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“Well? Open it!” A
“It’s okay if you want to wait,” Jake said.
Of course that made me want to open it right away. I yanked the paper off, and inside was a maroon velvet box. Maybe he was trying to bribe me with diamond earrings. Get me to forgive him by dropping his father’s cash on jewels. He was a Crestie, after all. I pried the box open, pla
My jaw dropped. Nestled inside the box was my championship ring. The one I should have been awarded my freshman year. It had a burgundy stone in the middle with ORCHARD HILL HIGH SCHOOL etched in an oval around it. One side was decorated with a tiny basketball with my first name stamped above it. The other side had the year and the inscription JV CHAMPS.
“Ohmigod,” I breathed.
“What is it?” Qui
Gray was filming over my shoulder. I shrugged away from him, toward Jake. “It’s my championship ring,” I said. “Where did you get this?”
“They still had it in the sports supply closet,” he said with a shrug. “It’s no big deal.”
But his face was all blotchy, and I could tell he was trying not to smile over his job well done. I dislodged the ring from the slot and put it on. It fit perfectly. My chest filled with ten thousand different emotions. He’d remembered. That conversation we’d had all those months ago. He’d remembered, and he’d found my ring for me.
“Jake, this is—”
“It’s nothing,” he said. “You should have had it then. I just . . . got it to you.” He looked around at my hovering guests and ducked his head toward mine. “Can I talk to you for a sec? Alone?”
My heart pounded in my ears. “Um, sure.” I looked at my mom. “I’ll be right back.”
We went outside. He held the door open and everything. I was trying to figure out what I was supposed to say, when he just started talking.
“I’m sorry. About the prom,” he said, looking at his feet. “I shouldn’t have asked that girl.”
“It’s okay,” I heard myself say. It wasn’t okay, but it was one of those moments where it felt like it was, because this moment was so good.
“Did you . . . I mean, are you . . . with Marshall Moss?” he asked awkwardly.
I scoffed, toying with my ring. “Marshall? No. We just went as friends.”
His eyebrows shot up. “Really?”
“Really.” I was gri
“So, then . . . you wouldn’t want to . . . I mean, would you maybe want to, I don’t know, go to the movies or something?” he asked.
Somehow my grin widened. I knew he was thinking about that day in the car when I’d been talking about actually going out in public. “A movie would be cool.”
“Yeah?” he said hopefully. Happily.
His smile was huge. My heart was floating.
“Yeah.”
He reached out and took my hand. “Happy birthday, Ally.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I think it kind of is.”
june
Okay, what the hell am I go
Do you think Jake Graydon is going to take
Ally Ryan to the party?
Wait, what? Are those two a thing now?
Uh, yeah! Didn’t you hear? They totally went to see
the new Christian Bale on Saturday night.
Unbelievable. A Norm snagged the unsnaggable Crestie.
Whatever. Ally Ryan’s reascension was inevitable.
Why?
Because. She’s Ally Ryan.
ally
The Monday morning after my first official date with Jake, I basically air walked into school. He’d held my hand throughout the entire movie, even when his arm went dead on the armrest. (He spent ten minutes afterward surreptitiously trying to shake out the pins and needles.) I figured that when the movie was over he’d drive us right up to the lake again, but he didn’t. We grabbed some ice cream at Scoops and walked around town for a while, and then he’d driven me home and kissed me at the door.
Which was so delicious it just made me wish we had gone up to the lake. But there was time for that. We were together now. And we both had our licenses. We could go to the lake whenever we wanted. A thrill went through my body at the very thought. Me and Jake. Together.
I was still gri
Okay. This meant one of two things. Either they had heard about my date with Jake and were here to tell me to back off, get a life, and find a Norm boyfriend. Or they’d heard about my date with Jake and were here to surrender. I honestly didn’t know which it would be, but I lifted my chin and walked right by them, pretending not to care.
“Here to invite me to another nonexistent party?” I asked, turning my back to them as I spun my lock.
“Sort of,” Sha
“Not exactly,” Chloe corrected.
“Here.”
Sha
“What’s that?” I asked, popping open my locker.
“It’s an invitation to my birthday party,” she said.
“It’s a party, but we promise it exists,” Chloe said, moving into my line of sight by leaning back against the locker next to mine. She plucked the envelope from Sha
My stupid heart all but stopped. An invitation to Sha
And here was an invitation all for me. I tore my eyes away from it and yanked my chem book out of my locker.
“No, thanks.”
“What? Everyone wants one of those,” Sha
“Call me crazy, but I don’t,” I said, turning to face her. “Not from you.”
Sha
“If this is about the going away party, I told you. That was Faith’s idea,” Sha
“And we didn’t know the cops were going to be there. I swear,” Chloe said, her green eyes serious.
I believed that Chloe didn’t know about the cops. If she had, she would have stopped it. The girl knew when to draw the line. She understood the difference between what was right and what was wrong. Sha
“Ally, look . . . we know about you and Jake,” Sha
“Then you’re going to be with us,” Chloe finished.
I looked from one face to the other. Chloe seemed so sincere. Almost hopeful. It always seemed to be this way with her. Like she wanted things to be different. Like she felt bad about the way the other Cresties were treating me. But Sha