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Clarissa Smalls

Clarissa Smalls was a Pasadena High School student born on September 1, 1980. In spring 1998, she disclosed Pattie Matsuda’s pregnancy after Jeremy Wallace had told her in confidence, contributing to a rumor cascade that damaged several relationships. Clarissa later reconciled with Jeremy during his recovery from depression and severe self-neglect and became a consistent source of support as he adjusted to acquired disabilities.

Early Life and Family

Clarissa grew up in Pasadena with her parents, Linda and Robert “Bob” Smalls, and her older brother, Michael Smalls. Linda worked long shifts as a pediatric nurse at Huntington Memorial Hospital, including nights, with good benefits and a steady income. Bob was an accountant at a mid-sized firm. Their two incomes supported a comfortable middle-class household, but purchases and activities still had to fit a budget. The family saved for nice things instead of buying them impulsively.

The Smallses lived in a three- to four-bedroom house in a good neighborhood and had two practical, reliable cars. Michael’s education at Stanford became a major family commitment, costing them roughly $25,000–$30,000 a year. Linda picked up extra shifts, vacations became less frequent, and Clarissa drove an older used car. The family was proud of Michael’s admission while feeling the continuing cost of keeping him there.

As a child, Clarissa followed Michael around asking questions. She cried when she did not get the lead in her sixth-grade school play and continued asking him to kill spiders in her room when she was older. Bob taught her to find the North Star, and she made wishes on stars when she was little. Those memories later became part of how Jeremy showed that he had listened to her.

Education

Clarissa was a junior at Pasadena High School in spring 1998 and entered her senior year that fall as a member of the class of 1999. She maintained a GPA in the 3.9–4.0 range and had the academic ability for an institution such as Stanford. Attending it herself was financially out of reach for a family already stretched by Michael’s college expenses. Jeremy’s family could afford any college he chose; comparable academic ability did not give Clarissa the same financial freedom. Her interest in studying English literature was genuine; she read frequently and became animated when talking about that future.

Her public persona concealed much of that intelligence. Clarissa deliberately performed the role of the pretty, popular girl rather than drawing attention to her academic ability. The role gave her social standing, while classmates who saw the surface missed the capable student beneath it. Michael and their parents recognized her intelligence even when she chose not to foreground it. Her experiences in 1998 made her question what maintaining that persona had cost her.

Personality

Clarissa was social, image-conscious, and attentive to status. She cared about fitting in and about how other people perceived her. Within the popular group, knowing private information gave her access and importance, and she became known for gossiping. Promising confidentiality did not initially prevent her from passing a secret to Sarah. When the consequences reached her, she minimized her part, shifted blame, and treated the embellishments other people added as a reason she should not be held responsible for the original disclosure.

Jeremy’s June 1998 hospitalization made that defense impossible for her to sustain. Her stomach dropped when she heard he was in intensive care, and the guilt hit hard enough that she closed her eyes. She believed she had contributed to what happened, even though she did not think she was the only cause. She had already begun to recognize his loneliness beneath his wealth and popularity, which made breaking his trust more painful. She knew she had treated him as an entrance into a desirable life before treating him as a person.

Her later loyalty involved choices that cost her social approval. She stopped spending time with friends who dismissed Jeremy’s illness, defended him when classmates called him damaged, and stayed through fatigue, migraines, seizures, and frightening uncertainty. Her protectiveness was direct rather than evasive. She could confront someone whose anger she had helped cause, including Pattie, when that person was cruel to Jeremy.

Clarissa wanted to be known and loved beyond her appearance, popularity, or usefulness as a source of gossip. She feared being dismissed as shallow and untrustworthy, losing Jeremy after discovering what genuine connection felt like, and remaining forever defined by the rumor she had spread. Changing her behavior mattered to her because she wanted to become more than the girl who broke that promise; admiration from a distance no longer satisfied her in the same way.

Cultural Identity and Family Context

Main article: Wealth and Upper-Class Life in the United States, 1960–2026

Clarissa grew up close to substantial wealth without sharing the Wallaces’ financial freedom. The families knew one another through Pasadena’s community life, and Clarissa attended the same schools and events as young people whose households did not need to budget as hers did. Nice clothes, a comfortable home, and a respectable family presentation coexisted with extra nursing shifts and limits on college spending.

