• “So you’re Katie’s friend,” purrs the specter in my ear. “You’re shaking.”
• Katie knows exactly what she’s doing. I can trust her. “Jay, this is the girl I was telling you about.” Her voice is distant, as though she’s miles away from me, instead of inches. To me, she says, “Andy, this is Jarrod Hale. He’ll be taking care of you.”
• Jarrod Hale has to be six feet tall, at least. He’s pale as death, from the exposed flesh of his chest, to the silver of his eyes. Tattoos lace his arms, but - inebriated, as I am - I can make no sense of the images. He has the Elvis do, and what appears to be a feather dangling from his left ear.
• “Hello there, Andy.” His voice is deep, with the mangled rasp of a chain smoker. He leans his forehead against mine, sending a shiver – not of pleasure – down my spine. Apparently he’s cold as death, too.

• My companion and I bend to retrieve it at the same time. He snags it first. I freeze with my fingertips and inch from the back of his hand. Tucking a curl behind my ear, I glance up to meet a pair of pale blue eyes.
• The whole look, from the sideburns and Elvis Presley-style haircut, - just swap the brown for jet black -, to the tattoos crisscrossing his arms, the over-six-foot height, and the ungodly lankiness, resembles a page torn from the book of Andy.
• “Did he at least have a name? What did he want?” “Leo,” I mutter absentmindedly… “He asked me if I had a date to Prom. Apparently we have, like, five classes together.”

• His tone is gentle, riddled with underlying requests. Look at me, blink, remember to breathe. Assure me that I’m not hurting you.
• In the farthest, quietest recess of my mind, I wait for Darius to say something and distract me, but the foremost part of my mind is too preoccupied crying to notice when he doesn’t. He simply sits there on his couch, probably with elbows propped on his knees, and listens to me cry. Written in those sobs are all the feelings I can’t express with words, because there are none. Darius knows that, so he sits, he waits, and he listens.
• He’s watching me warily, from the corners of his eyes. Don’t go there, he says. Don’t go to the dark place where proportions are skewed and hopelessness reigns. We’re going to get through this. You and me, together.
• Comfortable silence falls over Office 215. In that silence, Darius reassures me that I’ll be okay, no matter what the world throws at me after today, and I agree with him.

• “I’m gonna go make some lunch. You guys want anything?” “What do you have?” I perk up. “Hot pockets,” he says simply. “Lots and lots of hot pockets.”
• “You picked a good night to stay late. I’ll be making my famous lasagna, as prepared by the renowned Mousier Stouffers.”

• “I don’t care how funny Shell’s face is.” “You should care,” Shell quips. “I have the Robin Williams of faces.”
• “I’m surprised you’re taking it so seriously,” says Asher. “I didn’t think you were into this kind of thing.” “She’s studying fashion, you idiot,” Shell leaps to my defense.
• “Could you two girls continue this discussion in the car?” He fixes me with his concerned puppy gaze. “That way, I can actively participate.” “Right before driving us into a tree,” Rochelle scoffs.
• “So? What’s with the sad face?” “That’s not a sad face, Shell,” Asher quips, “It’s just her face.” “Gee, Ash,” she retorts, “where do you hide this keen intuition?”

• “I can’t wait to see your dress!” “I can’t wait to see it, either.”
• “And your hair, oh my god. What color number is it?” “Bleach.”
• “I cannot wait until you see my dress. You’ll literally die.” … “Let’s hope not.”
• “Can I kiss you?” … “I don’t know, can you?”
• “We need to talk.” “Hi to you too.”
• “You’re calm now, and confident. I wasn’t expecting you to be so much… fun.” “Right, ‘cause I’m usually such a drag.”
• “Twelve years of torture, over!” “Now onto four years of frat parties and college boys.”

• Take, for instance, Tabitha Stratford falling in step beside me as I search the cafeteria for a table, flanked once again by the nameless henchwomen.
• Then she introduces her entourage. “This is Betty,” she jerks her head to indicate the Asian girl, then the brunette, “and this is Morgan.”
• Tabby offers me a brief reprieve by introducing me to the varied cast of characters. First, there’s Jeremy Lin, Betty’s boyfriend, and the only known exception to the rule that not all Asians are academically inclined. Apart from Thai, of course. Then there’s Derek Smith, the should-be-but-won’t-be catalog model dating Morgan, cheerleader Jessica, another one of my prom queen competitors, her boyfriend Matt Boyer, student body president Tracy Jordan, and her boyfriend, Dallas Kirk.
• Somewhere in the middle of the meal, we’re joined by a hauntingly familiar face. He pulls up a chair beside Tabby, greets her with a pitifully unenthusiastic, “hey babe,” and promptly shoves his tongue down her throat. They remained suctioned to each other’s faces for approximately thirty more seconds before Tabby pushes him away. “There you are, Chris!” she chirrups.
• Once Tabby’s snatched me away, she switches into full-on social butterfly mode. The new faces she introduces me to flash by far too quickly to settle in my memory. There’s Karen and Sharon and Donny and Blake and Michael and Rich and Carmen and Scarlet and this guy and his girlfriend and his girlfriend’s brother’s uncle’s nephew’s aunt.
• I do my best to commit the names to memory, but realistically, I’ll have forgotten them all by tomorrow.

• Erin Guthry is exactly the sort of person you’d expect. She obviously heads the prom committee because she has no hope of election herself, but she’s bursting at the seams with pep.
• When I meet with her, her baby pink lips - practically molded from gloss - part over Crest-whitened teeth and her mousy brown eyes squint to see me through the coke-bottle lenses barely clinging to the tip of her nose. Her tousled, ash-blond locks are in dire need of conditioner, and her vintage throwback wardrobe looks like the byproduct of an intimate relationship between Zooey Deschanel, Taylor Swift, and Wal-Mart, but she’s clean and effervescent, so my heart goes out to her.

• I almost wonder how Asher is paying for this on minimum wage, but then I remember his parents are practically wealthy enough to have invented nuclear fusion.
• We are not the Rineharts. We cannot buy luxury apartments on a whim. We don’t live in an infant mansion, epitomizing suburban bliss.
• Call Asher. Beg him for a thousand-dollar loan.

• Brain cannot cope with loneliness, brain invents non-existent desire for first compassionate, attractive male it comes across.
• Blackmail could have serious disciplinary repercussions. Like, expulsion serious.
• People think only what they wish – there’s no point in trying to change their minds. The only thing I can control is how I chose to react.
• … I expect everyone to have it in for me. But why? Why would anyone? I’m already a broken shell of a girl – what’s the point of breaking me further?
• I chock it up to the prestige of the restaurant. The fancier one is, the less actual food it serves.