people are beginning to make my skin prickle.
I’m not really the dancing sort of person. This isn’t my scene at all. There’s a reason why I escaped the ExcelsiCon Ball when I could. There are too many people, and too-loud music. My friends must notice my discomfort, because Quinn squeezes my hand.
“Do you need to go?” they mouth.
I shake my head. No, not until I see Quinn crowned. I can last that long. So Annie and Quinn lead me out onto the dance floor, even though I can feel that some people are staring—how many of them went online last night to look up the lies on TMZ? The video? The hot takes about how I was coerced into working for Vance Reigns? I want to tell them all that he isn’t like that; that yes, he sometimes makes some very stupid mistakes, but he wants to get better—and why can’t people let him?
If you aren’t allowed to grow, then what’s the point of changing at all?
Even after all of this, I believe that. Not that he has a chance in hell with me now, but you know, it’s the thought that counts. If I ever see him again I’m going to punch him right in the—
“Ooh, I love this song!” Annie shouts at us, and shimmies in her purple dress. I’m terrible at dancing, and I mostly just weave back and forth, but my best friends take me by my hands and spin me around, and I find myself laughing at it all. Because the last few months have been so incredibly confusing. I fell in love with a boy in a mask whose name I didn’t know. I was asked to Homecoming by one of the most popular guys in school because he felt sorry for me. I fought my way into a Starfield library. I destroyed a nearly priceless book. My best friend decided to run for Homecoming Overlord. I became friends with the most notorious bad boy of the internet.
And he gave me back a piece of my mother I thought was lost forever.
If this is where this chapter ends, I wouldn’t really mind, because now I know I have plenty more chapters to write. I thought my story ended when my mom died—because I didn’t think there was a book without her.
Because I know it was just the ending of a chapter. It was the close of part one. Even though Mom is gone, she’s still in every word of my story, because hers lives on in me. It lives on in the books that she read, and the ones she shared, and the people she met. Like mine will. There is a whole universe out there waiting to tell our stories. And for the first time since she left, life doesn’t feel like the end of a sentence. It feels like a prologue, and I have my two best friends beside me to follow wherever that adventure takes me.
And that, I decide, is what my college application essay will be about.
After the next song, the music quiets, and the principal climbs onto the stage with a bunch of note cards. She clears her throat and leans into the microphone. “Hello, students, I’m glad to see you all here tonight. Go, Wildcats!”
The student body cheers.
“Now’s the announcement you’ve all been waiting for—it’s time to announce our Homecoming King and Queen!”
Everyone cheers. I take Quinn by their hand and squeeze it tightly. They squeeze back. “Just so you know,” I whisper, “even if Garrett wins, you’re still Homecoming Overlord to me.”
The principal opens the letter. “And our Homecoming King and Queen are…”
Annie and I lean close to Quinn, hoping, praying—
“Garrett Taylor and Myrella Johnson!” she reads, and she sounds a little disappointed. My stomach feels like a lead rock in my toes. Somewhere in the crowd, I hear Garrett crow and make his way up to the stage.
Annie and I press our cheeks onto Quinn’s shoulders. They sigh. “Well, we tried.”
“I just want to thank you for voting for me,” Garrett says, before the Homecoming Queen takes the microphone out of his hands.
“This is a dream come true, thank you so much,” Myrella cries into the microphone, and honestly I’m relieved she won. “My mother took this crown, and I’m so happy that I get to have it, too. I can’t wait to tell her.” There is a commotion near the back of the gym, and I glance over my shoulder to see what’s wrong, but