Ella's Twisted Senior Year(52)

My heart speeds up as fear trickles in. He’s announcing our punishment now and I’ve never been punished by the school. Will we get detention? A call to our parents? Ugh.

Mr. Reynolds looks to each of us for a moment. “You all will do a Saturday of community service on May fifteenth.”

“But that’s—” Kennedy says, rocking back in her chair. Her knuckles are whine on the armrests.

“The night of the prom, yes I know,” Mr. Reynolds says. “The three of you have lost your prom privileges.”

A cold stab of regret hits me, even as Kennedy goes off on a rant, bitching and cursing at our principal about how unfair all of this is. Ethan looks over at me, his eyes sad as well. Even though I made all those jokes about not really caring about prom, now that I officially can’t go, I regret every single one of them.

“Is that all?” I ask over the roar of Kennedy’s complaining.

Mr. Reynolds nods. “That is all. If I hear of any more bullying coming from either one of you, you’ll be expelled and you’ll be barred from graduating and forced to attend summer school. Let this be the last time I see any of you in here, do you understand?”

“Yes sir,” Ethan says quickly.

I nod and Kennedy jumps out of her chair, glaring down the principal as if he were one of her loyal freshman minions and not the boss of the whole school. “You’ll be hearing from my lawyer about this.”

Then she stalks out of the office, letting the door slam behind her.

“You mind if we stay in here a minute until she’s gone?” Ethan asks. Mr. Reynolds nods.

Ethan walks me back to my class. We don’t talk the whole time, but that’s because there’s nothing really to say. I feel like apologizing but I’m not sure what for. For being me, I guess. If I hadn’t been tossed into his life by a tornado, he’d probably still be dating Kennedy and still be in the running for prom king. I’d still have my house, my baking supplies, and my future that didn’t involve Ethan.

My breath hitches and tears flood into my eyes at the very thought of life without him. Ethan stops walking and turns to me. “What’s wrong?”

I shake my head. “Nothing. We’re almost at my class,” I say, pointing to the next door on the left.

“No, I’m not leaving you yet.” Ethan takes my cheeks in his hands and those dark mysterious eyes pour into mine. “You’re crying. Talk to me.”

“I’m not—it’s not what you think,” I say, reaching up to wipe away the treacherous tear. “I mean, I’m not upset about missing prom, even though I am. I was just thinking how easier your life would be if I had just never been in it.”

Ethan’s jaw twitches and he brings me to his chest. I can’t wrap my arms around him because of his backpack, but I let my head rest against the warm familiarity of him.

“Don’t think like that,” he says, pulling back to look at me. “Prom or not, I like this outcome way better than the one where we’re not friends anymore.”

I blink away tears and try to smile. “Yeah?”

He nods. “Yeah.” He clears his throat and runs his tongue across his bottom lip.

“What is it?” I ask suspiciously. “You look like you’re hiding something from me.”

He shakes his head and takes both of my hands in his. “Not hiding . . . just, trying to think of how to say it.”

I’m not sure if I should be nervous or scared or excited, so my body morphs into a mixture of the three. “Say what?”

Ethan’s eyes crinkle. “Well . . . you know that dress you wanted?”

“Uh yeah,” I say, now having completely no idea where he’s going with this. “It’s a good thing I didn’t buy it now.”

“Yeah it is, because, well.” He hesitates, running a hand through his hair. “This isn’t exactly the perfect moment I was going for but I feel like I should tell you now.”

“Yeah, you should because I’m going crazy from the anticipation.” I narrow my eyes at him.

The bell rings, signaling the end of second period. Doors fly open and students rush out and soon we’re surrounded by the chaos of high school. Ethan holds on to my arms, keeping us near the lockers and angling his body to shield us from an onslaught of arms and legs and backpacks.

“Okay so, about the dress,” he says again. “I bought it for you.”

My eyes widen. “You did?”

He nods eagerly, like he’s even more excited about the stupid dress than I was. “It’s beautiful and you loved it so I wanted to get it for you.”

Gratitude and happiness swell up inside me and I throw my arms around his neck, pulling him into a hug. “That was really sweet. Ethan. But now we can’t go to prom.”

He shrugs. “So what? If we can’t go to prom, we’ll just find somewhere else for you to wear it.”





Chapter 29





Although I’d hoped to get out of this by keeping it a big secret, Mom corners me the second we get home from school with a hand on her hip and a “Ethan Wyatt Poe!”

Apparently Mr. Reynolds called her and explained the whole situation.

“First of all,” Mom says, putting a hand on my shoulder. “That shirt was hilarious. It’s a shame they’re making you remove it.”