Wait a minute,Tashawas askingJettto Sadie’s?
Tasha took the lead again. “I know it’s late but we both need a date, so what’s it gonna be?”
The squad echoed that line as well while Tasha urged Jett front and center with a curling finger.
Nausea roared through me like a wild beast. I wanted to throw up and punch something all at the same time.
Jett shuffled casually to the appointed spot and glanced up and over the bleachers. I got the impression that he was looking for me. Did he know how furious I was? How hurt and confused and angry I was that he hadn’t just answered me? None of this would be happening right now if he had just told me yes.
But perhaps that was just it. Maybe this is what he’d been wanting all along. To make Tasha jealous enough to come crawling back. At least this way, he might not look so pathetic for taking her back. After all, who could turn someone down in front of the entire school?
Tasha danced a circle around Jett, twirling a finger on his shoulders and sang out one more line. “Check your pockets and you will find one of the answers you have in mind. Yes or no, what will it be? Please hold it up for me to see.”
A hush fell over the crowd once more.
A drumbeat picked up as Jett shoved his hands into his pockets.
“Say yes,” a random guy shouted from the bleachers. A few students chuckled.
Jett tugged a card from each pocket and proceeded to open both. He stared at them for a bit, then shot a look at me exactly where I sat. My heart stopped. I was sure of it, as one side of his lip quirked up. It looked more like an apology than a grin.
I gulped, and it felt like acid had snuck up my throat.
At last he shoved one of the cards back into his pocket and turned the sign so it faced the crowd and Tasha, who’d backed away from him so everyone could see.
Y. E. S.The bright red letters had matching lip blotches around them, and the sight felt like eyeball stabs.
The school erupted in the loudest, echoing cheer of the entire event. Tasha bolted over, grabbed hold of his wrist and raised his hand triumphantly over his head, rousing an even bigger response.
That was it. I’d had all I could handle. More than I could take, in fact. I shuffled my way off the bleachers in a rush, wishing more than anything I could be invisible until I got to my car. I wasn’t sure where I was going or what I planned to do. I only knew I had to get out of there, and quick.
Bailey and Summer, who’d been helping with the sound system for the assembly, must have abandoned the scene too because I heard them calling after me down the hall.
“Harper, wait!”
But there was no way. The tears were about to win out and I couldn’t let that happen until I was alone. So I kept running over the squeaky floors, pretending not to hear my friends, and pushed my way through the double doors at the end of the hall.
Tears blurred my vision once I hit the lot, complicating my hurried path as I weaved through one cluster of cars after the next until I came to my Jetta.
I climbed in quickly, closed the door behind me, and gripped the steering wheel with numb fingers. A streak of sunlight shone on the track in the distance, highlighting a set of javelins against the fence. I cringed, feeling as if a javelin the size of Sweet Water was ripping its way through my chest. The burning ache made it hard to catch my next breath. I clenched my eyes against the pain, willing myself to wipe up the tears and drive my butt as far away from Jett as I could get.
Lord, how could I have been so wrong?
Another flaming javelin came ripping through.
My phone buzzed with a text, and then another. Of course I hoped they were from Jett, though I’m sure he was too busy falling all over Tasha while everyone congratulated them about getting back together. I wasn’t even sure theywereback together. Maybe he just said yes because he didn’t dare to say no in front of everyone. Or maybe I was in denial.
A quick glance at my screen said the texts were from a group chat between me, Bailey, and Summer.
Bailey’s came first.Jett is a total jerk for doing that. Do you want us to come with you while you confront him?
Summer’s came next.Come back and talk to him. This doesn’t seem like something Jett would do.
She was right, but he’d done it. The entire school had witnessed it. And the thing was, all of this was at least partially my fault. I’d been willing to take part in some ruse. One to make our exes jealous. And now Jett had gotten what he really wanted out of it. Turns out, that wasn’t me.
My chest burned with hot, achy breaths as I tapped out a quick reply.
Please, whatever you do, don’t say anything to him or his friends. I think I know why he did this, and I want to talk to him about it myself.
