Page 20 of 10 Things I Hate About Prom
The gym is a madhouse even thirty minutes before the start of the rally. Someone took it upon themselves to bring a speaker, music blaring loud enough to make the ground vibrate. While the cheerleading team preps for their upcoming performance from the comfort of the front lawn, the rest of the student body takes advantage of the unsupervised gym, turning the lights down as best they can and transforming this school-sanctioned event into a rave.
Anna clutches my hand for dear life as we dive headfirst into the crowd to try to make it to the AV booth at the opposite end of the gym. She nearly loses me to the magnetic pull of a mosh pit, and we spend an uncomfortable amount of time shoved into our classmates’ armpits, but we manage to make it through with our limbs, and some dignity, intact.
The AV booth is a breath of fresh air. Literally. I can finally inhale deeply without being assaulted by the smell of sweat. We chug water to catch our breath. If it wasn’t for the Raspberry Unicorn, I might not have had the strength to dig myself out of that den of teenage sin.
“I thought you said I’d handle the music?” Anna asks while watching me unravel the AUX cord. She holds up her phone, open to her “music for meatheads” playlist.
“You will. I just need to do a tiny favor for Joaquin,” I say so quickly I hope she either won’t hear me or won’t care enough to pry.
But, of course, I’m wrong. She has the hearing of an elephant.
Anna slides between me and the light board, brow arched high above her round glasses. “He asked you to dowhat,exactly?”
“Play a song.”
“What song?”
“You wouldn’t know it.”
She snatches my phone out of my hand, immediately pulling up my Spotify. “Fine, I don’t know this song, but it sure as hell sounds like it’s for a promposal.”
I plead the Fifth, ignoring her in favor of snatching my phone from her and keeping busy with untangling the wires beneath the light board.
“Is Joaquin trying to ask Tessa to promtoday? Is he nuts?” Her voice is loud enough to echo in the cramped space of the room.
“I tried to talk him out of it, but he’s going to do it with or without me, so we might as well help make it memorable.”
Anna remains unconvinced, collapsing into the seat beside me with a huff. We sit in silence while she takes in the crowd beyond the window, our classmates bumping and grinding while our hands shake from too much Raspberry Unicorn.
“If she doesn’t say yes, he’s never going to be able to live that down,” she says, as if that same line of thought hasn’t haunted me since Joaquin first proposed this plan.
“I know,” I mumble, tossing aside the now untangled wires. “And I told him that, but he thinks it—she’s—worth the risk. And after they win the game, everyone will probably forget,” I addwith a shrug. “They’ll be kissing his ass for centuries and dedicating monuments to him outside of the locker room.” Their win isn’t a guarantee, but a little optimism for once wouldn’t killme.
“Sure. But areyouokay with this?”
The question makes me stutter to a halt. “Yeah. I’m not the one asking her. I don’t have anything to lose.”
“Imeanall of this. Joaquin and Tessa. You bending over backwards to make a thing between them happen.”
“I’m not bending over backwards,” I reply, brushing her off with a wave of my hand.
“Hello, you literally took three weeks of detention for him. Right before tech week. Taking a bullet would’ve been less stressful.”
“Don’t be dramat—”
“We’re in the drama club, we’re supposed to be dramatic.”
Technically we’re in the tech crew, but something tells me making that distinction isn’t going to change her opinion.
Yes, having to deal with detention on top of tech week and my shifts at Casa Y Cocina is already a nightmare. Yes, Tessa is very far from my first choice in a romantic partner for Joaquin. Yes, this whole situation feels Not Great.
But does it matter what I think? Being Joaquin’s best friend doesn’t mean I get a say in who he can and can’t date.
“This year has been weird. With getting waitlisted, and everything with my mom, and…just, really weird. And I don’t even want to think about how weird they’ll be next year when we’re not in the same place for the first time. But Joaquin has alwaysbeen there for me, through all the weird. Even when things weren’t easy for him either.”
Anna’s expression is impossible to read, her lips set into a straight line while her fingers toy with one of the gold cuffs clasped to the ends of her locs. She avoids my eyes, looking somewhere over my shoulder before turning to face the light board. “Being there for your friend doesn’t mean throwing yourself under the bus.”
Before I can reply, she switches off the gym’s overhead lights.
