Page 58 of 10 Things I Hate About Prom
It was born out of a nightmare. I’m in the stands, watching Joaquin at his championship game, except there’s no roar of the crowd or cheers from the entire student body. It’s just me, alone in an empty abyss watching Joaquin scan the crowd for a familiar face. His eyes glaze over me each time, never seeing me even though I’m the only person in front of him.
I wake up in a cold sweat, Joaquin’s name on my lips, but I’m able to hold in my scream before I wake up the entire house with my lovesick nightmare. The red numbers on my alarm clock swim in and out of my vision as my eyes adjust to the dark. My heart is pounding, my skin drenched in sweat, but when the fear subsides, something new is born.
I glance over at my alarm clock again—four more hours until it’s a socially acceptable time to call anyone. Nine hours until the championship game. Any lingering anxiety from mynightmares melts away as my brain switches gears into planning mode. There’s only so much I can do at three in the morning, but I grab my laptop and start typing up a plan anyway.
That nightmare may have been rooted in my own fears about the future, but it held some truth too. That, today, at the most important game of his life, Joaquin won’t have any family in the stands to look for.
Unless I can pull this off.
“C’mon, pick up, pick up,” I mumble to myself as I pace my room.
Isabella is a notoriously heavy sleeper. Her junior year, Joaquin and I had to bang pots and pans to get her to wake up in time for the SAT. And it isseriouslymessing with my mission rightnow.
“Hey, it’s Izzy! Leave a message after the—”
“Goddammit,” I mutter, immediately hanging up the call and sending Isabella one or two chill texts.
PICK UP!!!!!!!
(no one is dead or injured)
BUT SERIOUSLY PICK UP!!!!
I desperately need her to wake up, but I also don’t want to scare her into thinking someone’s dead or her house is on fire.
Sure enough, text number eleven does the trick. Just a fewminutes after I hit send, a photo of Isabella and Joaquin before her prom lights up my screen.
“Hey!” I answer, sounding out of breath.
“W’s happening?” Isabella slurs, sounding as if her face is still half buried in her pillow. Which it probably is.
“Are you doing anything today?”
“Uh, I’m going to brunch with some friends…”
“Can you move it?”
“Ummmm…I guess…”
“Great. Then I’m coming to get you.”
Before she’s even replied, I kick into action, grabbing my bag off the floor and heading for the living room. I’ve already wasted enough time waiting until almost ten for her to wake up and answer.
“Wait, what?” Isabella asks, her voice suddenly alert. “Coming to get me for what?”
“Today is Joaquin’s championship game,” I explain.
It takes Isabella several seconds to process. “Shit…,” she mumbles after I hear her nails clacking against the speaker, probably checking her calendar app. “I completely forgot…”
My reply comes out a mile a minute. “He didn’t remind you because he’s a selfless little angel who never wants to impose on people. But your abuela can’t go because metal bleachers aren’t good for her back, and obviously your mom won’t be there, and he can’t just not have anyone in the stands for him at his last game ever.”
“But won’t you be there?”
I swallow hard, hand stilled on my bedroom doorknob. Ifigured I might have to tell Isabella the truth about what happened between us. But a phone call isn’t the place to do it. Not unless I want to waste fifteen minutes on backstory when we’re already running tight on time. “It would mean a lot to him if you were there,” I say, almost a whisper. “Joaquin misses you both so much. Maybe he doesn’t act like it because he’s trying to put on the whole ‘macho boys don’t cry’ charade, but he does. He had this countdown thing on his phone until the trip, and he even changed his phone background to a picture of the three of you. And he’sneverchanged his phone background before.”
I can hear shuffling on her end of the line, the sound of a sniff followed by a stifled yawn. “Okay,” she says finally, her voice still thick from sleep. “But can’t I just take the Amtrak or something? You don’t have to drive all the way out here.”
“The cheapest ticket that’ll get you here in time is almost three hundred dollars,” I reply quickly. She’s working an unpaid internship, and I’m on a waitress’ salary—needless to say, we don’t have three-hundred-dollar train ticket money to spend on a sentimental high school baseball game. “If I leave now, we’ll get here with plenty of time to spare. Even if I hit traffic.”
