Page 21 of All These Beautiful Strangers

“Re-lax,” Drew said, drawing out the syllables. “You girls are always my first choice. But, you know, you don’t appreciate me in a dress the way the boys do. And also, I love you all dearly, but I really don’t want to make out with you.”

“Dalton asked Charlie to the dance,” Stevie cooed.

“What? When?” Drew chirped.

“You didn’t tell me that,” Yael said, and she gave my forearm a pinch.

“Ouch,” I said, rubbing my skin.

“It happened in the library the other day, and she turned him down,” Stevie said.

“You turned down Royce Dalton?” Yael asked, her eyes wide.

I glared at Stevie. “Apparently, sarcasm and humor are lost on some people,” I said. “He wasn’t serious.”

“He was too serious,” Stevie said. “I bet you could get him to ask you again if you encouraged him a little. He seemed so heartbroken when you blew him off.”

“I don’t know,” Drew said, biting her thumbnail and considering. “I heard he was going with McKenna St. Clare. She was going on and on about what boutonniere to get him to match her dress in French class this morning.”

“Oh,” Stevie said, deflated. She looked at me with soulful eyes, like she felt sorry for me—like I cared that Dalton was going to homecoming with McKenna St. Clare instead of me.

McKenna St. Clare was a sophomore—the prettiest girl in her class. She was tall and waiflike, with green, almond-shaped eyes.

“Yeah,” I said, making a big show of rolling my eyes. “He sounds like he was really heartbroken that I turned him down. He must have waited a whole two minutes before asking someone else.”

I was trying to sound nonchalant about the whole thing, but my joke landed wrong. I sounded bitter, which was unfair, because I wasn’t bitter. I wasn’t.

Yael bit her lip. “Royce Dalton would make a poor dance partner anyway. He’s too tall for you.”

“Yeah,” Drew echoed. “He’s just so . . .”

She trailed off, searching for a derogatory adjective to make me feel better. When she couldn’t find one, she deflected.

“Hey, help me out of this dress, will you?” she asked me, turning around.

I tugged at her zipper.

I couldn’t stay there and listen to their pity, their lousy but well-intentioned attempts at making me feel better that I wasn’t going to the dance with Dalton. Especially since I didn’t want to go to the dance with him anyway. I didn’t.

“I have some errands to run in town,” I said, throwing my phone in my purse. “I’ll catch up with you guys later, okay?”

“Want me to come with you?” Stevie asked, her voice all soft and cushiony, like I was some fragile creature about to break.

“No,” I snapped.

She visibly jerked back as if I had slapped her.

“I mean, no, thanks,” I said, forcing myself to smile. “I’ll just see you later.”

“Sure,” she said.

I left, knowing they would probably start talking about me in pitying tones as soon as I was out of earshot, which was really annoying. And what was even more annoying was that they honestly thought I would go for someone like Royce Dalton in the first place. Royce Dalton—the biggest man-whore at Knollwood. Did they honestly think I would go to the dance with him and we would do all that sappy couple stuff? Dalton had practically written the smooth operator playbook. I was sure he would get me a corsage that perfectly matched my dress. When he was walking me home, he would notice that I was cold, and he would take off his jacket and drape it around my shoulders. And when we got to my door, we would make awkward small talk until he kissed me. We would have a nice time, I could picture it.

But, unlike my friends, I could also picture what would happen next. As soon as I let my guard down, Dalton would move on to the next pretty girl, and I would be just like Harper Cartwright, making the stink eye at him from across the way at A’s meetings. No, thank you. Hard pass. McKenna St. Clare could have him, for all I cared.

At Mimi’s, the local grocery store, I put a pound of raw bacon and a box of Ziploc baggies on the checkout counter and called my sister in Reading.

“Is everything okay?” Seraphina answered my call slightly panicked. It was rare for us to call one another, when texting took such little effort.