That proximity made Jeremy’s interest in her feel like access to a world she had watched from its edges. His mansion, parties, and effortless spending were glamorous to her rather than ordinary. As their relationship developed, she noticed habits that he barely registered: household staff clearing his plate, expensive brands treated as defaults, no experience of having a job, and no need to choose between purchases because of cost. His $500 monthly allowance exceeded what Evan earned in nearly three weeks.

Clarissa could identify those differences without pretending Jeremy’s money protected him from loneliness or disability. She learned to question his assumptions without reducing him to them, while confronting the part that wealth had played in her own attraction. Her family’s pride in Michael’s Stanford education and the financial barrier to a comparable opportunity for her remained real alongside her changing understanding of Jeremy.

Speech and Communication Patterns

In spring 1998, Clarissa used minimizing and blame-shifting language when challenged. She said that telling Sarah had “slipped out” and insisted that other people’s embellishments were not her fault. After Pattie hit her, she also protested, “I didn’t do anything! She’s crazy!” Her early responses protected her own image instead of acknowledging the confidence she had broken.

As she became more protective of Jeremy, her speech grew firmer and more direct. “It’s not about the money” rejected other people’s account of why she stayed, while “He’d stay for me” expressed the reciprocity she expected from their relationship. She confronted ableism plainly, distinguishing Jeremy’s illness and recovery from the claim that he was damaged or no longer worth loving. With him, that firmness could become reassurance: “You’re still you. You’re still Jeremy.”

Clarissa also used AIM to maintain relationships and to state boundaries she had struggled to hold in person. Her screen name was ClarissaS_98. She updated her profile with penguin facts and, after blocking Sarah, used an away message about the difference between friends who showed up and friends who talked about someone behind their back.

Health and Disabilities

In mid-to-late April 1998, Pattie punched Clarissa during a confrontation in the school courtyard and broke her nose. Blood ran between Clarissa’s fingers and onto her hands and shirt, and she needed the school nurse’s attention. The injury remained part of what the two girls had to address when they later apologized to one another.

Relationship to Her Body

Clarissa drew attention before she was old enough for the assumptions others made about her. High-school boys were already looking at her when she was eleven, and by ninth grade she could be mistaken for a senior. Her appearance attracted interest whether she wanted it or not. Michael saw boys treat being with her as an achievement, a dare, or a source of status rather than as a relationship with his sister.

She also used beauty and presentation deliberately, making the pretty, popular role central to her social position while keeping her academic intelligence less visible. Wanting to be seen beyond that role did not mean that she stopped caring about how she looked. Jeremy’s attention to her reading, childhood memories, and ambitions mattered because he recognized parts of her that physical admiration alone did not reach.

Physical Characteristics

Clarissa had long blonde hair, a petite frame, delicate facial features, and large, expressive eyes. She carried herself confidently and photographed well. Michael described her as “conventionally, traditionally, undeniably beautiful,” while Katherine saw her and Jeremy as a strikingly attractive couple whose appearance would meet approval within the Wallaces’ social circle. Katherine also recognized the limitations of that judgment as she watched Clarissa’s genuine care for her son.

Her small wrists and narrow shoulders gave her a delicate frame. She was slender with soft curves rather than Pattie’s more athletic definition, and she moved gracefully with a practiced awareness of her body in space. Her heart-shaped face narrowed to a slightly pointed chin; a small nose, full lips, high cheekbones, and long lashes defined the features around her expressive eyes. Careful skin care maintained a clear, porcelain-like complexion.

Her natural blonde hair extended past her shoulders. It was silky, mainly straight with a slight wave, and kept clean and deliberately styled even for casual occasions. The overall impression combined familiar, approachable beauty with an unusually polished presentation. That appearance drew attention and protective reactions, but it could also lead people to assume she was shallow or aloof before knowing her. Looking expensive did not mean that her clothes were expensive or that her family shared the Wallaces’ resources.

Items and Personal Effects

Clarissa’s parents gave her a Nokia cellphone for emergencies. She used it to call the Wallace house when she saw Jeremy’s car at school without him. Her older Honda was practical and reliable, in contrast to the vehicles and spending available to Jeremy.

Jeremy bought her a $268 Coach bag after her old bag broke and she began saving for a replacement. She initially refused the expense, then recognized how personally he experienced that refusal and accepted the bag as an expression of care. His later custom silver charm bracelet became an everyday possession. Its book, star, and infinity-heart charms represented her literary ambitions, childhood wishes, and their love; she valued the particulars he had remembered rather than simply its price.

