“As my future maid of honor, you’re obligated to tell me if the dress I pick is as atrocious as this one,” she’d said, cringing at a couture dress made exclusively of feathers.
“Wait. You want me to be your maid of honor?” I asked, eyes wide and hopeful. We’d only been friends for a month.
Being her friend already felt like winning the lottery. But being her designated future maid of honor was something entirely different. I felt like a teen hero in a fantasy novel who was prophesied to save the world. The chosen one.
And that’s when it hits me. Kassie isn’t here tonight. Where is she?
“Mom? Who’s in my wedding party?” I ask.
“Your wedding party?” she repeats, bewildered. “You decided to have one person each, remember? J. T. has Ollie, you have Nori.”
I shake my head. “No. I wouldn’t leave Kassie out.”
She shoots me a funny look. “Kassie? You haven’t spoken to Kassie in years. You aren’t friends anymore.”
“We’re not?” I blink, unable to compute.
“At least, not that I’m aware of. You drifted apart. Are you sure you’re okay?”
My mouth dries and my stomach twists and turns, as though someone’s wrung it like a dishcloth.
Drifted apart. The words grate, refusing to settle in my gut. There must be a reason. Some sort of falling-out. Bad blood. A fight or disagreement that knocked us off course. Drifting apart is neutral, almost cold. Did we really just apathetically decide not to put any more effort in? That our friendship was no longer worth it? Somehow apathy hurts more than any theoretical fight we could ever have. Because here’s the thing. You fight with people you love. You ignore people you don’t care about. Kind of like Dad.
I clutch my gut, afraid I might hurl.
How could this even happen? I don’t believe for one moment that I’d just let us “drift apart” for no solid reason.
Mom keeps talking, but her words are echoey and garbled, as though we’re stuck in a fishbowl. All I can hear is the blood rushing through my ears. I repeat the words again silently. Kassie and I haven’t spoken in years. We aren’t friends anymore. Everything has changed.
I need to get out of here. Now.
SIXTEEN
Please work. Please work,” I plead to whatever cosmic force is to blame for this mess. Beads of sweat pour down my forehead as I scan my pass on the school door for the fifth time. No dice.
Renner sighs from his perch, slumped against the door. “It’s locked, Char.”
After the bathroom at Ollie’s, Renner and I went straight to the school with an unspoken urgency, entirely forgetting that it’s locked after hours for security purposes. I learned this when Ms. Chouloub and I got locked out after Halloween dance prep. We had to store the leftover decor in her car overnight.
I rattle the door again, kicking it for good measure, as if it will magically open with my rage.
“We’ll have to come back tomorrow morning. Students will be here to finish decorating before prom,” Renner says.
“But we can’t wait until tomorrow morning. I can’t stay here!” My voice echoes into the dark night.
I can’t stay in a world where I’ve lost thirteen years and I’m marrying Renner. And I can’t stay in a world where Kassie isn’t my friend. It feels criminal that she wasn’t at my bachelorette. And even more criminal that I didn’t choose her as my maid of honor. She should be by my side, taking pictures with me, holding my bouquet during the ceremony, telling me to straighten my back, and giving a charming speech about how she’s my real other half.
“You think I want to stay here?” Renner counters.
“There has to be another way. We could go through an open window.”
“All the windows are closed. I already looked,” he says.
“Well, if we can’t go through . . .” Panicked, I hastily scan our surroundings for anything. Literally anything. My sight zeroes in on a large rock in the garden along the pathway. I like to think I’m the opposite of impulsive. I always think before acting, probably too much. But right now, that cautious side of me is drowned out by desperation. Before I know it, the rock is in my hand and I’m flinging it toward the window.
Renner screams something I can’t hear as the glass shatters into a million pieces, shards of all sizes clattering to the pavement.
Holy crap. I just shattered a window and tried to break into the school like a common criminal.
Who am I?
A piercing alarm sounds, and we both cover our ears to block the screeching.