“Has anyone asked you guys to the dance yet?” Harper asked as we walked back to class a few minutes later.

I shook my head. “You?”

“No,” she replied. “Rey?”

“Huh?” she asked.

Harper and I gave each other a look over her head.

“Going to the dance with anyone?” I asked.

“Oh. No, I don’t think so,” she said, looking down.

“Waiting for anyone special to ask?” Harper asked with a knowing smile.

Rey shook her head. “It would never happen.”

Selena spoke up next. “Why not?”

Rey stuttered for a moment. “I—he doesn’t know I like him.”

“So tell him,” Selena said.

“No way,” Rey said. “Besides, it’s more complicated than that.”

Selena nodded. She looked like she wanted to say more, but she didn’t.

“What about you?” I asked Selena. “Are you going?”

“One of the guys from the soccer team asked me yesterday, but I told him no. He’s a total player. We should go together, just us girls. We can hang out on Saturday. Do our hair and nails together before heading to the dance.”

We stopped walking. We were about to go our separate ways since we had different classes to get back to.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I’ve never gone.”

“Well, think about it,” Selena said with a small smile.

“Okay.” My phone buzzed, and I retrieved it from my pocket.

Harper teased, “Unless there’s someone you’re hoping will ask you.”

“Definitely not,” I said and unlocked my phone.

I read the message waiting for me, my hand coming to my mouth in disbelief.

When I didn’t say anything for several seconds, Rey asked, “What is it?”

“Who is it?” Selena asked, peeking over my shoulder. She gasped.

Harper and Rey squeezed in on my other side to look at my phone, and then they gasped too as we all read the message together.

Baller929: I’ve been doing a lot of thinking the past week. And the more I think, the more I realize that it sucks not talking to you. I get it. Maybe you think we come from different backgrounds. That in real life, we’re completely different people. But who cares? In the past year, when has that ever mattered? I want to be able to look into your eyes or hear you laugh. Maybe hold your hand. Ask you for a dance.

Baller929: Will you go to Homecoming with me?

The end-of-day warning bell went off, and I finally looked up.

“You have to say yes!” Harper yelled, jumping up and down.

“What she said!” Selena agreed. “Forget about going with us! Go with him!”

“You have to go with him!” Rey said, eyes wide.

The final bell rang, and the halls filled with students eager to make it home.

Selena, Harper, and Rey disappeared within the crowd of people. Rey gave me one last wave.

I stood there, phone in hand, not believing what had just happened.

Selena sat down at our lunch table the next day without saying hi. “Tell me you said yes.”

“I can’t,” I said from across the table, looking back and forth between Harper and Rey for backup.

“Why the heck not?” Selena demanded.

“Lots of reasons,” I replied. “I don’t have a dress.”

“Easily fixed,” Selena said.

Harper and Rey nodded quickly.

“I don’t know how to do hair and makeup,” I said, indicating my boring go-to hairstyle, a messy bun on top of my head, and lack of makeup.

Harper shook her head. “Again, easily fixed. We got you covered there.”

“But a dress costs money,” I said. “Which I don’t have.”

Rey put her pen down. “Can you ask your stepmom? I bet your stepsisters are going.”

I shook my head and looked down at the fruit cup on my tray. “It’s…complicated with them.”

“You can borrow one of mine,” Selena said. “My sister’s, I should say. She has a ton that she left behind when she went away to college, and she said I could wear them. You’re shorter than me, but I think we’re about the same size. Besides, my mom can always alter it.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “It’s not just that.”

“What is it?” Harper asked.

I realized I was tapping my foot, and I stopped. “I’m not sure it’s the best thing to do. He has this idea of who I am and what I look like in his head, but it’s all wrong. When he sees that I don’t live up to that image of me being this perfect girl, our friendship is going to be over.”

“Ella, why do you think those things?” Selena said. “You are so pretty, not to mention a really cool person.”

I offered her a smile.

“Besides,” Harper added, “you’re already not talking, right? What do you have to lose by meeting him?”

She had a point…

“And everything to gain,” Selena said. “He sounds like the guy of your dreams. So what if he’s on the basketball team? He doesn’t sound like a typical jock. You two could really hit it off at the dance.”

“You should give him a chance,” Harper said. “I wish I had a guy pining for my attention, begging to meet me in person. No one at this school even knows I exist.” She crossed her arms over her chest and jokingly looked longingly toward the ceiling.

We giggled at the way she poked fun at herself.

I sighed. “Okay, maybe I will tell him yes. As scary as that is.”

“It’ll be fun.” Rey’s eyes lit up. “It’s basically a big costume party, right? So, let’s dress you up. You can totally wear a mask and a beautiful, enchanting dress. And if you meet him and talk to him and decide he’s worth risking it all for, you can take off your mask and tell him who you really are!”

Selena clapped excitedly. “I love that!”

Harper nodded so fast I thought her head might fall off. “You can be Cinderella! Like your username.”

Okay, now even I was totally smiling.

“I don’t know about Cinderella,” I said, even though I secretly loved the idea. “I don’t think I could pull that off.”

“Stop saying that.” Selena took my hand. “You’re totally Cinderella. You’ve got the evil stepmom and stepsisters already.”

