A Prom to Remember(35)

“What kind of rut?”

A text alert pealed off from her phone.

“Just one sec,” she said, grabbing her phone from her bag. It was a text from Madison about their final bio lab of the year. She suddenly felt far more alert and she really wanted to write back. After a moment of thought she decided to save it for later. Cora could have a fun text chat with Madison when this dinner was all over as a reward. She slid her phone back in her bag after putting it on silent.

Jamie was staring at the flickering candle in the middle of the table when she looked back at him.

“Anyway,” she said to catch his attention. “My point is we’ve done the exact same thing for the past three years for your birthday.”

“But we’re doing something different this year. So it’s not a rut!” he said, sitting up straight and pounding his hand on the table to punctuate his point.

Cora shook her head. He was too cute for his own good sometimes.

“Or maybe it’s a rut,” he amended a moment later. “But even if it is, next year we’ll be in a new city with new people. That’ll force us out of our rut.”

“I worry sometimes about that.”

“About the new people? Don’t worry, Cora, I’ll be there, we can still hang out.”

“That’s what I worry about,” she muttered.

Her phone went off in her bag, even louder this time. Instead of silencing it, she must have put it on full volume.

“Sorry,” she said, not even looking at the screen, just feeling around for the silent button.

“So what do you worry about?” Jamie asked. “’Cause I worry about stuff, too.”

“I worry that we’re going to use each other as a crutch and not meet anyone. That we’re going to get stuck in a rut in Boston. Not the exact same one as here, but a different one. And we’ll never meet new people because we spend all our time together.”

Jamie thought about that for a full minute. “Well, we probably won’t be in the same dorm. There’s a whole bunch of different ones. We could even make sure we’re not in the same dorm. That would help probably. Then we can introduce each other to a lot of different people.” He wrapped up his monologue with a big smile like he had solved world peace. “I’m gonna run to the bathroom. Be right back.”

Cora swirled the straw in her glass of soda and pulled her phone out, opening up the group text she had with Josie and Teagan.





He was walking toward her and grinning from ear to ear. Cora sucked in a deep breath. Would it be horribly selfish to rip the Band-Aid off and break up with him on his birthday?



Cora responded with a string of heart emojis, but before she could slide her phone away, a call popped up from the prom venue. She stood.

“I’m sorry,” she said to Jamie. “I have to take this. I have no idea why they would be calling me.”

It turned out that the call was actually a wrong number and from a different Sheraton entirely.

Jamie had his arms crossed when she returned to the table. He handed her a Snickers bar.

“Where did this come from?” she asked. “Also it’s your birthday and I’m supposed to get you gifts.”

“It’s my birthday and you can’t even give me your full attention.”

“I said I was sorry.”

“Did you?”

“Um, yes,” Cora said. “I said it every time we were interrupted. I don’t know what to tell you. I don’t have control over who contacts me.”

“You could turn your phone off completely or put it on airplane mode or something.”

“Yes. You’re right. That’s what I’ll do right now.” She exaggeratedly put her phone in airplane mode and stuck it in her purse.

She leaned toward Jamie and smiled. “Now, please, tell me where the candy bar came from.”

He rolled his eyes but then grinned again. “Well, there was a kid out in the foyer by the host stand who wanted to sell candy in the restaurant and the manager told him they don’t allow solicitors in here. But I felt so bad for the kid that I decided to buy a candy bar for each of us. I’m pretty sure I made his whole night. He was such a scrappy kid I wanted to buy every single piece of candy he had, but I definitely didn’t have enough money for that.”

“Thank you,” Cora said, mustering up all her sincerity. “And I really am sorry.”

“You’re welcome,” Jamie said. “And I accept your apology.”

That was Jamie in a nutshell. How could Cora break up with a guy like this on his birthday? It would probably leave her with bad karma for the rest of her life.

There was no way to break up with him.

She could suck it up and stay with Jamie a little longer.

There was no reason to ruin the end of senior year.

At least not yet.





Chapter 17

Jacinta

“I have a brilliant idea!” Kelsey said as she ran up to Jacinta in the hall Thursday after school.

“I am terrified.”

“Don’t worry. I’m not setting you up again. At least not really. I suppose it could kind of be called a setup, but it would maybe depend on who you asked.”

“This is not helping my fear,” Jacinta said.