Page 66 of My Fake Relationship With the Popular Boy
I’d almost forgotten that somebody would have to be named Prom Queen. I wondered who would win it. I probably wasn’t in the running anymore — although we’d tried to put on a good show since our argument, I didn’t think we’d pulled it off all that well and I doubted anyone wanted to vote for a couple that was so obviously fighting. I had about five contenders in my head who I thought were popular enough to get votes but I wasn’t sure which of them had been nominated. My top guess would have been Kelly, if she wasn’t Social Chair — that disqualified her from being Prom Queen.
Maybe it would be Ramona Green… she was probably the most popular girl in school right now and I was sure she would look justlovelyup there next to Jaxon. I felt a little sick at the thought of Jaxon dancing with her. Would he look deeply into her eyes like he did with me? Would he twirl her around and brag about beautiful she was, about how lucky he was to dancewith her? When he danced with her, would he forget all about me?
I hated that I couldn’t stop imagining it. Even more, I hated how much it made me jealous.
What happened to the version of me that didn’t care about Jaxon? The version that was looking forward to getting away from him when I went off to university, that couldn’t wait for the day that I didn’t have to hear his name getting thrown around in the hallways. Now, the idea of not being near him nearly broke me. Even if we were at university together, I was sure it would be easy for him to avoid me.
I was so caught up in my thoughts that I barely even heard Kelly as she called out, “Violet Evers!”
My head snapped towards her at the sound of my name and everything around me seemed to fall away. I didn’t hear the applause or see the people looking for me in the crowd. I didn’t even move from my spot, so certain that I must have misheard and would just make a fool of myself by walking up there. But the next thing I knew, Madison and Eli were grabbing my hands and pulling me toward the stage steps. They let go once I was up the stairs and I walked on autopilot until I was on the right of Kelly. The stage lights were so bright that I couldn’t see anyone in the crowd but all of a sudden, I could hear the deafening applause. A couple of people called our names.
I looked to Jaxon in shock. Maybe we had pulled it off. We had convinced people that there was still something going on between us, that we were still in love. I had no idea how we’d managed it. I watched as Kelly placed the golden crown on Jaxon’s head. It looked good on him, just added to his perfect persona. A moment later, they were placing the crown on my head too. I had no idea what it looked like since I hadn’t seen it beforehand, but based on the way Jaxon smiled as he looked at me, I guessed that it looked good.
I didn’t focus enough to hear who everyone else in the prom court was. I barely even noticed when Jaxon grabbed my hand and we walked out onto the floor for the first dance. I really only came to as we started to dance, our hands intertwined and my body pressed close to his. The moment was so perfect — and I couldn’t keep my feelings in anymore.
I was sure the music was too loud for anybody to hear us if we spoke, given how far they all were from us, so I took the chance to have the conversation we desperately needed to have. I had a whole speech prepared for the moment and had spent half the day memorizing it, but when it came time for me to speak, all I managed to say was, “You were wrong.”
He frowned. He was clearly very confused, which was fair, considering I hadn’t given him much to go off.
“What?”
“You were wrong,” I repeated. “When you said nobody at Bayshore was good enough for me. It’s the opposite. I’m not good enough for you.”
He shook his head before twirling me. I felt sparks when our hands reconnected.
“You’re out of your mind if you think that, Violet Evers.”
I tilted my head slightly. “You think?”
“I know.”
I shook my head. I could feel my curled hair bouncing against my back.
“You’re wrong again,” I said. The words caught in my throat as I said, “Because I’m a liar.”
“How so?”
“Because I lied to everyone,” I took a gasp of air, “even myself, when I said that I wasn’t in love with you.”
Jaxon pressed his forehead to mine. The action felt so sweet, so intimate, that it made everything that had happened between us over the past week fall away.
“Then that must make me a liar too,” he said, his voice gravelly, “because I did the same thing.”
I took a moment to let his words wash over me. I’d imagined what it might feel like to hear him confess so many times over the past week but nothing that I conjured up in my head even compared to hearing it in real life.
I pulled my head away so I could look up at him properly. Sweet brown eyes looked back me, so soft and innocent. How could one person be this perfect?
“Prove it to me,” I breathed.
He smiled — his nice, genuine smile that lit up the room — and leaned in. I felt like time was standing still as I waited for his lips to finally hit mine. And when they did… it was like magic.
Even though I’d kissed Jaxon before, this one was different for some reason I couldn’t possibly explain. We stopped even pretending to dance as he dropped my hand and wrapped his arms around my waist. As my arms fell around his neck and he deepened the kiss, I wondered whether the whole room really was clapping for us or if that was just how I felt.
twenty-five
Graduation was sucha busy affair that Jaxon and I didn’t get the chance to say more than ‘hi’ to one another before the ceremony. Then, afterwards, our families insisted on taking so many pictures that I felt like I was going to have a smile permanently affixed to my face for life. We finally managed to sneak away for a moment alone when our parents got caught up talking to one another.
Jaxon pulled me into the small nook where the unused side door to the school rested. We kissed briefly but I pulled away after a minute.