We giggled.

Then she brushed a stray strand of hair out of my face. “And you’re so pretty underneath those glasses.”

“Thanks,” I said quietly.

Harper’s face lit up. “We’re going to turn you into Cinderella for Homecoming, and then you’re going to meet your Prince Charming on Saturday night.”

Finding the right dress was trickier than we thought.

It turned out that Selena’s older sister was very gifted in the chest and hip areas, unlike me, and I ended up practically swimming in her dresses.

Selena flopped down on her bed between Harper and Rey. “Darn. I really thought one of these would be right for you.”

Harper thoughtfully looked me over, while Rey lay beside Selena, writing away in another journal.

“It’s okay,” I said. “I haven’t officially told him yes, so it’s no big deal.”

“This is a big deal,” Selena said, deflating.

Harper agreed. “We need you at the ball. I mean Homecoming.”

Selena pulled out the bright pink dress we had just discussed. “Maybe my mom can work with this one. It’s not the Cinderella-type dress we were hoping for, but it’ll have to do.”

Rey looked up. Her expression didn’t inspire confidence in the dress. “Are you sure you don’t have something at home?”

I shook my head. “No. I don’t think I own any dresses.”

Other than the black dress I had worn to my dad’s funeral back when he died. I knew it no longer fit.

“Hmm,” Harper said. “I bet it will look better once your mom alters it a bit, Selena.”

“You’re right,” she said.

Her mom came in and took lots of measurements, but even she didn’t seem convinced.

“Gracias,” I said.

She smiled stiffly and told me to change back into my clothes.

I handed her the dress. She held it up and looked back and forth between me and the gown several times. I noticed her eyes land on my chest and hips. I was half Puerto Rican, but Selena was curvier than me. She was 100% Mexican, and even though she had the body of an athlete, she also had her mom’s full chest and hips.

“You need to eat more,” her mom told me in Spanish. When I didn’t say anything, she turned to Selena. “Dile que coma.”

Then she left. Selena rolled her eyes as she closed the door behind her mom.

I smiled. “I rarely speak it anymore, but I do understand Spanish.”

“Ignore her,” Selena said, rolling her eyes. “She thinks anyone under a hundred and fifty pounds is in danger of dying of malnutrition. Including me.”

I nodded, wondering what it was like to have a mom who worried a little too much. Any mom. I pushed that thought out of my head. “So are you sure she doesn’t mind fixing it for me?” I asked.

“Oh, she loves sewing and all that stuff,” Selena said. “She only wishes I did too.”

My eyes met Rey’s and Harper’s with a knowing look and smile. I couldn’t picture Selena sewing anything.

“So, have you told him yes yet?” Harper asked as we walked to class together.

“Uh, not yet,” I answered, not able to look her in the eye.

“Why not?” she asked. “I thought you liked him. And Selena’s mom is already working on your dress.”

It doesn’t matter, I wanted to say. Instead, I turned to face my locker. “I don’t know.”

I focused on getting my locker combination right, but I couldn’t. I exhaled loudly and started over, shaking my head and whispering the numbers as I twisted the dial.

I got it open. Finally.

Harper leaned against the locker next to mine with her arms folded across her chest. “If you just want to be friends with him, then meeting him shouldn’t be such a big deal, right?”

I shrugged, not sure what to say to that. It was a big deal. This was the guy I had been talking to for a year now. Who made my heart skip a beat when he told me that he wanted to hear my laugh out loud not just in LOL form.

Being more than friends with him would be…

No. He was just a nice guy.

I was not his type, no matter how deep I was in already.

I looked at a couple of basketball players walking past us, and Harper glanced toward in the same direction.

They were talking, laughing about something, as they walked to class. The way they carried themselves, oozing self-confidence—they seemed like a completely different species.

“What would I even say to him, if I met him?” I asked quietly.

“What you always say,” Harper said. She gave me one last smile and walked off to class.

I headed off in the opposite direction to chemistry.

When I got there, the bell still hadn’t rung, so I put my stuff down and checked my phone.

After a minute, I focused my gaze on the basketball players who were in this class, the ones from the pep rally.

They had their phones out too.

Then the cheerleaders walked into class and sat down next to them. The guys looked up and started talking. I could tell one of the cheerleaders had a crush on one of the players. Not Jesse, the one I thought was cute, but his friend. The way she smiled and angled her body toward him gave it away.

I noticed the way he leaned toward her too.

My thoughts went to Baller929 and what class he was in right now. Did he think I was done with him since I still hadn’t responded to his question? The dance was two days away.

I opened up his message again, wanting so bad to just type YES.

The laughs of the basketball players and the cheerleaders rang out among the noise of everyone else talking and settling in.

The bell rang, and the teacher walked up to the front of the class to turn on the smart board.

My eyes remained glued to my phone. Could I do this?

After a final glance at the cheerleader, I took a deep breath, and I typed.

TheRealCinderella: Okay, yes. I’ll go with you to Homecoming. I’ll be Cinderella.

A minute later, I got a text message back.

Baller929: I can’t wait. Meet me at the center of the dance floor. 8pm.