus-fiction theme she will later articulate more compassionately.

• The Locker Confrontation

  • What happens: Her relentless prodding and disdain for Becca’s books push Becca to claim she has a boyfriend.
  • Why it matters: The inciting incident. Jenny’s social pressure lights the fuse that creates Becca and Brett’s fake relationship.

• Flyers for Hart’s Cupcakes

  • What happens: Quietly, she hands out Becca’s mom’s bakery flyers to the football team.
  • Why it matters: A first crack in the “mean girl” mask—service without spectacle, signaling genuine care.

• The Apology at Lovers’ Lake

  • What happens: At the marsh party, she admits, “You deserved better than someone like me,” naming her own loneliness.
  • Why it matters: The turning point. Jenny swaps image-protection for accountability, reopening the door to real friendship.

• The Hotel Opening Ride Home

  • What happens: After the disastrous event, she doesn’t gloat—she drives Becca home.
  • Why it matters: Support without judgment shows her transformation isn’t just words.

• The Bridge Scene

  • What happens: She finds Becca throwing books into the lake and reframes love as imperfect but present.
  • Why it matters: Jenny becomes the novel’s clearest voice on real love, guiding Becca toward acceptance and repair.

Symbolism & Themes

Jenny personifies Appearance vs. Reality: the polished cheerleader whose confidence is a costume masking loneliness. Her unmasking reveals how status can isolate, and how forgiveness—both seeking it and granting it—can restore what performance corrodes. By the end, she’s proof that people can be more generous than their reputations, and that friendship matures through apology, not perfection.

Essential Quotes

Love. It’s easy to ridicule it when you’ve never felt it.
This line exposes the insecurity beneath Jenny’s early bravado. She frames ridicule as a defense mechanism, hinting that her cutting remarks are less about superiority and more about fear of vulnerability.

“Prove it.”
Three words that trigger the book’s pivotal kiss and cement the fake-dating premise. Jenny’s challenge shows how social theater scripts private behavior—and sets up her later rejection of that performative pressure.

I used to think being popular was all that mattered. Having a lot of friends, being invited to parties, all of that shit... But I was lonely, Becca. Because those people were my friends, but not like you once were.
Here, Jenny translates popularity into its emotional truth: attention without intimacy. It’s her clearest confession, recasting her past cruelty as a misguided attempt to avoid feeling replaceable.

Real guys aren’t like this. I don’t think anyone is like this. People don’t stand in front of your bedroom window with a boom box—... My point is no one can live up to some romance you read about when you were fourteen. But Brett’s real. He’s here. And isn’t that better? Mistakes and all?
Jenny reframes romance from spectacle to presence. By valuing imperfect reality over cinematic fantasy, she helps Becca choose a relationship grounded in truth, not tropes—and completes her own move from image to insight.