by Sandy Hall
Luke clicked off the set. “Good point. Very fiscally responsible.”
“I think I need a shower. I feel like there was gross soot and dust in all that water at the hotel.”
“Go for it. There are extra towels on the shelf in there,” Luke said as he picked the remote back up.
Otis pressed his hand on Luke’s chest. “Or, I mean, it might be fun if you came with me or something.”
Luke sat up. “Oh. I could do that. I could totally do that. I know how to shower.”
Otis grabbed Luke’s hand and pulled him toward the bathroom as Luke shucked his shirt off along the way.
The door closed behind them with a snick.
Chapter 35
Cora
Much later on that night, Cora was camped out on the floor of Jacinta’s family room. Pretty much everyone had left except for her, Teagan, Josie, Madison, Paisley, and Kelsey. And Jacinta obviously.
The conversation had turned to online dating and how Madison had recently tried it out. Cora was sitting next to Madison and hung on every word she said.
“Are we even allowed on dating websites?” Jacinta asked, as if the idea had never even occurred to her before. It had never occurred to Cora, either.
“I’m eighteen,” Madison said, as if that solved the whole problem. “I figured I might as well give it a shot. There are zero interesting girls at our school. Zero interesting out girls at least. I have a feeling there are a few hidden pockets of lesbianism, but I’m kind of still working on my gaydar.”
“Does that really exist?” Josie asked.
“I don’t know,” Madison said, her voice less confident. “I’m pretty new to all this dating stuff. I’ve known I liked girls since probably sixth grade, but I only recently got into the idea of doing something about it.”
“Isn’t that young?” Kelsey asked, but her voice wasn’t judgmental, just curious. Cora hoped that Madison could hear her tone and not be offended.
“You know, I’ve thought about this, and people act like there’s a magical age where the switch flips and you know your sexuality. But if Cora and Perfect Boyfriend Jamie started liking each other in seventh grade, then why is it so unbelievable that I realized I was into girls around then?”
“I guess the gossip hasn’t made it all the way around,” Cora said, rolling her eyes. “But I broke up with Perfect Boyfriend Jamie.”
Everyone turned to stare at her, except for Jacinta, who she’d confessed this tidbit to in the middle of the parking lot, and Josie and Teagan, who were there when it happened.
“I wondered where he was all night,” Madison said. “Well, my point still stands. And now I need to know why you broke up with him, because I am nosy.”
“We were just different. We wanted different things. We’ve been together for so long I don’t even know what it’s like to not be Cora and Jamie, which is so stupid when you think about it,” Cora said. Then she took a deep breath. “And honestly, lately I’ve been kind of wondering if I was bi. And if I stay with Perfect Boyfriend Jamie forever, I might not get to explore that part of myself.”
Madison’s eyes went wide for a brief second, and then she nodded. “That’s cool.”
“I don’t know if it is or not,” Cora said. “I only started talking about it, and it kind of feels like I’m lying since I’m not sure. I’m still trying to figure it out.”
“You’re questioning,” Kelsey said. “Isn’t that part of what the Q is for in LGBTQ?” She turned to Madison like she was the guru.
“Yeah, queer or questioning,” Madison agreed. “That’s allowed.”
Everyone else in the room nodded and voiced their support of the idea.
“Questioning,” Cora said. “I like that.”
Lizzie
It had been a long night.
A long day.
A long week.
A long year.
But somehow it all led to Lizzie and Cameron in the town park in the middle of the night.
He offered to drive her home as the party wound down, but first they had to walk back to his car at the pizza place, which luckily wasn’t too far from where Jacinta lived. Lizzie wasn’t ready for the night to end yet anyway. She didn’t want the magic to be over before she had inhaled every last bit of it. So that’s what she did as they walked along the path by the pond. She took a picture in her mind of the evening and did her best to document it via all five senses.
“What are you thinking about?” Cameron asked.
“About how we got here.”
“Jacinta,” he said with a grin. “It’s mostly Jacinta’s fault from what I can gather.”
“Thanks, smart-ass,” she said, swatting him in the side.
He grabbed her hand and they continued their walk. Technically the park was closed between dusk and dawn, but they were feeling rebellious.
“It is kind of amazing that we went to school together forever and this is how we ended up,” Lizzie said.
“It’s amazing that we never talked, at all, ever.”
“Life is weird.”
“I was so worried we wouldn’t like each other when we met in real life.”
“Me too,” Lizzie said. “I thought for sure you’d take one look at me and head for the hills.”
“I would never do that,” he said simply. He didn’t ask why she thought he’d head for the hills. She liked him for not asking why.
They paused in the path.
“Thanks for showing up in the end,” Lizzie said as they sat down on a bench near the pond. It was so quiet, like they were the only people in the world.
“Thanks for not being mad.” He chewed his lip for a second, staring out into the pond and then looking back at her. “I guess we really should get out of here before someone calls the cops on us or something.”
