Mom stood in the doorway of my bathroom as I cleaned my teeth and dragged a brush through my hair. “I’ll be out late, but I’ll have Ricky prepare you dinner.”
Ricky was our cleaner and sometimes chef. A middle-aged Australian, he adored my mother but had yet to figure out she preferred females.
I knew better than to ask questions about her whereabouts. Either she’d smile and bid me farewell or she’d dive into a spiel about which lover she was currently feuding with.
I inwardly sighed when she licked her teeth and pointed at the straightening iron. “You slept on your side, and now your curls aren’t even.” As if I didn’t already know. “Iris wants me to meet her parents.”
“Oh? I didn’t think you were serious.”
“We’re not,” she said. “I’ll be at Kathleen’s.”
With that, she left, and I cursed when I realized the iron was ready.
If January Denane excelled most at one thing, it was freezing people out who’d dared to step too close. Ever since my dad had left, she’d cultivated a stream of revolving lovers but had never seemed interested in committing to just one.
“Been there and got what I wanted from it,” she’d say with a nod my way before dropping the subject entirely.
I didn’t see Jude until the lunch bell rang, and I purposely stalled in the hallway near his locker.
He was talking to Silas, but when the latter’s eyes flicked my way, Jude’s followed.
His perfect brows furrowed, and I hugged my tablet tighter to my chest and gave my mascara-loaded lashes a slow flutter.
Silas said something. Jude laughed a little and kept staring.
Then he snapped his teeth at me.
Oh my beautiful god.
I feared I’d melt into a puddle of desperation on the streaked marble floor.
Laughing again, he stalked off with Silas down the hall to the courtyard outside.
Plucking the black diary from my bag inside my locker, I took note of the encounter in messy, hurried scrawl, then slammed the door.
It would be two days before his eyes danced with mine again.
Tuesday rolled into Wednesday, and on Thursday, I decided I was done giving Cory the cold shoulder. She took her seat across from me in the back corner of the dining hall and pushed a pack of mini cucumbers over the table. “A peace offering.”
“An apology is too hard?” I said, eyeing the fresh vegetables while trying to appear disinterested.
Her hand covered the plastic-wrapped cucumbers, her delicate fingers curling around them. “Want them or not?”
I harrumphed and snatched them from her, tearing open the bag. “Fine.”
And that was how it always went. We’d fight over something dumb, and then offer each other food when we were sick of being alone. Not that she was ever truly alone with that boyfriend of hers usually watching her every move.
“Where’s Silas?” I asked, chewing as I glanced around the half-filled room.
“Outside,” she said.
I nodded, knowing that meant he and his friends were either throwing a football around or smoking weed. More than likely, both.
“Did you hear they announced the theme?”
I turned the page of my book, mumbling, “For what?”
“Prom, dummy.”
The pages fluttered to a close when my fingers slackened. “You’re going?”
“I told you I was,” she said. “I can’t let Silas show up on his own.”
I frowned at that. “You totally can.” Annoyance festered. I knew I was being selfish, but when we’d started high school, we’d made a pact that if one of us didn’t have a date, then neither of us would go. We’d stay home and binge-watch bad eighties thrillers and make bets on who would graduate pregnant.
That was before she and Silas became some type of epic forgone conclusion.
Cory sighed and quit digging at her pasta salad. “Fern…”
“Don’t take that tone with me.”
Her brows jumped, and I winced, waving for her to continue as I slouched in the leather-upholstered chair.
“I think you should come,” she said, leaning forward with her elbows upon the wooden table. “Tons of people go without dates.”
“They do not.” I dug my straw out of my water bottle, taking a sip. I’d learned the hard way what drinking water like a normal person did while trying to maintain my crimson lip look. Nothing good.
Cory’s eyes narrowed, as did mine. I set the water down. “Not here. They go with a date or a friend.”
“Since when have you ever cared about doing what’s normal?”
“Calling me crazy again?” I said. “Really?”
“Oh my god, stop.” Sitting back, she rubbed her temples briefly before crossing her arms. “I’m just saying I think you should think about it. I’m positive someone is going to ask you to go with them, and I don’t want you turning them down instantly and missing out because you’re so god damn stubborn, and you only want Jude.”
I was stubborn, so I couldn’t argue that, but, “No, thanks. What’s the theme anyway? Bubblegum nightmare?”
With Melanie on the committee, I was willing to bet I was close.
“Rainbow memories.”
I gagged loudly and felt eyes swing our way.
Cory laughed. “Right? Lamest of lame.”
Her phone rang. She retrieved it from the inside pocket of her blazer and grinned as she answered. A minute later, she was waving and gesturing outside to her boyfriend.
I flipped her off and returned to my cucumbers and book.
Excitement over prom, murmurings about ticket sales, and talk of whom was already going with whom destroyed any hope the teachers had of operating a normal class schedule for the remainder of the day.
Hell, for the rest of the week, really.
AP English, my favorite as it was the only class I shared with Jude—when he deigned to show up—was ruined for me.
Garry and Tyler snickered, their heads butting too close for me to see Jude, who sat at the front of the class, as per usual.
Cory’s ramblings about prom had my mind crawling in dangerous directions. Maybe I didn’t need to wait and hope for something that might never happen. Maybe I should just ask Jude, the most coveted guy in school, if he’d go with me.
The guys broke out into a loud burst of laughter as if they could hear my thoughts even though I knew they were cackling over something else. Something I would never be privy to, and I wasn’t so sure I wanted to be.
My stomach flipped when Jude swung back on his chair to whisper something to them. I begged for his eyes to meet mine, willed them to, but the teacher snapped at him before he realized I was even watching.
I wondered if he knew I was always watching, and I wondered if I should listen to my best friend. If I should wake up and realize how bad this obsession was and quit it.
I’d never had a crush on anyone before, but I knew this had to be it. That was all this was. I liked someone, and I liked them a lot. She was overreacting. She’d crushed hard on Silas before they’d started dating. I remembered the dopey look and the doodling of his name all over her notebook well enough.
Who was she to tell me what was bad and what was good? Just because she’d actually landed the guy.