All anyone can freaking talk about is how prom is tomorrow. In homeroom, it’s Shaun and Lily. He convinced her that the best way to deal with a broken heart is to occupy herself with other things, so now she’s going to prom with him. Lily says she might only stay for an hour, but at least she won’t go through life wondering how things might be different if she’d attended her senior prom. When she says it, she and Shaun both turn and give me pointed looks.
I roll my eyes at them. “Subtle. Very subtle.”
“Just come,” says Lily. “We’ll dance together.”
“I’ll let you pick songs,” Shaun adds.
“Nope.” I can’t explain how prom sounds like an exercise in agony. Like a special kind of torture chamber where you have to pretend the pain isn’t happening.
It was Señora Fairchild’s fault. I was on my way to the bleachers when she rushed past me, hugging a giant pile of folders against her pregnant belly. We greeted each other with “hola,” and that’s where it should have ended, except one of her folders slid out from her arms, creating an avalanche situation, and I ended up on my knees beside her, helping shuffle them all back together. “Gracias,” she said. “Can I ask you for a favor?”
Since a teacher’s “asking” is in actuality a command, of course I said yes.
“Come to my room at the end of lunch,” she told me. “I have more things that need to be taken to the office. I’ll give you extra credit.”
“I already have an A.”
“Right,” she said. “Bueno.”
That’s why I hustled to finish eating, and why I’m hurrying through the center of campus while everyone else is still having lunch, and why I see what’s happening at the sundial. I stop to stare, because it’s so entirely weird.
The usual Beautiful People are hanging out, eating and chattering and laughing. That’s not the weird part. That’s totally normal. What’s strange—no, what makes absolutely no sense in my brain whatsoever—is that among them are Ainsley and Theo and Oliver.
Together.
Theo is sitting on one of the benches with Ainsley draped over him. His arm is around her waist, and her fingers are twined in his hair. Oliver is on the other end of the bench, and as I watch, Theo leans toward him and says something. They both laugh and Theo kisses Ainsley.
Like nothing ever happened.
Like none of it mattered.
At all.
If I was still driving to school with Oliver, if we weren’t avoiding each other, if my heart didn’t hurt, I would run over and slam one of my songs in his face. I would crow about it, about how he himself is living proof that high school is a drop in the bucket of emotion and importance. He would be his usual combo of amused and chagrined, and I would triumphantly choose something by Joy Division or Ume or Wax Fang. Tomorrow I would blast that new song as loud as the behemoth’s speakers would allow. Oliver would smile tolerantly as I sang and danced in my seat, and maybe I even would catch him nodding his head along to the music.
Instead, everything inside me hardens. I turn to leave….
But not before Oliver glances in my direction. Not before our eyes meet.
When I come out of Spanish, he’s leaning against the hallway wall with his arms folded over his chest. The sight of him jerks my body to a frozen halt and my heart into a racing sporadic beat. He doesn’t smile, but he does edge his chin upward slightly in my direction. It’s a move done by guys in bars on TV. It’s a gesture that represents everything I hate. It’s the smallest possible motion one can make to acknowledge another person.
But because this is Oliver and because he has repeatedly defied my expectations, I excuse it. I excuse him. I merely drop my backpack to the floor where I’m standing, right in front of the open door. Other students jostle me as they stream around both sides of my body, but I stay still, a stony outcrop in a rushing path of water.
Oliver peels himself off the wall and ambles over. He stares down at me and I stare up at him, and no one says anything for what seems like way too long. He doesn’t look happy and I have no idea how I look, because my insides are trembling and my thoughts are jumbled, so it’s anyone’s guess how that mess translates to my face.
“I’m a decent guy,” Oliver finally says, and waits for a response. When I don’t have one—because it’s neither a question that requires an answer nor something I’m willing to dispute—he continues. “I honor my promises. I’m supposed to drive you to school.”
“I’m the one who told you not to,” I remind him.
“In a text message. Thanks for that.” He folds his arms over his chest again. “I thought you’d want to know that you were right.”
“About what?” It comes out of my mouth in a whisper.
“The playlist. I’ve been reassessing some things, and you were right about the music I’ve been listening to my whole life. It’s crap. It’s overly produced and fake, just like Flaggstone Lakes. In fact”—he pauses, running his fingers through his hair—“you were right about all this stuff being crap.” He spreads his arms in a gesture that encompasses himself, the school, everyone around us. Me. “You win, June. None of this matters. It doesn’t matter at all.” He crooks a smile at me, but there’s no joy in it. It’s bitter, flat, lifeless. It breaks my heart. “Call me if you want a ride on Monday.”
“I won’t,” I tell him.
“I know,” he says.
But he keeps standing there, looking down at me. I can’t tell what he’s thinking, because his expression is so blank. He’s not the Oliver I’ve gotten to know over this year: the one who’s exuberant, who cares about soufflés and bowling and football games.
That Oliver—the one who cares about everything—is gone.
And it’s my fault.