it to his mouth. I’m pretty sure Andrew knows how to feed himself. He’s been doing it pretty successfully for like eighteen years.
“He’s not a baby,” I say, looking away as Cecilia takes the spoon out of his mouth and drops it back into the container of strawberry yogurt. She ignores me.
“Do you like Tootsie Pops?” she asks him, reaching into her backpack. “Mr. Savoy was giving them out in Spanish earlier.”
“Hell yeah,” he says, and she pulls out two.
“Grape or watermelon?”
“Watermelon,” he says, and she hands it to him.
“I like Tootsie Pops too,” I say, just for fun, because I know she’s not going to give one to me.
“You want some?” Andrew asks, pulling it out of his mouth and offering it in my direction.
I make a face. “Gross, no, put that back in your mouth.”
“I want some,” Cecilia says, and she leans forward and wraps her lips gently around the top of the lollipop, sucking it in a way that makes me wish I were blind.
Luckily, they’re interrupted as Ava barrels over and crashes down into a seat at the table, her eyes wild, purple Easter hair flying in all directions. “They put up the posters for prom!” she squeals, like this is the greatest news she’s ever heard in her entire life.
At the word prom, Cecilia sits up straighter in her chair.
Ava turns to her, pressing her hands down flat on the table, like she’s trying not to float away. “The theme is Under the Sea, which is not very creative, but I bet they’ll have a bubble machine, which is all I’ve ever really wanted out of life.”
“When is it?” I ask, and they turn to me like I’ve just said a bad word.
“You don’t know?” Ava narrows her eyes.
“It’s right after you guys get out,” Cecilia answers, finally acknowledging my existence.
The seniors usually get to leave for summer a few weeks before the rest of the school, and this year we had so many snow days that Cecilia will be stuck here without us until almost July.
“It’s on June twelfth!” Ava throws her arms up into the air, flailing around on her chair. “We only have like two months to find dates!”
I’ve seriously never seen her this excited, and that’s saying something with Ava. She’s moving around like she’s having an exorcism; I wouldn’t be surprised if her head started to spin in a circle. Andrew and I make eye contact across the table, and I start laughing, because I know from the tilt of his head and the twitching of his lips that he’s probably picturing the same thing.
“If there’s a bubble machine, I’ll be there,” he says.
“Are we supposed to wear costumes?” I ask, picturing the matching mermaid dresses and coconut bras that are sure to haunt our prom pictures for the next decade.
“I’m going as a lobster,” he says.
“No, you have to wear something nice.” Cecilia turns to him and lays a hand on his shoulder. He tenses right as she says it, and she lifts her hand and looks away. His face has gone slightly pale, and I can tell he feels uncomfortable because he knows she thinks he’s going to ask her. I know he won’t, because two months is a long way off. He could never stay with someone that long.
“Who are you going with?” Hannah asks at lunch. I immediately think of Dean and then try to wipe the idea from my mind. I’ve never been into school dances because of all the awkward small talk and double-sided tape and the not wearing comfortable shoes, but now that there’s a potential guy involved—for the first time in my life—even I’m a little excited about the idea. I don’t know what’s happened to me. I’m a monster.
“She’s going with James Dean, obviously,” Ava says, taking a sip of her smoothie. At least, she claims it’s a smoothie—it looks like brown sludge and is so thick she’s struggling to suck it up the straw.
“I never thought you’d find something you couldn’t suck,” Danielle says dryly,