Personal Style and Presentation

Clarissa was fashion-conscious and carefully put together on a middle-class budget. Her clothes were nice without being flashy or designer purchases, and she paid attention to what things cost. Maintaining a polished appearance required choices rather than the effortless spending she encountered at the Wallace house.

She used a less expensive curling iron at home than the professional-quality one available in Jeremy’s bathroom. While getting ready for the October concert there, she curled her hair and listened for him stirring in the adjoining bedroom. Looking forward to an evening out and responding to how ill he felt occupied the same afternoon.

Tastes and Preferences

Clarissa loved the Backstreet Boys. She mentioned that preference once, and Jeremy remembered it when he arranged floor seats for an October 24, 1998 concert. She enjoyed hearing him learn their songs in anticipation of going together, including “Everybody.” At the concert with Pattie, she felt Lila move and said, “She’s dancing.”

Penguins were a particular interest that she kept for herself rather than adopting to match her friends or Jeremy’s world. She regularly put penguin facts in her AIM profile and could talk about them during quieter conversations with him. She liked reading and wanted to major in English literature. At school, she disliked the cafeteria pizza but loved the breadsticks, another small distinction Jeremy remembered.

Habits, Routines, and Daily Life

Main article: Technology in the Late 1990s Reference

Clarissa used the Smalls family’s shared computer under parental supervision. Nighttime, when the household was quiet and she had the computer to herself, gave her space for AIM conversations and profile updates. She used those updates both for ordinary interests and for changes in her social relationships.

During Jeremy’s recovery, visiting him became part of her daily life. She sat with him while he slept, stayed through migraines and seizures, and learned to count aloud with him when an aura and panic made it difficult for him to orient himself. She could let an outing end in rest rather than insist that he remain entertaining or energetic. She also checked on him at school and made room for medical care within plans that had begun as dates.

On September 8, she found him asleep in the nurse’s office at 12:17 p.m. After school, his car was still in the parking lot at 2:47 p.m., but he was not there. She called the Wallace house in a panic and learned that Maria had picked him up after a severe migraine. Around 3 p.m., Clarissa joined Katherine at home and stayed while Jeremy slept. Watching him recover in the quiet living room changed how she understood love: it included being present when there was nothing exciting or romantic to do.

When he woke around 4:30 p.m., Clarissa helped him orient himself and massaged his shoulders, neck, and upper back as he described still feeling unwell. At dinner that evening, she counted from one to twenty during his frightening aura. She stayed through his fear about having an episode at school and held his hand in the dark after his parents helped him to bed.

Personal Philosophy or Beliefs

Clarissa came to understand confidentiality as a responsibility with consequences beyond what she intended when she spoke. Telling one person did not give her control over where the information went next, and gossip about Pattie and Evan harmed real people rather than merely supplying an interesting story. The fact that Sarah and others added lies did not erase Clarissa’s decision to break her promise.

Her relationship with Jeremy challenged the belief that money meant happiness, security from pain, or an uncomplicated life. She learned to distinguish a gift chosen through attention from a purchase intended to secure someone’s affection. Love meant showing up through difficulty, not only enjoying parties, concerts, or expensive things. Being genuinely known became more valuable to her than maintaining social standing with people whose treatment of Jeremy she could no longer accept.

Family and Core Relationships

Linda Smalls

Linda was warm and practical, accustomed through nursing to seeing people at their most vulnerable. She knew Katherine through PTA and community connections and had a professional connection with Connor’s mother, Rosa Martinez, another Huntington Memorial nurse. Linda supported Clarissa through guilt and uncertainty during Jeremy’s hospitalization. After Clarissa apologized to Katherine, Linda told her, “That was very mature of you, sweetie,” and reassured her, “When he’s ready for visitors, we’ll make sure you can see him.”

Robert “Bob” Smalls

Bob was steady, detail-oriented, and responsible for keeping the household’s finances workable. Clarissa grew up with his attention to budgets and to what the family could afford while Michael was at Stanford. Her memory of him teaching her to find the North Star was a separate, affectionate part of their relationship, later recalled through Jeremy’s star charm.

Michael Smalls

Michael was almost three years older than Clarissa. He studied economics with a political science minor at Stanford and wanted to improve economic policy through work in state government. He was protective and could be teasingly certain that he was right, but he also gave her room to talk when she was ready. He warned her about Sarah before she recognized the problem herself: “I’m telling you, she’s bad news. You’ll see. I’m always right.” His promise, “Nobody messes with my sister. I’ll come home,” meant he would return from Stanford if she needed him. He saw the curious child and intelligent student beneath the social persona and recognized the harm her gossip had caused without reducing her to it.

