Page 83 of The Prom Queen Project
His lip twitched, but the rest of him went stiff as the weight of his own words crashed over him.
His sister halted mid-step, then slowly retraced her movements, folding one arm over the other as she watched us intently.
“I mean yeah,” Elliot recanted as he awkwardly shuffled over to me, throwing his arm over my shoulders. “It’s just…new.”
“Wait.” Emmy held out her hand. “How did you get her to date you? Are you paying her?”
“Paying? Are you—no. I’m not fucking paying her.”
Shifting her focus to me, she lowered her voice and spoke in a deeper tone. “Is he holding you hostage? Blink twice if you need me to save you.”
“Emmy!” Their mother scolded, swatting her on the back of the arm.
“What? It’s a valid question.”
“Oh my god,” Elliot muttered.
Laughter reverberated out of my mouth, spilling out as I cupped my face. I could feel the heat of Elliot’s gaze as his skin tinged with pink.
“I’m good,” I said with a chuckle. The next words slipped out before I could fully process them. “He’s actually the one who saved me, so.”
“Saved you?” Emmy let out a dry scoff. “From what?”
I clamped down on my tongue in an attempt to reel my words back in. Lately, it seemed I had developed the awful habit of speaking before thinking, and—oh my god—it was getting me into some deep shit. Maybe this is why therapists mattered.Dr. Google can’t listen to your woes, Clarke.But it was the truth. My new, unfortunate habit involved spilling deep truths, and there was no undoing it now.
“I was just hanging out with some shitty people, and he helped me see how shitty they were.”
“And you trusted his judgment?Mr. King-Of-Detention?”
“He uh…meeting him changed me. And I think I changed him, too. So yeah, I trust his judgment.”
Elliot’s arm tightened around my shoulders as he shook me slightly, my head bobbing from side to side.
“Aw. Thanks…babe.”
“Ew.” Emmy clutched her stomach. “I’m gonna barf.”
“Actually…” I cleared my throat. “If you need a tutor, Elliot could probably—”
“Elliot? Tutor? Have you seen his grades?”
“Yeah. Have you?”
She scrunched her brows, gawking in disbelief. Her lips parted several times, but no words escaped them. Placing a hand on her hip, she let out ahmph.
Their mother cocked her head to the side, jutting out her chin. Her words surfaced before Emmy’s. “Elliot has actually been doing really well in school this year. Maybe you could learn from his example.”
“That’s a horrible idea,” she deadpanned.
“Look, Emelia, I know I haven’t been the best role model, but I think I’m better than some knockoff Donald Trump, don’t you?”
“Eh.”
“Seriously. If you want help…I—I can try. And if I don’t know the answer, I’ll find someone who does. School isn’t something to fuck around with. You need a diploma for almost everything. Trust me—if I could go back and do things different, I would, but I can’t…But Icanchange where things are headed.”
His voice blended into the background, merging with that of his family. After that, I barely heard a thing.
My mind wandered, his words scraping at the edges of my thoughts like a faint echo. For five years, I had wished I could go back to that day, to that exact second when everything changed. I always knew that would never be possible. So I buried it. I resented the idea of praying or wishing upon a shooting star,begging for things to be different because, in the end, it would be futile. But maybe I had been looking at it the wrong way.Who cares that I can’t go back?Maybe it was about doing things differently while continuing to move forward.
