“Hey, Hannah,” he said. “I wanted to ask you something.”
“Okay.” Her voice came out smaller than she intended.
“Would you go to prom with me?”
The hallway noise behind her faded into something muffled and far away. She was certain she had misheard him. She waited for the version of the sentence that made more sense. It didn’t come.
“You want me to go to prom. With you.”
He smiled — not the public smile he gave at games and hallway conversations, but something quieter. “Yeah. I do.”
“Why?” The word came out sharper than she meant it to.
He looked at her directly, without the practiced indifference most people applied in conversations they didn’t want to be in.
“Because you’ve always seemed kind. And I’ve watched how people treat you for a long time. It isn’t right.”
She searched his face for the joke. For the edge, the smirk, the slight widening of the eyes that would tell her this was entertainment for someone nearby with a phone. She didn’t find it. At least not obviously.
“Okay,” she said. “Yes.”
The word left her mouth before she had fully decided to say it.
What Megan Said at Lunch, and the Moment Brittany Found Her in the Bathroom
At lunch, Megan set down her sandwich the second Hannah finished telling her.
“Caleb Hartwell.” Her voice was flat and careful.
“Yes.”
“He just appeared at your locker out of nowhere.”
“Yes.”
“Hannah.” Megan lowered her voice. “People like Caleb don’t just decide things like that. There’s always a reason. Please be careful.”
Hannah pushed her tray to the side. The cafeteria noise pressed in from all directions. A part of her had known this was coming from the moment Caleb walked away. A bigger part of her did not want Megan to be right.
That afternoon, Hannah went into the second-floor bathroom to splash water on her face and spend two minutes in a space where nobody was looking at her. She had barely turned on the faucet when the door opened behind her.
Brittany walked in with the particular energy of someone arriving rather than entering. Her perfume reached Hannah first. She stopped behind her, looking at both their reflections in the mirror.
“So. Prom with Caleb.”
