Chapter Seven

It was the next day, and people knew about the 'milk incident'. Maybe it was worse that there was no photographic evidence anymore because people came up with their own theories and exaggerations on how bad the 'explosion' was.

Gerald played into the hype, going into detail on how it all went down. When people turned to me to confirm later on, well I made jokes about it.

It really wasn't a big deal. Except for the fact that my tits were briefly out for the world to see and Sabrina smashed two phones into smithereens.

But the rumour mill was low on material. There was no hot gossip except for milk girl.

I sat in the back row of our English Lit class and told myself that because we were about to start a new unit, I could be organized with my highlighters and binders. This time, I'd keep up with the reading. A fresh start. Who was I kidding? I had all winter break to do the advanced reading. It wasn't even glanced at or thought about once.

"Hi, Sam," Maisie said, standing in front of my table, clutching her bag to her stomach. "Can I sit here?"

"Yeah, sure, if you want," I said, keenly aware of yesterday's conversation and the fact she sprinted out of the canteen as a result.

She seemed like a nice girl. Really, the only thing I knew about her was the fact she threw coming out parties with her friends. Other than that, she was mostly a stranger. A cute stranger with a studded nose piercing and bright pink hair.

"Everyone's talking about you and Sabrina today," she said while taking out her essentials for the class.

"Yeah? What kind of things are they saying?" I asked.

Her cheeks began to match her hair as she laughed awkwardly. "You know what sort of things."

I opened my notebook and doodled in the corner of the page. "It's probably not true. Other than the fact she gave me a coat and steamrolled those boys? Everything else is rumours, probably."

"Probably," she repeated. "I never saw you as the type to care about things like proms."

Thank God. Talking about Sabrina with her seemed wrong. "I'm full of surprises."

"I noticed," she said, pushing her hair back. "So, you're going to it then?" She raised an eyebrow, a wiggle of it soon followed and it funny because she didn't seem like the type to like things like proms either.

"More than likely," I said. "Have to see the night in action, I guess if I'm going to be spending so much time making it awesome."

"Interesting," she said.

"Oh?"

"I probably shouldn't be asking this after yesterday's. . . embarrassment. My embarrassment. Not yours. Not that you were embarrassed yesterday by the milk incident . . . Wow. I brought that up. That's embarrassing. Again. For me. Not you. Anyway. Date? Will you go on a date with me? That was hard to say."

And I thought that I was a nervous wreck, but she was cute. On the outside, with her appearance and the way she embraced her style and sexuality so openly, it led me to assume she was this confident girl. Maybe she was normally when she wasn't asking girls out on dates.

Her fumbling set me at ease. It wasn't until she started rambling that my shoulders relaxed. They'd been stiff since she asked if she could sit beside me, apparently.

"Let me get this straight," I said, making her snort which in turn made me laugh.

"Please don't," she joked.

"You hear me spilling milk on myself, and that made you want to ask me on a date?"

"I shouldn't have mentioned the milk," she muttered.

"What did you have in mind?"

"What?"

"For the date?"

"I forgot to plan for the possibility of you saying yes."

I breathed out slowly so that I wouldn't burst out into laughter. "Okay. How about I give you my number, and we'll work something out?"

"Okay, yes, thank you for taking the wheel."

"Pass me your phone," I said.

She didn't hesitate to whip it out of her pocket and unlocked it before shoving it into my hand. I put in my number before briefly thinking about what to put my name under.

"The milkman," she read when she got her phone back.

"Seemed fitting," I said.

Finally, Mrs. Cunningham derailed our conversation by storming into the room and dropping an abundance of books at her desk. "Here we are. Unit six. This might be an introductory class, but that doesn't mean you can zone out. I'm talking to you, Jack. Now get your books out and let's start. As I explained in my email to you . . ."

Yeah, it was definitely the class to zone out. My brain was still whizzing over the fact that I was asked out on a date so casually albeit awkwardly before the start of a class. That type of thing didn't just happen, especially for a gay girl. This was epic.

The future of normalization was here and now.

During the class as we read over our class schedule and reading lists, Maisie scribbled down her phone number next to my doodle from the start of class. Then she proceeded to highlight the number in pink.

Anna would lose her mind when I told her of this moment. Like, how cute was this situation? She was bound to know Maisie more than I did, considering that they were both in the gay-straight alliance society. She had to have done her recon by now. Give her a laptop and an hour, and she would know everything there was to know about Maisie.

"Sam," Maisie called out, once the bell had gone and I was about to run out for Anna and mine's first committee meeting about the prom.

"Yeah?" I said.

