Coach Morris’s eyes quickly moved to me. “Is that true?”

I swallowed and then shook my head. “I don’t know what he’s talking about.”

Weston’s fingers touched me again, and I leaned forward.

Coach Morris noticed.

“Weston,” he began.

“It’s really nothing,” I said, begging him with my eyes not to call attention to me.

Coach considered my silent request and conceded, going back to his papers.

“I’d say Weston lying to you, pretending to like you, making you think he’s into you enough for you to say yes to prom so Alder could pour shit soup over your head in front of everyone is something,” Brady said.

A collective gasp echoed throughout the class, and then the whispering began.

I closed my eyes and then turned. I had to see the expression on Weston’s face for myself. I needed to hear him deny it.

His teeth were clenched. He was breathing through his nose, his nostrils flaring. He hung on to his desk as if his life depended on it, his knuckles red and then bright white.

I could feel tears burn in my eyes.

“Say it’s not true,” I whispered so softly that I practically breathed the words.

“It’s not true,” Weston said through his teeth.

“You’re a damn liar,” Brady said from the back, a smile in his voice. “I was there when they planned it.”

As if he knew what was about to happen, Coach Morris jumped over his desk at the exact moment Weston left his.

Weston wildly swiped and grabbed for Brady, held back just in time by the coach.

“You spoiled, repugnant, miserable piece of shit!” Weston screamed.

Brady sat back in his seat, watching Weston with wide eyes.

Coach Morris struggled with Weston all the way out of the classroom, and moments later the bell rang. The other students gathered their things and rushed out so they could see whatever scene was happening in the hall.

I sat in my desk, unmoving, feeling raw and exhausted. Brady was packing his backpack slowly. The anatomy posters and charts would be the only witnesses to whatever salt he was about to pour in my wound.

“Erin,” he said, his voice low and soft. “I’m a dick. I work pretty hard for the title. I’m also just low enough to know that the best way to get back at Gates is to go to prom with me.”

I froze. That wasn’t even the last thing I expected him to say. Asking me to prom wasn’t anywhere on the spectrum of things Brady Beck might say to me. I looked up at him, and for the first time, he wasn’t glaring at me with hatred or disdain.

“You…don’t have a date to prom?” I asked.

He tried somewhat of a smile, but it ended up being a small, indifferent shrug. “Not yet.”

After a long pause, I stood up, still meeting his eyes, even though he was a head taller than I. “Maybe that’s because everyone else thinks you’re a spoiled, repugnant, miserable piece of shit too.”

I walked away and didn’t look back.

Chapter 9

EVERYTHING FELT INSIDE OUT. EVEN MORE THAN USUAL. Sam had rearranged his schedule with the hospital so he was home more, and because I was down to only a couple of evenings a week at the Dairy Queen, the hours after school were spent watching movies on the couch between my parents, playing Monopoly at the kitchen table, and driving Julianne to Ponca City to shop for shelving and décor for my future dorm room.

One night, sitting between Sam and Julianne on the couch while watching The Princess Bride, Sam reached behind my shoulders to twirl Julianne’s hair. She leaned into his hand.

“How did you two meet?” I asked.

They looked at each other, and Sam paused the movie.

Julianne smiled, but Sam spoke first. “In high school.”

“You’re high school sweethearts?” I asked.

“Yes, we are,” Julianne said, looking at Sam with the same love in her eyes that I’d seen in their wedding photos.

“Even through college?”

“Yep,” Sam said. “We both went to Oklahoma University.”

“Oh,” I said. I knew that. I’d seen Julianne’s diploma framed in the study.

“But we barely saw each other. I was a Kappa Kappa Gamma, your Sam was Sig Ep, and we both had a heavy workload. We agreed that our college experience came first, and if it was meant to be, we would stay together. We experienced things on our own, but my best memories were the things I experienced with Sam.”

Sam pushed up his glasses and grinned. “Really?”

“Really.” She leaned over and patted his knee and then looked at me. “You are going to have a great time at OSU. It’s a beautiful campus.”

“I’m looking forward to it even more than before,” I said, looking down at my hands.

Julianne turned her body toward me, settling against the back cushion of the couch. “Have you talked to him?”

I shook my head. “I can’t think of anything nice to say.”

“Still angry?” Sam asked.

Julianne wrinkled her nose. “Of course she is. Still against prom?”

“I don’t really…I’d never planned on going before.”

“Maybe you could ask someone?” Sam asked.

I shrugged. “There’s no one I really want to go with.”

“What if…,” Julianne began, but then she decided against it.

“What?” I asked.

“What if we went shopping for a dress, and if you decide to go, you’re prepared. If not, we’ll sell it, or you can keep it for a formal if you join a sorority.”

“I won’t join a sorority,” I said with certainty.

She shrugged. “Then we’ll sell it.”

“Maybe,” I said.

My phone lit. It was Weston. Again. It was always Weston. I put the phone back on the coffee table.

Sam and Julianne traded glances, and then Sam lifted his arm, pointing the remote at the television and pressing the play button.

On Monday I was in a strangely good mood, and I decided it was because I was scheduled to work. Weston had stopped trying to explain things to me days before, but he looked miserable. Just as I gathered my things in front of the mural and headed to my car—which was parked on the one end of the small group of cars parked in the lot, while Weston’s truck was parked on the other end—Weston jogged up beside me.