His protectiveness had developed partly through seeing how boys treated her appearance. He was initially suspicious of Jeremy, then watched Clarissa’s devastation during the hospitalization and Jeremy’s continuing wish to have her near. When Sarah later claimed Jeremy was using Clarissa as unpaid pity care, Michael defended his sister. Michelle had told him about Sarah’s earlier mistreatment of Cody Matsuda and Andy Davis; he raised it during the confrontation, without having witnessed that earlier incident himself. He knew Susie Matsuda from high school and Stanford, although they were not close at the time. Clarissa cried when he left for his senior year on August 29, 1998, feeling that she was entering her own senior year without his nearby support.

The Pregnancy Rumor

Main article: Jeremy Wallace and Clarissa Smalls

Clarissa and Jeremy first slept together at his March 1998 party and began seeing one another casually. They had been on approximately two dates when he told her about Pattie’s pregnancy. He was lonely and upset, worried that Evan Hayes was throwing his life away, and thought the two were too young for parenthood. He made Clarissa promise not to tell anyone. She told Sarah anyway.

Sarah passed the information to Michelle, and the story spread with false additions: that Pattie had deliberately trapped Evan, that he had taken advantage of her while she was drunk, and that the baby might not be his. Those claims went beyond what Jeremy had told Clarissa. In mid-to-late April, Pattie confronted her in the courtyard and broke her nose. Clarissa identified Jeremy as her source during the confrontation, further damaging his friendship with Evan.

Jeremy called Clarissa afterward. She admitted she “might have mentioned it to Sarah” and defended herself by saying it had slipped out and that other people’s embellishments were not her fault. He answered, “You PROMISED me, Clarissa. You weren’t supposed to say ANYTHING,” hung up, and ended their relationship. Her loss of contact with him initially met the same defensiveness with which she had responded to Pattie.

Reconciliation with Jeremy Wallace

Jeremy’s June 17, 1998 crisis followed depression and severe self-neglect, not an intention to die. Severe malnutrition and dehydration led to cardiac arrest and anoxic brain injury, and he spent approximately three weeks at Huntington Memorial. Clarissa went to the hospital even though he had ended their relationship, apologized to Katherine, and waited when she could not yet see him. She wanted a chance to apologize directly to Jeremy, not only to his mother. On June 19, after extubation, he asked his mother whether Clarissa had been there. Learning that he had asked gave Clarissa hope that her presence mattered to him.

She continued visiting after his discharge, and they reconciled in mid-July. At a pool party that month, Pattie’s accusation that he was selfish preceded his panic and seizure. Clarissa remained present during his recovery and confronted Pattie about speaking that way to someone whose heart had stopped and whose hospitalization she had witnessed.

During a late-July mall outing, Clarissa let Jeremy sleep on a bench rather than rush him or try to hide his exhaustion. They told each other they were in love on the drive home. Katherine saw him truly smiling again and welcomed Clarissa to dinner, recognizing the care beneath an outwardly attractive couple. Clarissa continued supporting him through epilepsy, fatigue, migraines, auras, and public ableism without treating him as incapable.

Personal Life and Friendships

In spring 1998, Sarah was Clarissa’s best friend. Her wider popular circle included Megan, Michelle, Ashley, Jennifer, Rachel, Jen, and Amy. After Jeremy’s hospitalization, Clarissa began leaving gatherings without saying goodbye. When friends dismissed him as “just some rich asshole who got what was coming to him,” she left and drove home with tears blurring her vision. She became less willing to let them turn his crisis into entertainment. When Sarah called about him, Clarissa asked her not to say so much and refused to let questions about her feelings become another source of gossip.

Sarah later described Clarissa as playing nursemaid and predicted the relationship would fail. In the fall, Michelle told Clarissa about Sarah’s ableist comments concerning Cody Matsuda and Andy Davis, prompting Clarissa to block Sarah permanently on AIM. Michelle apologized for having tried to mediate rather than recognize Sarah’s cruelty. Clarissa’s later frozen-yogurt outings with Amy, Rachel, and Jen offered company more accepting of her relationship. Amy acknowledged that many people would have left when illness made things frightening and difficult; Clarissa answered that Jeremy would have stayed for her.

