A Prom to Remember(29)

Henry had no idea how to “be there” for Cameron. But he had a distinct urge to try, just like his mom had advised.

It required an emotional quotient that Henry didn’t possess. He got good grades, and he was going to a good college in the fall, but he lacked something in the area of empathy. He could have tried harder to be there for his friend. But how do you put all of that in a text? It had started feeling like they’d never really been that close in the first place, even though they’d pretty much been best friends up until junior year. Cameron was second to Paisley, and that was only because Henry had known Paisley since nursery school and had met Cameron in kindergarten.

Back when Cameron had started pulling away, not returning texts, saying no to hanging out, and quitting the baseball team, it had felt like it wasn’t Henry’s job to worry about him.

But maybe it was his job. Maybe that’s what he got wrong.

He flipped over onto his back, and his phone beeped next to him. For a second he believed it was Cameron, as if just thinking about him was enough to start a conversation.

But it wasn’t Cameron. It was Amelia, sending him a picture of her dress so he knew what color corsage to buy her. Henry covered his face with his hand. He didn’t want to deal with this.

His phone beeped again. This time it was Paisley with one of her wild stories from the mall food court. A woman had gone off on her about putting an extra pump of liquid cheese on her potato.





Paisley texted back a series of emojis that equated to “What do you want to do about it?”




And then he remembered something that happened the other day while the baseball team was riding home on the bus.




He could almost hear her incredulous tone.





She stopped responding after that, but Henry imagined he was going to get his ass handed to him sometime soon.





Chapter 14

Paisley

When Henry told her that the guys on the baseball team were going to ask Paisley to the prom, she only halfway believed him. It seemed like the kind of thing Henry would say in jest and the guys would have a good chuckle over, but that no one would actually see through, even if there was hypothetical money on the line.

So, when she arrived at school Monday morning, it wasn’t even on her mind. Which was why when she got to her locker she was so surprised to see a single balloon tied to her lock, with the word PROM? emblazoned on it in thick black marker.

She sighed and shook her head, looking around to find the culprit of this silly, harmless little prank. But no one was in the vicinity, definitely not anyone on the baseball team. By lunch, her secret prom suitor had still not revealed himself.

It was only when she popped the balloon and a small piece of paper the size of a fortune from a cookie floated out that she learned it was Stewart Smith asking her. But if he wanted to go to the prom with her, he was going to have to actually speak with her face-to-face.

Even knowing that meant she’d have to reject him face-to-face, it didn’t worry her. It shouldn’t be her problem to track him down when she didn’t even want to go.

Garrett Yi was standing by her locker after lunch.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey,” she said.

“I hear you don’t have a date for the prom and was kind of wondering if…” He trailed off and held his hands up.

He was sort of cute, and he got points in style for not having any style.

“I’m sorry to say I’m just not interested in going to the prom,” she said, wrinkling her nose. “It’s not you, it’s the prom.”

“Oh well,” he said, walking away. “Thanks anyway.”

She tried to ignore the way his neck glowed bright pink even from so many feet away. Paisley was not one to wallow in guilt. It wasn’t worth it. She knew she’d have a terrible time at the prom. She didn’t want to go and she didn’t have to go.

When she found Henry during lunch, she backed him into a corner. “How many more, Henry?”

“How many more what?”

“How many more guys are going to ask me to the prom?” she said, poking him in the chest between each word to emphasize that she was in a take-no-shit kind of mood.

“Um, well, I know at least four of them put money in the pot, but there might have been more that I didn’t see.”

“Who gets the money if I don’t say yes to anyone?”

Henry shrugged. “I don’t know the rules of this particular gentlemen’s agreement.”

Paisley scoffed and went about her day. But she had a great idea during gym class. When she got home that night, she used some random leftover T-shirt-making stuff from her days as an Internet fangirl. She had bought a bunch of printable iron-on T-shirt transfer sheets and was going to start an Etsy shop for fans of a certain boy band she had been pretty passionate about in middle school.

And the beginning of high school.

And part of the middle of high school.

Fine, she had been obsessed with One Direction right up until Zayn left the group.

And it was right around when Zayn left the group that she lost all interest in starting an Etsy shop, but she’d already lost the receipt for the iron-on T-shirt transfer sheets.

All this to say, she was going to make a T-shirt printed with the phrase It’s not you, it’s prom.