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“Well, yeah,” A
“What? You think so too?” I asked, sitting up straight.
“Let’s see. You walk around school like a zombie, you never talk to anyone, and no one’s seen you eat a non-carb in a month,” Marshall said, glancing at my tray full of mashed potatoes and gravy. “It’s pretty obvious.”
“Agreed,” David said, popping a chocolate chip cookie into his mouth.
“Also, Sarah Dessen has obviously replaced me as your best friend, which is just not healthy,” A
“Good to know I’m so transparent,” I said, miffed.
“You want to spill?” A
Marshall and David nodded in this sort of disturbingly eager way. Suddenly my face began to burn.
“You guys have been talking about me?” I asked.
Their gaze darted this way and that. At least they had the decency to look guilty about it.
“Cookie?” David offered, opening the Famous Amos bag toward me.
I narrowed my eyes at him and took one.
“Okay, plan number one, the sugar high,” A
“Hi, guys!” Faith dropped into an empty chair at the very end of our table. She was wearing a frilly pink top, and her blond hair was back in a ponytail that she’d somehow styled into one very long curl down her back. A
I blinked. Ever since Jake and I had broken up and Chloe had had the baby and Faith had snagged the lead in the spring musical, we’d barely spoken. Just seeing her right now seemed out of context. Like part of some former life gate-crashing this one.
“What kind of favor?” I asked.
“You have to join prom committee,” she said, lowering her chin, the better to give me a serious stare.
All four of us cracked up laughing.
“Yeah. That was not one of our plans,” A
“Talk about depressing,” David added.
I took my first bite of food. Eating that Famous Amos had made me hungry. Or maybe it was simply laughing that had made me feel better. “Thanks, but no thanks.”
“Please?!” Faith begged, grabbing my arm. “Sha
“Isn’t it interesting how people only say that when they’ve already caused offense?” A
Faith scrunched her nose at A
But not entirely. Because people were still gossiping about her. Still telling bad jokes. Still making up stories. And every time I overheard something, I got even more depressed. This was Chloe Appleby. She was supposed to be living up her senior year, ru
“Anyway, please do it?” Faith begged. “It’ll help you take your mind off things! Maybe it’ll even knock you out of this weirdo daze you’ve been in.”
My jaw dropped and Marshall hid a laugh behind a cough—very badly. Even Faith had noticed?
“Honestly, someone has to help me or I’m not go
“What insane idea?” I asked.
She lifted her hands wide. “A Postapocalyptic Prom!”
I gagged on my mashed potatoes.
“Sweet!” David squeaked.
“Yeah. Very romantic,” Faith said sarcastically. “They want the backdrop for prom pictures to be one of those nuclear bomb mushroom-cloud things,” she said, shuddering dramatically. “So. Will you help?”
“You just convinced me,” I said.
Not that I thought I was going to be having my prom picture taken, considering the fact that I was dateless, uninterested, and uninspired. But that didn’t mean I shouldn’t help the rest of the senior class avoid having their memories look like something out of the Hunger Games movie. And maybe Faith was right. Maybe this would help knock me out of my daze. Something had to. If everyone was noticing it and talking about it, it must have gotten pretty bad. I tugged out my phone and opened it up to the calendar.
“When’s the next meeting?”
Faith squealed and clapped her hands, bouncing around in her seat. “Omigod! Yay! You are so not going to regret this. Throwing yourself into a new project is always the best therapy. Right?”
She looked to the table for confirmation. David shrugged and ate a cookie. Marshall shrugged and ate a chip.
“Just for the record? I liked the kidnapping Jake idea,” A
Faith shot her a wary look as I typed into my phone. As if on cue, Jake’s laugh rose up from a table two rows away, and when I looked over, some sophomore with too much cleavage was gazing up at him like he was a god.
“You know what?” I said, glancing over at A
jake
This was my last chance. My last shot at an athletic scholarship. I’d been wait-listed at Rutgers, Ramapo, and William Patterson, and almost everywhere else had flat-out rejected me. The Richmond lacrosse coach was holding on to my application because he hadn’t finished recruiting yet, just like Rutgers, and both schools had sent scouts out to see me today. I had to show them my skills. I knew this. I knew my life basically hung in the balance.
I just couldn’t seem to actually care.
On autopilot, I ran upfield at a sprint, grunting as my legs pumped beneath me. The sun was warm on my face. I could feel the dirt under my fingernails. Sweat prickled my skin and slipped down my back. In the stands, Sha
Co
I glanced at the scouts. The one from Rutgers had his hand over his mouth, like he was already imagining my gruesome death.
Fuck that. I still had some pride somewhere in me.
I juked left and spun right. Langer threw himself at me and caught air. Sha
“Score!” Co
The whole team was gri