Clarissa also challenged classmates who called Jeremy damaged or suggested she should leave because he needed attention. She confronted a library study group and made friends leave her home when they used a gathering there to disparage him. She reminded his former girlfriends that they had not visited him in the hospital and could not claim concern while treating his mental health as gossip.

On October 20, 1998, Clarissa and Jeremy were at McDonald’s when Pattie arrived with Evan, Morgan, and Todd. Clarissa was nervous, but Pattie apologized for hitting her and breaking her nose. Clarissa apologized for telling Sarah and contributing to the harm that followed. Each accepted the other’s apology. When Pattie said she had almost killed her, Clarissa corrected that description without denying the injury. The exchange made it possible for them to share the space without avoiding one another.

Four days later, Jeremy’s medical crisis prevented him from attending the Backstreet Boys concert. He arranged for Clarissa and Pattie to use the tickets instead. Clarissa’s evening with Pattie, including feeling Lila kick during the music, followed their reconciliation rather than erasing the earlier breach of trust or violence.

Romantic and Significant Relationships

Jeremy Wallace

Main article: Jeremy Wallace and Clarissa Smalls

Clarissa initially experienced Jeremy’s interest as validation and a ticket into a wealthier life. As she learned about his loneliness and the effort behind his public ease, she began caring for him beyond that access. Their reconciliation depended on renewed trust and her continuing presence after the acute crisis, not on pretending her betrayal had never happened. They remained together and eventually married.

Their differences around gifts became part of learning how to love each other. Jeremy had learned from David to express care by providing the best, and Clarissa’s refusal of the Coach bag felt to him like personal rejection. She came to accept his generosity without agreeing that money was all he had to offer. He listened to her college worries, remembered ordinary preferences, and allowed her to see him frightened and exhausted; those forms of attention mattered independently of purchases.

Jeremy had saved a wrapped bracelet behind his Shakespeare books for their three-month anniversary. Clarissa agreed to receive it two weeks early because giving it would make him happy. She opened it carefully and was moved by the book, star, and infinity-heart charms he had selected. He fastened it with shaking hands, and she reassured him that being remembered was different from being bought. She promised to wear it every day and to tell people that her boyfriend—not merely a rich boyfriend—had chosen charms that meant something. They planned dinner at an Italian restaurant for the anniversary itself.

Memorable Quotes

“I might have mentioned it to Sarah. But I told her not to tell anyone—it slipped out.” (Spoken to Jeremy while admitting she had broken his confidence.)

“It’s not my fault people took what I said and made it worse.” (Clarissa’s defensive response to the pregnancy rumor’s consequences.)

“It’s not about the money.” (Spoken while defending her relationship with Jeremy.)

“You don’t know what you’re talking about. You weren’t there. You didn’t see him in that hospital bed with tubes down his throat and machines breathing for him. He almost died, Pattie. His heart stopped. You don’t get to call him selfish when you have no idea what he’s been through.” (Spoken to Pattie after the mid-July pool-party crisis.)

“This isn’t you buying me. This is you loving me. There’s a difference.” (Spoken after Jeremy gave her a bracelet chosen around details she had shared with him.)

“My boyfriend gave it to me. Not my rich boyfriend. Just my boyfriend. Who pays attention and loves me and picked charms that mean something.” (Part of what Clarissa told Jeremy she would say when people asked about the bracelet.)

“Real friends show up when things get hard. Fake ones talk shit when you’re not around to defend yourself.” (Posted as an AIM away message after blocking Sarah.)

“He’d stay for me.” (Spoken to Amy while discussing why she remained with Jeremy through illness and recovery.)

“What’s not fair is you sitting in my house, eating my snacks, pretending to be my friend while telling me my boyfriend isn’t good enough because he got sick.” (Spoken to friends who disparaged Jeremy during a study gathering at Clarissa’s home.)

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I promised I wouldn’t tell, and I did anyway. And everything that happened after—the rumors, the names people called you, the way they treated Evan—that started with me. I can’t take it back. But I need you to know I’m sorry.” (Clarissa’s apology for her part in the pregnancy rumor.)

“For breaking your trust. For telling Sarah. For contributing to everything that happened after.” (Clarissa explaining her apology to Pattie at McDonald’s on October 20, 1998.)

“She’s dancing.” (Spoken after feeling Lila kick during the October 24, 1998 Backstreet Boys concert.)

Characters Supporting Characters Living Characters Smalls Family