I tug down on my jacket, adjusting it. “Thanks.”
Bryce grunts. “You look like a gay magician.”
Everyone glares at him, burning him with their silence.
Finally, Callie snorts. “You would be so lucky.”
I grin. “Hocus-pocus, asshole.”
“Whatever,” he says, and turns his attention back to the stage, where Principal Armstrong is giving a very long and very detailed speech about what happens when you drive drunk. Spoiler: everyone dies.
Hannah leans over to me. “I think gay magician might be my new aesthetic.”
“What if we win?” I ask her in a panic.
Hannah takes a deep breath. “If you tell anyone I said this I’ll kill you, but I think we might. At least one of us.”
I take her hand and squeeze tight. “You’ll always be my king.”
“And you, my queen,” she says.
Principal Armstrong drones on for a whole ten minutes while Mrs. Leonard organizes us into two lines, one for king nominees and the other for queen nominees.
“So, be smart tonight, CCHS, and whatever you do...” Principal Armstrong holds the mic out to the crowd and everyone drones, “Don’t drink and drive.”
“That’s your cue!” Mrs. Leonard says, urging us up the steps of the stage.
Nerves suck the air out of my lungs, and the only thinggetting me through this moment is that I’m mere minutes away from knowing my fate.
“Now, it’s with great pleasure that I give you your senior prom court nominees!” Principal Armstrong says.
Like last night, the lights onstage are bright, but I can still see everyone out there on the dance floor, and the sight of all their eager faces makes my guts cringe.
Clem waves to me and then blows a kiss to Hannah. She stands with Alex right in front of Millie, Malik, Ellen, Tim, Amanda, Willowdean, and Bo, with his arms draped over Will’s shoulders.
Once all of us nominees have shuffled into our places, Principal Armstrong says, “To crown your king and queen, I’d like to invite Kyle Meeks and Miranda Garcia to join us onstage.”
Kyle and Miranda take the stage, each with a sash draped over their arms and a pillow in their hands with a crown on top. Both crowns are huge and ornate, trimmed in gold with rhinestones, and definitely not the cheap-looking plastic kind that I’d imagined in my head.
Kyle glances at me, and instead of his usual eager smile, his lips are pressed into a firm, thin line, and he won’t even make eye contact with me.
My breath hitches.Oh God. How could I be so stupid?
That’s when I know. I didn’t win. Hannah probably didn’t either. I want to kick my own ass for being foolish enough to believe that either of us could win.
Principal Armstrong steps back from the microphone and Miranda steps forward. “Good evening, juniors andseniors!” she says. “Kyle and I would like to take a moment to thank the accounting club and Mr. Copeland for tabulating voting results all week including this evening. The numbers have been checked, double-checked, and triple-checked. We would also like to thank Wilson and Meyer Accounting Firm for sponsoring the prom court crowns and sashes and for checking our final count, which was our closest prom court vote on record.”
“Nerds!” someone shouts from the crowd.
Miranda laughs. “Yeah, nerds with 401(k)s and savings accounts. Sign me up.”
A few teachers throughout the room snicker.
Enough already! I nearly scream. Just get it over with.
“Come on!” a girl shouts.
“Crown someone already!”
