Soon, I heard Josh sigh in defeat. My mom had worn him down for the morning. “Okay, Lily,” he said to me. “What would you like for breakfast? Your mom”—he looked at her with revulsion—“is having cinnamon roll pancakes.”
“I’ll take an orange juice, please,” I said as I unzipped mybackpack and began digging around inside. “With a spoon on the side.” I emerged victorious with my jar of overnight oats. “I brought my own today.”
“Yes!” Josh snapped his fingers. It was ironic he ran the Hub because he was really a health nut. “This is what I’m talking about, Lil. I love to see it.” He faced my mom. “You should try eating something off your daughter’s menu.”
My mom folded her hands on the table. “For your information, she made a lovely chicken stir-fry last night. I helped with the prep work.”
Josh turned to me for confirmation, and I nodded. “But cinnamon roll pancakesdosound amazing,” I added. “May I get a fork with my spoon? That way, I can steal some bites?”
We laughed when Josh groaned. “Exasperating,” he said. “You two are endlesslyexasperating. First, reservations. And now this?” He shook his head.
“Excuse me, but endlessly exasperating?” my mom said once her boyfriend had disappeared into the kitchen. “I’d say he finds us endlesslyfascinating.”
“Yes,” I agreed. I loved these breakfasts with her. “Endlessly fascinating, for sure.”
“I don’t know if you noticed, Lily, but Blair was eyeing you like a dartboard during calc today,” my friend Pravika commented.She and I were spending our free period with Zoe in the Crescent, a rounded seashell-encrusted terrace overlooking the ocean and an extension of the greenspace aptly named “the Circle.” It was Ames’s beating heart, the place to be before, between, and after classes. White Adirondack chairs and hammocks dotted the lawn, and if one was free, you wanted to be sitting in it.
“Really? Am I bleeding?” I deadpanned. The three of us were sunning ourselves on the Crescent’s wall. “She should work on her aim.”
“Who was sitting next to you in class?” Zoe asked.
I didn’t respond. Truthfully, Blair had hit the bull's-eye.
“Lily…” my friends singsonged.
“He was late,” I explained. “There weren’t any other open spots.”
They laughed, and I tried not to think of Tag’s eyes. They had been gray instead of glinting green today, their light dimmed. “Do you mind if I sit here?” he’d whispered, and it had taken almost everything to stop myself from running my fingers through his dark brown hair and gently rubbing the back of his neck. It had been over a year since we’d been this close; we had a way of dancing around each other on campus, a dance I thought had been expertly choreographed, right down to us only exchanging a few words during class. But today Tag had missed a step and we’d had to sit together, which made me stumble as well. It ached not to feel his hand on my knee underthe table. Or for him not to kiss the inside of my wrist before threading his fingers through mine…
Why?I asked myself for the millionth time.Why did you do it?
“I wonder who he’ll go to prom with now,” Zoe mused.
“No idea,” Pravika said. “Some sophomore, probably. All the jocks—”
“Can we chill on all the prom speculation?” I grumbled. “Who cares? We’ll find out soon enough.”
Zoe and Pravika were silent, because earlier this week, Daniel Rivera, our student council president, had promposed to me after classes with a beautiful bouquet of lilies. It hadn’t mattered that I was allergic to them; I could feel people’s eyes on us, so I summoned a smile and hugged them to my chest.Don’t think about any impending doom, I’d thought, knowing full-blown hives were on the horizon.You’re excited! Show everyone how excited you are!
I sighed. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what that was.”
My friends nodded slowly, like theydidknow what it was. I felt my neck flush. “It’s not too late to change your mind,” Zoe had said the other day. “I know you haven’t broken a promise in, like, your entire life, but prom with Daniel isn’t a real promise—you didn’t pinkie swear or anything. If you aren’t excited to go with him, whyactuallygo with him?”
Because I accepted the flowers, I’d almost said.I accepted the flowers, and I threw them in the trash as soon as I got home, so I can’t give them back.
And even if I could, I wouldn’t. A promposal might not exactly be a promise, but itwasa commitment. I didn’t break my commitments.
Some clouds shrouded the sunlight. “Okay, so new topic…” Pravika ventured. “The guys in bio this morning would not shut up about the senior prank.” She cleared her throat. “I mean, about how it looks like thereisn’tone this year.”
“Ooh, yes,” Zoe murmured. “I’ve been doubtful too. The Jester has been quiet.”
“Try mouth-taped-shutsilent,” I said. The senior prank was another year-end tradition, but an underground one. Students were obsessed with it because the whole thing was very cloak-and-dagger. Not just any upperclassman could brainstorm a prank and put it into motion…only “the Jester” could do that. Their identity was always anonymous; only the previous Jester knew who the next Jester was, passing the “hat” off to them. And if the prank master required a crew to pull off their plan, several others were let in on the secret.
But they never told a soul.
Zoe was right; it didn’t look like there was going to be a prank this year. The order always went prank, prom, graduation. And prom was beckoning! Girls had their dresses hung in their closets and hair and makeup appointments scheduled.
“Who do you think it is?” Pravika asked. She pointed across the Circle, where Blair Greenberg held court in an Adirondack chair. “My money’s on her.”
