Page 11 of 10 Things I Hate About Prom
“You should keep your options open, though,” Anna says once her laughter has died down. “Chris is obviously a no, but you can have my brother if you want,” she teases.
Cool, my options are Chris Pavlenko and Anna’s fourteen-year-old brother.
“Thanks, but no thanks. I’m staying away from all things prom.”
For now, at least. I’ll need to figure something out eventually, since Joaquin is dead set on going with Tessa. Joaquin and I have been a package deal for every dance of our high school careers, but Tessa’s prom limo is as exclusive as a bougie sushi restaurant in Manhattan. There’s no way in hell she’s letting me take up oneof those seats. Having Tío Tony drop me off at prom sounds mortifying, and Anna hates capitalism so deeply she probably won’t be going. I can’t say the thought of skipping doesn’t sound appealing. If promposal season alone is this mind-numbing, I can only imagine the event itself.
“I’m just saying, you have options,” Anna continues, delicately removing her star charm bracelet and tucking it safely into her pocket before getting to work on her own shrub. Her confidence in me is flattering, but we both know I don’t have aline of suitors knocking at my door. “I know you’re going with Joaquin, but you deserve a date that makes you feel special.”
Except Joaquin does make me feel special. He’s the only one who laughs at my jokes and entertains me when I’m panicking. He sits through horror movies with his head buried in a pillow because he knows they’re my favorite, even though he can’t sleep for a week afterward. He claims he hates reading, yet he’s devoured every single book I’ve ever recommended. When we realized Herbert didn’t have an AUX outlet, he burned dozens of CDs with my favorite songs just so I’d always have something to listen to.
He’s my favorite person on the planet. And he’s falling for a girl I can’t stand.
And even if he wasn’t, going with anyone else isn’t exactly a possibility for me. I’m less of a wallflower and more like a fly on the wall—unnoticed and swatted at by those who do. And it’s for the best. I’ve seen the way my classmates chew people up and spit them out. I have no interest in making nice with the same people who judged my appearance the second a popular guy expressed interest in me. Shit like that wrecks a fourteen-year-old’s confidence.
After the Danny fiasco, I decided romance had to be off the table until college—that is, if I wind up at Sarah Lawrence. Which, according to my empty-as-of-ten-minutes-ago-inbox, remains up in the air. Rutgers’ campus may be huge, but with my luck the only people I’ll be meeting my entire freshman year will be the same people who I’ve spent the past four years avoiding. In which case, I can put off dating until my mid-twenties.
Plus, most teenage boys stink. Why would I want to go out of my way to spend more time with them?
“We’re, um…not going together, actually,” I mumble, half hoping she won’t hear me and move on.
But of course she does. Anna has bat-level hearing when it comes to gossip. “What?!”
“We should hurry up. The drama kids wi—”
“No, hold up. You don’t get to change the subject.” She waves her brush dangerously close to my nose. “Since when are you not going to prom with each other? You two doeverythingtogether.”
This implication may not be off base, but it gets under my skin nonetheless. It’s in her tone, the way she makes it sound like it’s a bad thing to have a person you hang out with all the time. Joaquin and I are not codependent. Seriously. He has his baseball friends, and basically everyone at this school is under his spell, and I have Anna, Mami (when she’s actually around), Nurse Oatmeal, the tech crew…well, sometimes, and…
I guess that’s kind of it.
I shrug, trying to play nonchalant. “He’s not obligated to bring me. He’s gonna ask someone else.”
“Who?” She’s fully abandoned productivity at this point, crossing her arms and gesturing for me to hurry up and spill.
If Joaquin is as set on speeding up this plan as he seems, it won’t be a secret for long anyway. But Tessa and Anna have an…interesting past. The two of them were capital B best friends—matching jewelry sets, joint birthday parties, finishing each other’s sentences. Our entire class knew about Anna even though she went to a different middle school. Anna and Tessa were as much of a two-for-one deal as Joaquin and I are.
On our first day at Cordero, everyone waited for Anna and Tessa to roll up, pinkies linked, and take ownership of the halls. But Anna never took her place as Tessa’s right hand. They wouldn’t even so much as acknowledge each other in the cafeteria. Rumors came and went—Tessa tried to hook up with Anna’s older brother, Anna blew off Tessa’s birthday sleepover for someone else’s, gossip ad infinitum—but nothing really stuck. Being friends with Anna then meant taking sides in a feud no one understood. And in those first few days of freshman year, social currency was all that mattered. So, we found each other and formed our own little Reject Club.
The urge to ask what went down between them has sat on the tip of my tongue since Anna waltzed into the auditorium during our freshman year production ofSeussicaland asked if I needed help with my Truffula Trees. But just the mention of Tessa’s name makes her scoff.
Needless to say, she wouldn’t react well to Joaquin’s crush.
“It’s kind of a long—”
The door to the auditorium bursts open and I breathe a sigh of relief. For once, the drama club is coming to my rescue. Except it’s not the overcaffeinated thespians I’m used to. They typically break into show tunes immediately. I can’t quite make out who it is, their face completely hidden by enough bouquets of roses that the local florist could retire.
“Ive!” the walking centerpiece shouts from across the room.
Dear Lord.
“Hey,” I call back weakly, setting my brush aside to help Joaquin before he drops one of the bouquets. “You’ve been busy.”
The four other members of tech crew—all, strangelyenough, named Emily—flock to the edge of the stage to greet the reason our membership has gone up.
“Hey, Joaquin,” EmilyR. and EmilyS. say in almost perfect synchronicity.
“Do you need help?” EmilyW. offers.
