A Prom to Remember(42)

Lizzie was shocked by how much she liked it. It gave her a waist and a little bit of cleavage and actually made her feel slim and feminine.

When it was time to check out, Madison had picked up a white sparkly jumpsuit and she offered to put Lizzie’s dress on her card.

“I get points and you get an extra fifteen percent off.”

It was hard to say no to.

And it left her with more than enough money for dinner at the food court.

They just avoided the Hot Potato stand. Both of them were sick of potatoes.

Paisley

Paisley had been tiptoeing around the school for a few days after Henry had rejected Amelia, not because she was afraid of Amelia, but because she had zero interest in confrontation.

Amelia seemed like she’d be a hair puller if a fight ever got physical and Paisley wanted to avoid that at all costs.

But all that came to an end when Amelia stormed into the second-floor bathroom while Paisley was washing her hands. She barely even had time to react, or dry her hands, when Amelia was standing next to her, staring her down in the mirror.

“Hi,” Paisley said brightly, spending much too long drying her hands in an attempt to mask the fact that they were shaking.

Confrontation was seriously the worst.

Amelia put her hands on her hips.

“Please don’t beat me up,” Paisley said. Turned out that in the face of going one-on-one with Amelia Vaughn, Paisley became a whimpering mess.

Amelia rolled her eyes. “I’m not going to beat you up.”

“Oh good, that’s a relief.” Paisley skirted around Amelia in the direction of the door. “I’m just gonna head out in that case. You know, things to do, people to see.”

“No, I want to talk to you.”

“My mother is dating a cop!” Paisley yelled. That was a lie.

“I’m seriously not going to do anything to you.”

“Fine. So, what’s up?” Paisley asked, remaining close to the door for a quick getaway if necessary. “I’m not going to apologize for going to the prom with Henry. He’s my best friend. It’s how things go sometimes.”

Now Amelia actually looked kind of sad. Maybe Paisley had been reading her all wrong.

Amelia’s shoulders dropped and she crossed her arms. “I don’t understand why he doesn’t want to go to the prom with me.” She held up her hand. “And before you go defending him, you can’t tell me that this wasn’t what the whole thing was about.”

“I thought you were going with your boyfriend anyway?” Paisley asked.

“Yeah, I talked him into it. But it would have been more fun to go with someone still in high school. Drew is just going to complain the whole time. I don’t know. It’s not as much fun with him as it used to be. Also we broke up.”

“Oh. Well, Drew must still be pretty into you if he agreed to go to the prom with you even though you broke up.”

Amelia shrugged half-heartedly.

“Listen, Henry is kind of a weird dude,” Paisley said, choosing her words carefully. “He’s awesome. And I love him. But I think he feels like he got pushed into the spotlight this year and keeps getting more attention than he really wants or likes to have.”

“He’s a really good pitcher,” Amelia said. “Of course people took notice.”

Paisley smiled and nodded, because it was nice that Henry was getting acknowledged for his talents.

“I was so focused on wanting to be prom queen and on finding a king, you know, to be queen with, I kind of didn’t realize he wasn’t into me?”

“I think there are plenty of guys who are very into you, and Henry doesn’t hate you or anything like that.”

“Then why won’t he go to the prom with me?”

This conversation was hitting rough terrain, and Paisley was not sure she’d be able to handle it if Amelia started to cry. “Henry likes to live under the radar, and you live over the radar.”

“But why did he say yes in the first place?”

“I feel kind of bad and weird talking to you about him like this,” Paisley said, scrunching up her nose.

“I know. I get it. I’m kind of embarrassed. It sucks, getting rejected.”

“Yeah, totally,” Paisley agreed, even though she had done more than her fair share of rejecting recently. “And I guess Henry said yes because he’s not very good at saying no.”

“I guess I don’t want to go with someone who doesn’t want to go with me anyway.”

Paisley nodded. “I’m not gonna lie, Amelia. This conversation went in a completely different direction than I ever would have expected.”

Amelia’s expression changed quickly from sad to her usual resting bitch face. It was like the bathroom had turned into a freezer. She stuck her finger in Paisley’s face.

“Don’t you dare ever tell anyone about this conversation. I will deny the whole thing, and I will make your life miserable.”

Paisley backed up a step. She was going to say something snarky about how unless Amelia planned to stalk her postgraduation, she wasn’t going to have a lot of luck ruining Paisley’s life. But she held her tongue. Mostly because she was a little scared again.

“Okay,” Paisley squeaked out.

“And never, ever mention this to Henry. I have a reputation to uphold, and he doesn’t need to know about any of this. For once in your life follow the girl code.”