"Let's be honest, you're going to have to be the one to reach out first," she said.

I took out my phone and shot her a text. As she was reading the message, I turned on my heels and called out behind me, "Your move!"

Anna booked one of the computer labs so that we could come up with a theme and maybe a poster design for the prom. As I waited for Anna, who was surprisingly late, I typed up some ideas into a document all the while pretending to be the receptionist, only tapping one key at a time.

"What are you doing?" Anna asked through a huff of laughter.

"What? Nothing," I claimed, spinning around in the chair to greet her. She dumped her bag in the chair next to mine and refused to speak any further until I assumed, I explained my weird behaviour. "I was just . . . me and Sabrina saw this guy . . . you know what? You had to be there."

"If you say so," she said.

"So, I got asked out on a date," I blurted.

"By Maisie. I know."

My face fell into a pout. "What? It just happened. How do you know already?"

"She's very concerned that her followers on Twitter know when she's nervous or excited or embarrassed. She's all three by the way. It's her online diary."

"That's a little invasive, don't you think?" I said and prodded a pen into her cheek. "You don't seem to happy. Why? What did you find out?"

Anna knocked away the pen. "I am happy. I am! She sounds cute. She even documented some stuff you did that she found cute. It's very cute. She's very cute."

"I'm beginning to think you don't like the word cute. Why are you being weird?"

"Okay, you're not going to stop pestering me. I'll tell you. I'm selfish. I wanted you all to myself this year. It's stupid. I know. Like, I didn't see you dating this year, Sam. It's an unexpected hurdle. I mean, she's not a hurdle. She's going to take up some of your time, and I'm okay with that. I have to reframe my expectations. They're my feelings that you aren't responsible for before you start apologizing."

"Okay. That makes sense," I said slowly.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," I confirmed. "Natural even! Always tell me stuff like that. But it's one date. Don't go reframing everything."

"Thanks for being so understanding," she said, bringing me into a hug.

"Thanks for being honest," I replied.

After that mini deep and emotional conversation, we turned our attention finally to prom. When we looked up visuals of prom posters online, they were full of stars again. Even outside out school, people were obsessed with a night under the stars.

We saw that the local university had this whole campus-wide event planned for Valentines called Cupid's Week. It encouraged people to purchase some bows and arrows to shoot to propose to their valentine's dates by shooting them 'in the heart'. We were going to do the same thing as send leftover money as donations to a local cat shelter. It sounded perfect to hype up the prom itself and to encourage everyone in Junior and Senior year to go.

We had just over a month until Valentines, and if we started planning now, we had enough time to pull a Valentine's day theme off!

It was perfect and romantic, and everybody would love it.

We had to tell Mr. Byers straight away about the plan, so we headed to his classroom. When we saw that he was alone, Anna knocked on the door. He let us inside, ushering us in with a smile, not saying anything about what we witnessed outside the day before between me and the guys and Sabrina. It was as if he had forgotten.

"Anna and Sam." Mr. Byers stood up and rounded his table only to on its edge. He had a tablet device in his hands and a little pen, ready to take notes of what we had to say. "I was so happy that you two have decided to take on this committee! I've had a few people sign up only to mysteriously back out not too long later. I was beginning to think it was me. Funny, right? Now, do you ladies have a theme for me?"

"We do indeed," Anna said, presenting a mock poster we had printed off in the computer lab.

"Shoot Your Shot," he read off. "A Valentine's Day Prom?"

"Cute?" I said hopefully.

He gave us a wary look. "That's a month from now. A little early for prom, no?"

"It's the perfect time," Anna said, "It's the middle of the semester, and it can break up the stress for everyone."

"It's a little possessive looking," he said.

"It's cute," I defended, and it was apparently the only word I knew that day.

"It really is," Anna said calmly. "And we're donating the ticket money and the toy arrows and bow money to the cat shelter."

"Hmm." He nodded and wrote down notes. "As long as when people are shot at, they aren't obligated to go as anyone's date, I think it can be done. Are you planning to have this game during the week of prom? What about the prom night itself?"

"Well . . . "Anna started.

"I think it's a lovely idea, ladies. Flesh it out. Continue designing and being innovative. At the end of this week, have your plans and marketing designs ready for print."

"Awesome, thanks so much," I said.

"We'll get it done for Friday," Anna promised.

"Perfect! Now I have some grading to do and your next class is about to start. Do me proud."

As we left, Anna and I nudged each other over and over again in our excited and finally settled on a painful high-five. The week couldn't be better! We had control of the prom, we had the perfect theme, I had a date planned. Everything was perfect.

What could go wrong?