“Cameron?” Her voice was quiet, but it reverberated all the way down to my soul.
“Y- yeah, sorry.” I closed the sketch pad and handed back to her.
“The final thing will be much better.” Hailee tucked her hair behind her ear.
I knew I should probably say something, but I was speechless. “Come on,” I managed to choke out, and we walked the rest of the way in thick silence.
It wasn’t that I wanted her to think I didn’t like the sketch, I did. I liked it a whole lot, but it had done something to me. She had done something to me.
And I didn’t know how to undo it—if I even wanted to.
“Okay, this is it,” I said, shouldering the door to the storage room. Hailee’s eyes fell on the dusty boxes.
“There’s a lot of stuff here.”
“Yup. Coach is kind of a hoarder. Good luck with that.” I offered her a smile, but she didn’t return it.
Shit, I was being a dick. “So, Homecoming is this week.” I tried to change tack. “Do you have a date?”
“A date?” The words got stuck in her throat.
“Yeah, you know, a guy asks you out, you dress up all pretty and he brings you flowers, and you pose for awkward photos.” Stop. Talking. Asshole.
“Isn’t that Prom?”
“Same thing.” I shrugged suddenly feeling like a complete idiot. “So do you? Have one, I mean?” Why was I pushing this? I didn’t want to hear about Hailee and her date.
“I do actually.”
She did?
Fuck.
“Flick.” Hailee frowned, watching me with a strange expression. “I’m going with Flick.”
“Oh right.” Relief flooded me, easing the tightness in my chest. “That’s… nice.” Nice?
“Are you okay, you’re acting a little strange?”
“Me? I’m fine.” I shrugged, backing up, but I hit the corner of a stack of boxes. “Shit.” My hands shot out and I managed to steady them. When I looked back at Hailee, she was fighting a smile.
“So, I should, uh, go. I should go.” What the fuck was wrong with me?
It was the damn sketch. It had voodoo powers or something because I felt all off-balance.
“Okay.” She watched, her expression a lot more playful than it was five minutes ago.
“See you around?” My voice went up at the end making it sound like a question and I wanted nothing more than to bang my head against the wall. But before Hailee concluded I was completely certifiable, I gave her a little salute and got the hell out of there.
Hailee
“Are you sure about this?” I took a deep breath, running my hands down the pale-silver, fit and flare dress Flick had insisted I wear. It was the first one I’d tried on and she had leaped off the bed, shrieking with delight, declaring it ‘the one’. But even now, in my kitten heels and subtle makeup, I wasn’t sure.
“I think I’m going to throw up,” I said, clutching my stomach as we approached the gym.
“Hails.” Flick whirled around, the layers of her own dress fanning out like a cascading waterfall. “You’ve got this. It isn’t ninth grade. You’re not going to walk in there and be the laughing stock of the school. It’s senior year. We’re seniors and we deserve this. Okay?” She gave me a warm smile
.