The Anti-Prom - By Abby McDonald Page 0,30

get my dress back? I can’t show up back at prom wearing this.”

“Forgive me,” she drawls, sarcastic. “I forgot about your dress codes.” Jolene pulls a handful of dry-clean-only silk out of her bag and tosses it over to me like it’s some kind of rag.

“Careful!” I yelp, snatching it before it can touch the ground. “Jesus. Do you know what would happen if this got ruined?”

“You’d have to charge another?” Jolene seems amused, but there’s nothing funny about my mom and her “my family came to this country with only the clothes on their backs so show some respect for your possessions” speech, even if she does deliver it in a designer outfit with our maid on the other line.

“I’ll be inside,” I tell Jolene instead, stalking away.

“Don’t be long!” Meg calls after me. “I’m going to miss my curfew.”

Of course she is.

The place is empty when I get inside, just long aisles of junk food and auto supplies waiting under harsh neon strip lights. A teenage boy slouches behind the register, flipping through a car magazine while he chews on a strip of packaged jerky.

“Hey.” I manage a grin. “Do you have a bathroom?”

“Customers only.” He sighs. Then he looks up. “Uh, s-sure,” he stutters, blinking at my bare legs. “Out back, just over —”

“Thanks!” I’m already scooting to the back of the store when my cell rings. It’s Nikki.

“Where are you?” she demands as soon as I pick up. “I’ve called, like, a hundred times.”

I can hear chatter and laughter in the background, and the fierce thump of music. The fun they’re having without me.

“Sorry,” I exclaim brightly, pushing into the stall. It’s scattered with wet toilet paper, grafitti scrawled on every wall, and a foul smell coming from the corner. Awesome. “Fashion emergency,” I say, trying not to touch anything. Or breathe. “My, uh, bra snapped.”

“No way! You poor thing.” There’s a pause, and then I hear the echo of her retelling the others. “No, she had to go home. Uh-huh, I know!”

“I’m on my way back now,” I say loudly, starting to peel off the football jersey. “I’ll be, like, five minutes.”

“No, that’s why I called — we’re on our way to Brianna’s.”

“Already?” I stop. “But it’s not even midnight.” My heart sinks.

“Uh-huh.” Nikki is still distracted. “See you there!”

I hang up, suddenly feeling very alone. While we’ve been running around playing dress-up and sneaking Kaitlin’s diary, I’ve missed everything. My whole prom, over. They’re partying in a limo, while I’m stuck in a dirty gas station bathroom far away from all the action.

Was it even worth it?

I was expecting it to be a victory. All night, ever since I found them together, I’ve been focused so hard on making Kaitlin and Cameron pay, like that will make everything OK somehow. If I can prove it, if I expose her for the lying, cheating, backstabbing bitch she really is, if we do it without any blame touching me — then I’ll be fine. I’ll win. But standing there in Jason’s room, delivering the evidence that would see them crash and burn, I felt nothing.

No, not nothing. I felt the same as when I saw him kissing her. Lost, like everything has slipped out of order and I don’t know how to get it all back again. Best friend, boyfriend, the whole social scene — I worked so hard to get everything perfect, the way high school is supposed to be. And now I’m left with this ache in my chest, knowing that it was all a lie, and I was dumb enough to believe them.

“Bliss, get a move on!” Jolene hammers on the door.

I swallow. “OK, OK,” I yell back, quickly shimmying back into my dress. Unlocking the door, I take a gasp of almost-fresh air. “There, I’m done.”

Jolene pushes past me, not even waiting for me to close the door before she strips off her pajama set and pulls the pink ruffles back on.

“I thought you hated that thing,” I say quietly, checking my reflection in the soap-smeared glass.

“I do,” she says, “but it’ll cause way more questions if I go home without it.”

There’s a timid knock, and then Meg pokes her head in too. “Is there room for me?”

“Can’t you wait —” I start to say, but Jolene waves her in.

“Zip me up. Please.”

We shift over, crammed in the tiny room while Meg complains about the smell and fusses with the catch on the back of Jolene’s dress. I ignore them, trying to