Raina already has a notebook open and is drafting up the petition, as Gretchen leans over her shoulder. Conversation between other people quiets, and the whole table directs their attention toward Raina’s notebook.
I know it’ll probably come to nothing, but I’m already picturing it, Quinn and me crowned in front of the entire junior and senior classes. Our crowns sparkle while we’re dancing to something amazingly cheesy. The night is ours.
I mean, you shouldn’t have to give up something because you fell in love with someone objectively better. You shouldn’t be seen as the most deserving of something only if you go out with a boy. Gretchen and Raina are right.
“We’ll start the petition,” Gretchen tells Quinn. “You two don’t have to do anything.”
“I agree with you morally,” Quinn says, “though I still don’t think anyone will care about me personally.”
“People care about Kat, though,” James says, though she doesn’t say it like that’s a positive thing. I would understand if being popular was still like how it seems in old movies, where it’s all jocks and cheerleaders bullying smart sensitive kids, but at least at Magnolia Park that’s totally not how it is anymore. And, anyway, I can’t control who likes me and who talks about me. That kind of stuff has a whole life of its own.
“It’d be fun,” I say, “if it happened.”
“Lots of things would be fun if they happened,” Quinn says, and I laugh even though she sounds grumpy. The sides of her eyes look crinkly, and so I feel right. This will totally get us back on track.
Quinn comes over after school, though we stay outside on my porch because we both have a stupid amount of homework to get through. Also, maybe we feel weird about having sex right now, or at least I do. There’s this specific kind of intimacy with Quinn that I never had with Matty. When you have sex with a boy, there isn’t always a lot of discussion about what’s going to happen. With Matty and me, at least, we knew what we were going to do.
With Quinn, I talk a lot. We whisper under the sheets. We check in. I’ve discussed my body and her body and talked about what I liked with words I never thought I’d say aloud. Honestly, if I was ever with a boy again, I wouldn’t assume foregone conclusions; I’d talk more with him. But right now, I have no dreams of any boys, or of anyone else. I just want things to be perfect again with Quinn.
“Did you nail your essay?” I ask her. “That’s totally how I saw it going. You always win people over with the way you talk about things. People love you.”
She shrugs.
“You did! You freaking nailed it!” I lean my head on her shoulder. “I’m really proud of you, OK?”
“OK,” she says. She doesn’t stop working on her calculus assignment, so I get back to mine. It stays like that, quiet and productive, and somehow in sync. I get a text from James, but it feels like the wrong moment to pay attention to someone else, so I turn my phone upside down and get back to work.
“Did you see that Dave Bell got stuck to his locker with that weird scarf he’s been wearing lately?” I ask, looking up from my physics homework.
“No, but I’m not surprised. That scarf is clearly a danger.”
“Yeah, a fashion danger,” I say, which makes us both laugh. “It’s not like it’s cold out.”
“Maybe he has a delicate neck,” Quinn says. “So, the prom thing is weird. I’m sorry if they’re taking it too far.”
“I think it’s awesome, actually. The school is being super old-fashioned, and we could be the ones to fix it.”
She watches me for a few moments before leaning in and brushing her lips over mine.
“I love that you think that way,” she says, and I smile as the warmth of her words fans out over me. We get back to work again.
“K?”
I look up from my notebook. “Yeah?”
Quinn grins. “I did nail my essay.”
CHAPTER NINE
December of Senior Year
JAMES
“Don’t forget about tonight.”
I glare at Dad, even though he has a smoothie ready for me. Dad without Mom gets up much earlier and has what seems like half a day’s worth of accomplishments completed before I’m even out the door. I want to tell him that I know how he feels, that without Logan and without Mom, my life feels more open. I’d stuff anything into it so that on the surface it feels almost the same, if I could come up with anything other than a half of a beer and a few kisses with a boy I have no feelings for.
“You’re not eighteen yet,” Dad says. “We can treat this as casually as we want, but if you completely refuse to go to your mother’s, legally she could do something about it. Let’s just keep that from being a possibility, OK, kiddo?”
“I just don’t want to spend the night there,” I say. “I haven’t completely refused to go there. I ate stupid dinner with stupid Todd. I went over on Thanksgiving for half the day.”
Dad smiles. “I believe it was an hour and a half.”
“Close enough. I ate some of Todd’s terrible turkey.”
“I wish we could change tradition on that,” Dad says with a heavy sigh. “It’s not an easy bird to master, but on Thanksgiving anyone thinks they can just throw it in the oven with a little butter and it’ll turn out fine.”
“What do you wish it was?” I ask. “Thanksgiving steaks? Well, actually, that sounds great.”
He grins, but it quickly fades. “Go to school. I can’t have you turn into a truant.”
I expect to see a bunch of texts from Kat wondering why I wasn’t outside on time, but my guilt dissolves upon seeing my blank phone screen. Is it horrible to hope she’s been struck with a horrible illness? But, no, she’s sitting in humanities third period, without any immediate comments about not seeing me this morning. I wonder if, now that she’s dating Quinn, she’d even notice if I disappeared altogether.
After taking roll, Mr. Wellerstein announces something about group projects. Almost immediately, Gabriel turns around and smiles directly at me.
“Want to work together on this?”
“I, uh—”
“Sorry,” Kat says in her candy-sweet voice. “BFF rules. She has to work with me. You should work with Quinn.”
Quinn and Gabriel both give her looks. I’m not sure this was the easiest way I could have let Gabriel down once again.
“Thanks for getting me out of that,” I tell Kat when we’re at her house after school to work on the project. “That night’s still a little fuzzy, but I know I couldn’t have kissed him any more than seven times.”
She giggles so hard she snorts. “Precise as heck! Even after consuming a third of a cup of beer.”
“That was a lot for me.”
“Snacks!” she says. “Hang on.”
I wait while she dashes out of the room and returns with a whole pack of pepperoni sticks and a tub of cold marinara sauce. “. . . Wow.”
“It’s like eating pizza,” she says, even though it is, emphatically, not.
“Do you miss being a vegan at all?” I ask her. “Wasn’t that important to you . . . ethically? Not just because of Matty?”