Page 22 of 10 Things I Hate About Prom
“I, uh…” Glancing at Anna for backup is a mistake. She makes a face that would send a saint to hell. “I forgot to tell Anna!” The words tumble out of my mouth before I can properly think things through. “I got distracted by a light board malfunction and missed your signal, so Anna just turned the lights off, totally my fault.”
Anna throws on a stiff smile as I silently beg her to co-sign the lie. “My bad,” she says through gritted teeth.
If Joaquin sees through my bullshit, he doesn’t let it show. He slumps against the light board, wearing a devastated frown. “It’s okay. Guess it’s back to the drawing board.”
“We’ll think of something,” I say, wincing internally at the unintendedwe.
Joaquin gives me a small nod. “Marco’s for lunch?”
“Sure.” He gives me a fist bump before trudging out of the room to rejoin his teammates. The tension he leaves behind is as thick as summer air. I’ve barely moved toward Anna when she throws up a flat palm.
“Don’t,” she snaps before I can even open my mouth.
“I di—”
She hisses like a cat until I back down. We let the quietness settle for a few seconds before I try broaching the subject again.
“I just don’t want him to get hurt,” I whisper. “You’ve seen what Tessa does to people. She’s brutal.”
It’s low, picking at the scab that is Tessa and Anna’s former friendship. But covering up your bad choices requires making more bad choices.
Anna’s brow furrows as she tucks a loc behind her ear. “Is that it?”
The question catches me off guard, and the tone of her voice does too. Soft and gentle. Very unlike the Anna that hissed at me moments ago. My voice is caught in my throat, unable to come up with an answer that’ll satisfy her. However long passes, her patience runs out. She grabs her things and heads toward the door, pivoting at the last second to face me.
“Think about what you really want out of all this—helping Joaquin and whatever you think you just did,” she says before walking away.
She slams the door behind her and leaves me reeling. Alone,my brain becomes a jumbled mess of questions, excuses, and panic. While my classmates cheer and spill out into the halls, I bury my head in my hands and struggle to get it together before the janitor kicks me out of here.
Even though my brain is like a freshly shaken snow globe, one thought comes through loud and clear.
I can’t let Joaquin go to prom with Tessa Hernandez.
Chapter Eight
Detention seriously cramps yoursocial life. Not that I have much of one, but still. After the pep rally, the rest of the student body gets to go free and rain chaos on Elmwood while I have to stick around for another hour in an uncomfortably warm classroom. The guy from the cafeteria glitter bomb incident and I are the only unfortunate souls who managed to land themselves detention on a half day. Both of us for promposal-related incidents.
By the time we’re finally set free, campus is a ghost town. Nothing left of the pep rally madness except for crushed energy drink cans in the parking lot. I head toward the bus stop on the opposite side of campus, freezing when the only car in the lot beeps at me.
“You leaving me hanging?” Joaquin shouts as he sticks his head out the window. In my post-detention funk, I’d completely missed the tin can of a car and the iconic license plate that gave Herbert his name—Hr83rt.
The guilt that gnawed at me through detention fades at the sight of Joaquin’s smile, and relief takes over. Because I have a ride, because he’s here, because he doesn’t hate my guts.
Yet.
“You didn’t have to wait for me,” I say once I’ve made myself at home in the passenger seat.
“I promised I’d buy you lunch for a week, didn’t I?”
Technically, yes, but he knows damn well that he doesn’t need to promise me anything for agreeing to help him.
“Sure, but you didn’t have to waste a whole hour waiting forme.”
“Who said he wasted it?” a tinny, unexpected voice calls out from the dashboard.
I whip around to find Isabella waving at me from where Joaquin has his phone mounted beside the steering wheel. He wraps an arm around my shoulders, pulling me across the console until I’m squished into his tiny FaceTime frame.
“Look who finally decided to answer her phone,” Joaquin says to me with an unusual snip to his tone.
