Page 69 of The B!tch List

She pulled her head back and widened her eyes. “You are kidding, right?”

“But you have.” I shrugged.

“No, I mean you have to know why I hate you. Which I actually don’t.” She folded her arms over her chest, creating a distance between us. “I mean I don’t like you an awful lot, but I don’t hate you.”

“Okay.” I gave a slow, single nod. “So why don’t you like me an awful lot?”

“You really don’t know?”

“No, I don’t.” I smirked. “I mean everyone else thinks I’m a wonderful human being. You’re the only person who doesn’t, and I have no idea why.”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

“You don’t remember prom?”

I frowned trying to recall something at prom that might have made her hate me. I remembered that we kinda danced around each other at middle school, a little too young and scared to do anything about our mutual attraction. Then around sixth grade, right after I’d taken her to our little sweetheart dance, she started to ignore me which gradually turned to disdain which moved on to hate.

“Did I feel you up at the little sweetheart dance?” I asked. “Because that’s pretty much the last time that you spoke to me during school.”

“You remember taking me to that?” She sounded surprised that I did but I wasn’t sure why, it wasn’t that long ago.

“You wore a cute little cream dress with black biker boots, a black leather jacket and a black Fedora.” She stared at me open-mouthed. “So, you see, Nance, I do remember. I don’t remember anything happening at prom though. In fact,” I said, with a shrug. “I don’t remember seeing you there.”

“And that’s because I wasn’t,” she snapped.

“And?”

“You really don’t recall?”

“No, like I said.” I had no clue how we’d gone from us almost having sex against the barn wall to us discussing our childhood, but suddenly I needed to know where our issues had stemmed from. It seemed like it was important to Nancy, so I wanted to know too.

She chewed on her lip and then leaned back against the wood with her eyes fluttering shut for a few seconds. When she opened them, she looked up at me and studied me.

“You do remember that you asked me to prom, don’t you?”

I reared back and frowned. “No, I don’t. I didn’t. Why would I ask you to prom when you’d barely spoken to me for almost four years?”

“But you did.” Nancy narrowed her eyes on me. “You sent me a note. It said you were sorry we hadn’t hung out much since middle school, but you’d been an idiot, and could we be friends again and so would I go to prom with you.”

I thought about what she said but it definitely wasn’t me. Ruthie had pretty much told me that I was to ask her to go with me. She even bought her own corsage and then made me give her the money for it. Funny though, she wanted to keep us going to prom together on the downlow for some reason.

“Why would I send you a note?” I asked. “You know me, Nancy. When have I ever been the kind of guy who wouldn’t have the cojones to ask you in person to something as important as our senior year prom?”

Nancy shrugged. Her shoulders almost coming up to her ears.

“I waited on the porch for you,” she said in a quiet voice. “In the most disgusting yellow dress ever made.”

“I swear Nan—”

“Ah so here you are?” Mrs. Callahan cried. She then turned and yelled. “I found him making out with Nancy Andrews against the barn.”

“We were not making out,” Nancy protested.

“What is it with you youngsters that can’t treat your women right?” Mrs. Callahan sighed. “I mean, in the last five minutes I saw Carter’s bare ass going up and down in the back seat of his truck and found Minnesota in a compromising position with some young woman who I’m pretty sure was—”

“Mrs. C,” I interrupted not wanting to hear what Minnesota Michaels was doing. “What did you want me for?”

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