I spy a cord and reach over to plug it in so the fairy lights go on, then lean my head back against her pink velvet sofa. Kick my Crocs off and dig my toes into her decorative rug.
Mom doesn’t know it, but her shed is the one place where I can clear my head. I come in here more often than she realizes, preferring it to my bedroom.
She doesn’t know I’m home, let alone in her shed. She thinks I’ve already left for Marcus’s to pick up the suit I’m borrowing for the dance. Dad said it was a waste of money to rent a tux.
I remove my eyes from the shelves, latching them onto the sheet of loose-leaf paper in my hand. I take in Harper’s name written at the bottom again, her handwriting, with its curvy script and cutesyi’s.
I’ve read her letter at least a dozen times, trying to make senseof it, but there are so many fucking words and they’re all jumbled together. Written in haste.
It’s an essay that’s longer than anything I’ve written in English class, for crying out loud.
I look at it again, skimming the lines.
Why did you have to go and kiss me?? Then you did it again. And again. And now look! Surprise!
I LIKE YOU.
Look, I don’t expect you to feel the same way.
Honestly, I probably don’t deserve it.
She is not wrong: She probably doesn’t. Some of this is her fault. If Harper had let me go, hadn’t held me captive in her yard—or hadn’t started blackmailing me—I would not be in this predicament.
She could have let me off the ground and let me run away as I’d planned on doing and kept her yap shut the way everyone else in our senior class who knew about the prank was doing.
I sigh.
I don’t know when things changed for me, either.
Maybe it was that night in her car after the movie, when we kissed like we meant it. Or those times in her garage when she looked so stubborn, wanting things done a certain way. Harper clearly did not need my help to finish any of that shit…she’s more than capable and we both know it.
As she clearly stated, I was a slob who couldn’t glitter. I was not useful. I created more fuckups than not.
Yeah.
Things have definitely changed since I was dragged kicking and screaming onto the prom committee, pretending I didn’t give a shit about decorations.
Plot twist: I do.
Imagine that.
The more time Harper and I spent together, the more I realized this whole thing stopped being about our stupid deal shortly after it began.
And now I’m going to prom with someone else. Shewantsme to go to prom with someone else.
I continue to stare at the paper in my hands, unblinking, then up at my mom’s shelf.
The framed pictures of my siblings and me. Of Dad. Her succulents.
The knot in my chest grows tighter and tighter.
This whole damn time I’ve been trying to make sense of how I feel about Harper and Maddie Miller hijacks the entire thing by publicly asking me to the dance.
The letter is wrinkled from how many times I’ve read it over. I home in on her opening sentence, wondering why she isn’t brave enough to say this crap to my face. Maybe if she’d said it sooner…
…I would have asked her to the dance and things would be different.
What does she want from me? Is this her way of testing me, to see if I’ll fight for her? Girls do that sometimes, don’t they? Play games.
