This Time Around

This Time Around is a made-for-television movie starring Carly Pope, Sara Rue and Brian Austin Green. It aired on the ABC Family Channel on June 22, 2003. Plot 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. Ten years later, in the present day, Melissa works as an executive in a public relations firm. She has since gained self-confidence, but still has trust issues due to her humiliation at school and refuses to maintain any long-term relationship. When her firm is asked to work for Drew's new restaurant, Melissa is at first reluctant, but is brought around by Gabby when she tells Melissa that she can use this opportunity to get revenge on Drew by making him fall in love with her and then breaking his heart. The girls use a series of tactics to get Drew to ask Melissa out, and he eventually does, leading to a romantic date at his new restaurant (before it has officially been opened). Drew told Melissa that the investment of his new restaurant is from his own money if it fails he would end up broke. Drew tells Melissa that he's only just broken up with Cara Cabot, the popular girl from their old school who Drew's been dating for 10 years, but he's ready to move on. Melissa and Drew share a tender moment and are about to kiss when Cara walks in the restaurant. Cara tells Melissa to leave and asks Drew to give her a second chance, but Drew declines.