Cameron stood and extended his hand to help Lizzie off the bench. Her heart raced even though they’d been holding hands all night. This time it felt different. She looked at Cam’s lips.
The moment was too perfect. The pond, the moonlight, the soft breeze teasing at the back of her neck, it was like everything was telling her to take a chance.
She closed her eyes and leaned in, just brushing her lips to his at first. But then he responded in kind and they kissed.
It was perfect.
Cameron wrapped his arms around her waist, and it felt so good to be close to him. She moved her arms up around his neck and drew him in a little closer.
It was like something out of a dream.
Exactly the way Lizzie had expected prom night to be, if she’d let herself get her hopes up.
She didn’t want it to end. But then Cameron inhaled and pulled back.
“Sorry, I hope that was okay,” he said.
“Okay? Didn’t I start that?” she asked with a grin.
“Guess it was a mutual thing,” he said.
“You should probably take me home before I decide to make out with you all night long,” Lizzie said, grabbing his hand and pulling him in the direction of Main Street and the pizzeria.
“But we could make out all night long,” he insisted.
“Or we could go home and sleep and do something tomorrow.”
“I like that idea.”
So did Lizzie.
Epilogue
Jacinta to Cora
Cora to Jacinta
Jacinta to Cora
Jacinta to Cora
Cora to Jacinta
Jacinta to Cora
Cora to Jacinta
Jacinta to Cora
Cora to Jacinta
Jacinta to Cora
Cora to Madison
Madison to Cora
Cora to Madison
Madison to Otis
Otis to Madison
Madison to Otis
Otis to Madison
Madison to Otis
Otis to Lizzie
Lizzie to Otis
Otis to Lizzie
Lizzie to Otis
Otis to L
izzie
Lizzie to Otis
Otis to Lizzie
Lizzie to Paisley
Paisley to Lizzie
Lizzie to Paisley
Paisley to Lizzie
Lizzie to Paisley
Paisley to Henry
Henry to Paisley
Paisley to Henry
Henry to Paisley
Paisley to Henry
Henry to Paisley
Paisley to Henry
Henry to Paisley
Paisley to Henry
Henry to Cameron
Cameron to Henry
Henry to Cameron
Cameron to Lizzie
Lizzie to Cameron
Cameron to Lizzie
Lizzie to Cameron
Cameron to Lizzie
Lizzie to Cameron
Cameron to Lizzie
Lizzie to Cameron
Cameron to Lizzie
Lizzie to Cameron
Cameron to Lizzie
Lizzie to Cameron
Acknowledgments
The first and biggest heap of gratitude goes to the Swoon Reads family, because without them there would be no book.
A gigantic thank-you to Jean Feiwel for entrusting me with the idea of “The Prom meets Love Actually.” A supersized thank-you to Holly West for everything. I honestly don’t know what I would do without her. She’s like my security blanket in the big, scary world. Further thanks to Lauren Scobell and Rachel Diebel for their incredibly helpful and motivating thoughts and comments as we drafted this book.
Many thanks to my library girls, Katie Haake, Kate Jaggers, Melanie Moffitt, Michelle Petrasek, and Chelsea Reichert, for spending one hilariously awesome evening trying to come up with titles. “Promomatopoeia” lives forever in my heart.
Thanks to Shayla Flournoy for giving Paisley a much deserved story line of her own and for being a receptacle for complaints on a daily basis. Thanks, of course, to Lauren Velella, for the draft reading and for loving everything I write to the point where I don’t even really trust her opinions anymore.
Thanks to my family, especially my mom, for all of their love and support.
Last but not least, thanks to my readers who stick around from book to book and always come back for more. Thank you from the very bottom of my heart.
Share your own manuscript or dive between the pages at swoonreads.com
About the Author
SANDY HALL is the author of A Little Something Different and Signs Point to Yes. She is a teen librarian from New Jersey, where she was born and raised, and has a BA in Communication and a Master of Library and Information Science from Rutgers University. When she isn’t writing or teen librarian-ing, she enjoys reading, marathoning TV shows, and taking long scrolls through Tumblr. You can sign up for email updates here.
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Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Copyright
Copyright © 2018 by Sandy Hall
A SWOON READS BOOK
An imprint of Feiwel and Friends and Macmillan Publishing Group, LLC
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010
swoonreads.com
All rights reserved.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Hall, Sandy (Librarian), author.
Title: A prom to remember / Sandy Hall.
Description: First edition. | New York : Swoon Reads, 2018. | Summary: From seven viewpoints, relates the events of Senior Prom at Roosevelt High School.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017041901 | ISBN 9781250119148 (hardcover)
Subjects: | CYAC: Proms—Fiction. | High schools—Fiction. | Schools—Fiction. | Dating (Social customs)—Fiction. | Friendship—Fiction.
Classification: LCC PZ7.H14844 Pro 2018 | DDC [Fic]—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017041901
Our eBooks may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at (800) 221-7945 ext. 5442 or by e-mail at [email protected].
First hardcover edition, 2018
eBook edition, April 2018
eISBN 9781250119131
