Hannah leans forward from the third row. “Time’s a-wastin’!”
I hoist my duffel bag over my shoulder and hop in next to Willowdean, and I literally have to bite my tongue to stop myself from nosing in on her boy drama. Behind me, Callie, Ellen, and Hannah are all squished into the third row.
“Hannah told us you were performing tonight,” says Millie as she speeds off out of my neighborhood, throughresidential streets. “And we had to be there!”
“That’s so nice of y’all,” I say, the words forming a rash in my throat. Great. More people I know watching me perform. I would have preferred to spend this drive in the silence I know Hannah would have gladly afforded me, because hell yes, I am definitely freaking out about what I’m going to do. But alas, I have no truck, and either I take this ride or I stay my ass at home.
“Besides,” adds Willowdean, “we had to celebrate Patrick Thomas getting banned from prom.”
I gasp. “What?” Now, that is worth celebrating.
“According to my mama,” Callie says.
I’m shocked. Patrick never got in trouble growing up. Somehow, it was always the person he taunted who managed to carry the punishment. “Wow. Kill me now. My work here is done.” Clementine had been sent home early from school because they couldn’t definitively pin the punch on her and they counted it as a one-day suspension. Which is why I’m surprised Patrick’s punishment was more severe—but after all these years and all the students he’s tortured, it was about time.
“Buckle up!” Millie calls to me as she absolutely floors it past the NOW LEAVING CLOVER CITY sign. She honks her horn and throws her arms up briefly. “Woo! Jesus, take the wheel!”
Everyone shrieks.
“Millie, he can’t literally take the wheel!” Ellen yells from behind me.
Amanda leans over, placing a hand on the wheel. “I’m not Jesus, but I’ve got the wheel!”
Millie laughs, taking the wheel again. “Sorry, y’all. I’m just so dang pumped to graduate.” She shakes the steering wheel. “University of Texas, here I come!”
Behind me, Callie groans. “Well, I’m glad someone knows where they’re going.”
“Everyone gets wait-listed,” Millie says. “You’ll have answers by the end of the month, without a doubt. And even if those don’t pan out, you’ve already gotten into Stephen F. Austin.”
“I was originally wait-listed at University of Kansas,” Ellen says.
Willowdean hisses as she turns around. “Can we not say the K word? What am I going to do without you?”
“What are you going to do without me?” Ellen asks. “What am I going to do without you on your Euro adventure?”
“Wait, wait,” I say. “What? You’re going to Europe?”
“No! I mean, maybe. Nothing’s decided. And my mama would kill me if I did.”
“That’s so cool. I don’t even know anyone who’s been to Europe, but my grammy says she’s taking me and Clem for our twenty-first birthday,” I say, sounding 100 percent like the country bumpkin I am. “But why are you going to Europe?”
“Bo asked me to go with him,” she says quietly.
“I’m sorry, but is this the boy who ghosted you?” I ask,trying not to let on at all that I was snooping on her earlier today.
“He wasn’t cheating on her,” Ellen chimes in. “He was working out with old teammates and getting back into basketball after an injury.”
“And this leads to Europe how?” Based on the interaction I witnessed today, I did not see this coming.
“He was scouted by a European basketball team from Sweden,” Willowdean says like it’s the most normal thing in the world. “They want him to play in their junior league and then maybe they’ll move him up to their regular league.”
I hold my hands to my head and make an exploding noise. “They have basketball in Europe? I thought they only had soccer.”
“That’s actually football,” Callie says.
“Okay, wow, I didn’t know I could care even less about an organized sports thing,” I say, glad for a distraction from my very imminent in-real-life drag debut. “But let me get this right: your super-hunky boyfriend is going to Sweden to play basketball and he wants you to go with him and you’re considering staying here?”
“Thank you!” says Ellen, throwing up her hands. “I keep telling her that she can always go for a few months and then come back and go to school, but when else will she get a chance to live in Sweden of all places?”
