You Should See Me in a Crown(70)



Teela’s voice quiets the cafeteria almost instantly, but it still doesn’t feel like enough. It feels like she could strum the acoustic guitar in her hand while sitting in my lap and I would still want to be closer to her voice, to the song. She’s singing “My Life, My Story,” the song she wrote after the rumors that she was bi started swirling.

I look around at my friends, and all of them have broad smiles on their faces. They don’t look surprised; they just look happy.

Someone once told me

You spent your life running.

Well, I wish you’d stand still,

’Cause in this light you’re stunning.

It’s my life, my story,

And I want to share it with you.

It’s my life, my story,

But part of it was always yours too.

I can’t even—this is not real life.

Everyone in the cafeteria is recording, and one of the freshmen has fainted into her spasagna. It’s officially a faint-worthy event.

When Teela strums the final note, that’s when I see her. Amanda rolls into the cafeteria on a skateboard, but not her usual one. As she rolls to a stop in front of our table, she kicks it up into one of her hands and flips it over so the bottom of the deck is facing me. The message is bold, in Amanda’s loopy handwriting, but her smile completely shy.

Liz Lighty, will you go to prom with me?





The morning of prom doesn’t feel like waking up on Christmas Day like I thought it might. It’s not like that moment of opening your eyes and knowing you’re either about to get everything you asked for—everything you ate your vegetables and didn’t backtalk your grandparents for—or not. It’s like something else entirely.

Something like New Year’s Eve maybe. The pressure of it being a big, memorable night that bleeds into a new era and, ultimately, into the rest of your life. I’m sort of terrified.

So I do what I always do when I’m afraid. I connect my phone to the Bluetooth speaker Robbie got me for my birthday last year, find my favorite playlist, and turn it up.

The notes are so familiar, they fly through the room like they live in the air. It’s soothing. They feel the way they did the night I applied to Pennington or after the first time Amanda and I kissed. Fear and hope fight for the same space inside my chest. The only difference is now, regardless of the unknown, I’m positive I’ll be all right.

No matter what happens tonight, I know I’ll be fine.

“Lizzie, baby!” Granny knocks twice but doesn’t wait for me to answer before poking her head in the door. Robbie’s floating head appears right above hers barely a second later. “Get on up. We got a lot to do today.”

Robbie is nodding his head with the biggest smile I’ve seen on his face in weeks.

“Yeah, Liz, we gotta get you ready for prom!”

I throw my legs over the side of the bed and roll my eyes.

“Don’t roll your eyes at your brother, little miss.” Granny holds my door open wider with one hand so that I can walk through and nudges me forward gently with the other. Robbie throws an arm around my shoulders and gloats.

“Yeah, little miss,” Robbie smirks and plants a wet kiss on my forehead before plopping down on the couch next to Grandad. “Be nice to your sickly, can’t-attend-prom-and-is-living-vicariously-through-you little brother.”

And when I look around the living room, the whole place looks like the Macy’s prom section and DSW and the beauty shop Granny gets her hair permed at all got together and had the most massively obnoxious baby known to man. There’s a dress form in the center of the room with my mom’s prom dress on it, my granny’s sewing kit on the coffee table, a box of shoes that must be brand-new are sitting on the couch. Granny’s even pulled out her home hair dryer, like the kind they have at the shop, only you can set it on a table and fold it up when you’re finished. Grandad is in the center of it all, snoring loudly.

I’m more than a little bit blown away.

I turn to face Granny, and she has her hands on her waist and a tape measure draped around her neck. She’s still wearing her scrubs from her night shift, and I know she hasn’t been to bed yet. But she smiles at me like she knows what I’m thinking, and I realize that maybe she does.

“You’re usually a very sharp girl, Lizzie,” Granny says, winding the tape measure around my waist. Her voice is muffled by the pins between her lips. “You should’ve asked me to alter this dress earlier.”

Robbie laughs. “Last-Minute Lizzie has a ring to it, Granny.”

“Now you hush, Robert.” Granny snaps the tape measure in his direction, and it connects with his bare knee with a light snap! Now it’s my turn to laugh. “You better learn to mind business that’s yours and leave everybody else’s alone, little boy.”

Granny makes quick work of measuring my waist and bust before jotting down some quick notes.

“What?” she asks, when I open and close my mouth in surprise. “You thought I was going to let you go to prom in a homecoming dress? Not on my watch.”

I cut my eyes at Robbie, but he shrugs innocently. The little informant.

“You would have come to me earlier if you knew how difficult it is to alter velvet.” Granny’s already pinning up the gown. “I made this for your mama nearly twenty-one years ago now. She was going through a Winona Ryder phase.”

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