You Should See Me in a Crown(63)

I can see Britt and her bright yellow hair, sitting off to the side with the other rugby girls, pumping her fist in the air as soon as she sees me.

“We love you, Liz!” she shouts. She elbows the girl standing next to her, who is a freshman by the looks of her junior varsity uniform. The girl looks peeved but joins in immediately with a smile of her own. It’s probably fake, all things considered, but I appreciate Britt and her strong-arm techniques nonetheless.

As we get into our positions, Jordan looks completely at home, totally comfortable, as he winks back at me and mouths, Showtime.

Suddenly the song starts, and muscle memory carries me. We hop up, in tandem, and lean to our left and then back to our right before doing that shoot dance with one arm and one leg that I can’t seem to grasp but everyone else is absolutely owning. The crowd is really into it, up on their feet, dancing and singing along with us. During the freestyle dance part, I start feeling extra self-conscious because, honestly, I’m a really bad dancer. Like, embarrassingly bad. And it’s made even worse by the belief that all black people have rhythm. It’s one of the great shames of my life: being born without the dancing gene.

I start to do the robot, my default move, but Jordan saves me. He comes over and lifts up his foot in a gesture that I recognize immediately. It’s our House Party dance routine.

He raises his eyebrows like, Lighty, don’t fail me now. So I step forward and bring my foot up to meet his, then step back and do it again, before we clasp one of our hands in the middle and spin around. I’m laughing, genuinely having a good time, singing the words back and forth with Jordan, when I realize that I’m not scared anymore. I might even be living for it a little.

When we let go of each other and move back into our positions, the crowd is really going wild. I swear I can even hear a repeat chorus of the other night: “Lighty! Lighty! Lighty!” starts up from somewhere in the bleachers. It could be Britt’s doing, but it feels bigger than the rugby girls now, like maybe the whole audience is in on it. And okay, it might be my imagination, my newfound comfort onstage, but the room stops feeling like the walls are closing in on me. It feels something like when I perform with the band. Something like right.

When the song ends, I’m smiling, despite everything. I’m waiting for the applause—

And then the lights go out.

I’m convinced that there’s going to be the sound of five hundred phones going off next. That there’s another secret of mine being broadcast to the entire school. My heart stops in my chest, and I start plotting my escape route. Maybe if I can get out before the lights come on—

But there’s no time. It barely takes fifteen seconds, but the light comes back, and my hand shoots up to my mouth.

“Oh my God.”

There’s no explaining it, no way I could have seen it coming. As I look around the gym, the stands are filled with people who have covered up their Campbell spirit wear with plain black T-shirts featuring a simple gold crown in the middle on the front.

I look to my left, and even Jordan has one on. More than half the gym is wearing the design that has become synonymous with me, Campbell’s infamous, subversive, dangerous, queer-as-hell prom queen wannabe. People are on their feet, and finally the room erupts in applause. But there’s no mistaking it this time. This isn’t because of our performance.

This is all for me.





I can’t believe it. When we’re back in the hallway, my hand still hasn’t left my mouth. Jordan comes up behind me and wraps his arms around my waist before lifting me up in the air and spinning me around. I don’t even care about who else is around, who else might be jealous that we’re so close. I’m just happy.

“Jordan, are you behind this?” I turn to face him, and he’s grinning and shaking his head.

“I wish I could take credit for this. But it was all those two girls. You know? The one who talks superfast and the one who smiles a lot?” Melly and Katherine. Of course. “They rallied the troops via Campbell Confidential last night. Got a bunch of people in on the plan, and Britt’s parents did the T-shirts. It was sort of genius.”

I have so many questions, but the pep rally is dismissing and people are flooding out into the hallways. A lot of people are nodding at me as they pass, offering me a fist to bump, apologizing. When my phone starts to vibrate in my pocket, I almost miss it. But I fumble to answer it at the last possible second.

It’s my granny. I’m feeling so giddy on hope that I decide right then to tell her about prom. About everything.

“Granny, you won’t believe—”

“Lizzie, baby,” my granny’s voice sounds shaky over the line, and it feels like whatever air was left in the room is suddenly gone. She wouldn’t sound like this unless—“You need to come to the hospital right now, you hear? It’s Robbie. It’s bad, baby.”

I hang up without responding. I can’t. There’s nothing left for me to say.

Jordan’s face crumples with concern as he sees me. “Liz?”

I don’t have to explain, not really anyway. Jordan pulls his keys out of his pocket and grabs my hand to pull me to the door. It’s like I’m no longer in my body, like I’m floating somewhere above myself, wondering how the shell of me is managing to keep moving.

But I mumble the name of the hospital once we reach the car, and Jordan floors it. His usual manner of driving, the one that I’ve grown all too familiar with over the past few weeks—casual, relaxed—is shot as he peels through the streets of Campbell and onto the interstate that takes us to downtown Indy.