by Liz Botts
I nearly hit the car in front of me. “Are you kidding?”
“No,” Hayley said, drawing patterns in the frost on the window. “Why would I be kidding?”
“Um, no offense but why would Mike ask you to prom?” I said, easing off the brake. “You’re only a freshman.”
“Duh, I’m aware of that fact,” Hayley said. “But there’s no rule that says a freshman can’t go if an upperclassman asks her.”
A thick moment of silence dropped between us. “Did, um, Mike tell you he was going to ask you?”
I peeked at Hayley just in time to see her shake her head in disgust. “We’ve only been dating for like the past two months. Where have you been? Why wouldn’t he ask me?”
She had a point, of course. She and Mike were practically attached at the hip. But come on, the guy was a senior. It was his last chance to have a really great prom, and there was no way Hayley would be a fun prom date. She’d no doubt make him wear a pink cummerbund or something equally outrageous. Ugh, what if she made him wear a pink shirt? I just couldn’t see Mike, who hung out with all the theater kids because he was a major tech geek who loved building scenery and such, enjoying that type of thing. I’d never quite understood what he saw in my baby sister, and I just didn’t see how he’d follow through asking her to prom.
“Do you think he’ll do something big?” I asked because I couldn’t think of anything else to say.
“He better,” Hayley said. “Everyone knows the bigger the better. I’m hoping he does something at a game.”
Hayley ended the conversation at that point by flipping on the car radio. She cruised through a bunch of stations before deciding on one that was playing a drippy love song. Settling back in her seat, she gazed out into the frosty night and sighed contentedly. I tried not to focus on the little nips of jealousy crossing my path.
