The Gay Girl's Guide to Ruining Prom Read online

  “You.”

  “And now who won’t help make things right?”

  “Me.” I groaned. “You can’t seriously be saying that this is my fault.”

  “It’s not your fault,” she said, “but you’re the only one who can do this. Break her heart for me. If it isn’t her heart you’re breaking, it’ll just be some other girl’s anyway.”

  I went quiet and picked at my pancakes for a moment, trying to conceal how much her comment stung. “You really think that?” I finally wondered aloud.

  “I still love you,” she insisted, “and I don’t think you do it on purpose. But it’s just kind of the way you are. I’m just asking you to use your powers for good.” She nudged me. “Look, just think about all of the other girls she’s probably done this to. Think about Alex. Maybe she doesn’t know how bad you feel about what you did, but I know you well enough to know that you do. Do you really think Chelsea feels bad? You were calling her a sociopath last night. If this plan works, I bet she’ll think twice before she hurts anyone else.” When I still looked dubious, she paused, thinking. “Okay, how about this? You’ve spent the past four months wanting to fix things between the four of us, right? Alex, Wes, you, and me?”

  “Yes…” I agreed carefully, skeptical about the direction she was headed in.

  “Apologizing to Alex hasn’t worked. Neither has trying to keep your distance. So what if you show her you’ve changed?”

  “How is trying to manipulate some other girl into falling for me going to prove I’ve ‘changed’?” I asked her. “If anything, it’ll convince her that she was right about me.”

  “Because you’d be doing it for me. I’ll tell Alex you were so upset at the idea of this girl leading me on that you gave her a dose of her own medicine. That’s proof you realized you were wrong for what you did to her. You can’t get proof stronger than that, honestly. If that doesn’t change her mind, nothing will.”

  I sighed and reached up to rub at my temples. “This is giving me a headache. Don’t you think it’s a little morally ambiguous?”

  “She did it first,” Skylar pointed out. “Think of it as karmic retribution, like you said. We’re just…helping the process along a little.”

  “And what exactly do you want me to do? Show up somewhere you know she’ll be and start hitting on her?”

  “I don’t know yet. But we’ll have to be smart,” said Skylar. “And I’ll have to teach you about her first. I can tell you her hobbies, what she likes, what she’s like. That way you go in already knowing what to do.”

  “But she ended things with you,” I reminded her. “What if your advice doesn’t work?”

  “I’m an awkward virgin with zero charm,” she replied. “That’s where you being you comes in.”

  She stared at me expectantly, and I went back to eating my pancakes, a little amazed at myself for entertaining her idea. I still couldn’t reconcile the Chelsea I’d known with the Chelsea I’d seen in those text messages. Maybe if I went along with Skylar’s plan for just a little while, I’d come away with some sort of explanation from Chelsea about Prom night that actually made sense, and Skylar would move on from this insane plan of hers. And even in the worst-case scenario—that everything we’d said was true and that Chelsea actually was just a horrible person now—maybe I’d actually be able to fix things with Alex and Wes, like Skylar had suggested.

  “I’ll give it one try,” I finally agreed, and Skylar pumped her arms excitedly, looking ready to jump out of her seat. “But just one, okay? One meetup. That’s all I’m promising. If I want to stop after that, we stop.”

  “Yes! Okay. This is going to be amazing.”

  The next Wednesday night, Skylar and I scheduled what was supposed to be a movie night. My parents were at church leading a youth group, which meant that we’d be free until eight o’clock to put our favorite gay movies on the wide-screen television in the living room as opposed to holing up in my room with my laptop like we usually had to.

  Skylar hadn’t let me forget about her plan to get revenge on Chelsea, but in my naivete, I’d assumed we were genuinely going to be watching movies. Instead, she handed me three sheets of paper when I answered the door and declared, “I made you a study guide.”

  I stared back at her. “Why are you like this?”

  And so instead of getting to watch Carol for the first time, I wound up absentmindedly tossing popcorn into my mouth while Skylar told me about Chelsea. A lot of it I already happened to remember from my brief middle school acquaintanceship with her. The rest of it I didn’t really care to know.

  “If you can get her to kiss you at some point, there’s this thing she likes, with your tongue—”

  I flinched and earned a piece of popcorn to the forehead for it. “Ew. I definitely don’t need to know that.”

  “I’m just being thorough!” she insisted. “We only have one shot at this.”

  “You know, Alex never would’ve recruited someone to do this to me, but even if she had, I doubt she’d be trying to give the girl kissing tips.”

  Skylar raised an eyebrow at me. “Your point?”

  “Maybe you didn’t like her as much as you think you did.”

  She scoffed. “Or I’m setting my feelings aside for now so that we can make this work. And what would you know about liking anyone, anyway?”

  I scowled at her. “Why do I always get the vibe that you think of me as some emotionless husk? I do have feelings, you know.”

  “Then try expressing them sometimes,” she shot back. I watched her flip through her study guide rather than responding. “Anyway, it’s all on the study guide, so I guess we can skip the Chelsea briefing. But we need to focus. Your parents won’t be gone for long.”

  “They won’t care if you hang out,” I said. She fixed me with a knowing look. “What? They won’t stop it, at least.”

  “They still think Alex and I turned you gay.”

  “I know, but that’s ridiculous. I’m not attracted to giant nerds who make study guides for fun. Alex is the one who turned me gay.”

  “You’re hilarious.” She handed the pages back to me. “I’ve got her favorite bands, TV shows, and movies on page three. Or at least the ones I can remember. Those are good conversation-starters.”

  I turned to the page in question and then couldn’t hold back a grin. “She still listens to Owl City.” Chelsea had introduced me to the rest of their songs a few years after “Fireflies” got popular. Their music wasn’t my thing, but I hadn’t had the heart to tell her at the time. The mixtape she’d made me a couple of months before we’d kissed at her birthday party was probably still buried in my closet somewhere.

  “Still?” asked Skylar, confused, and I rushed to correct my slip-up.

  “It’s 2018. Kind of an obscure choice considering their last hit was so long ago.”

  “Oh. Well, see? Perfect conversation-starter. You can pretend to like the same weird band that she does.”

  “And when exactly are we putting your plan into motion?” I wondered.

  “That’s the next thing I wanted to tell you about. So, Chelsea and I met at that party the night you were sick with the flu, remember? My brother has an old friend that goes to her high school, and his friend was the one hosting…”

  “Yeah, yeah, right,” I recalled, waving for her to skip the details. “You tagged along and she was there.”

  “Well, Devon told me today that his friend invited him to another party. Different host, but knowing Chelsea, she’ll still be invited, and she’ll show up.”

  “So you want me to meet her the same way you met her,” I realized. “Are you sure you aren’t living vicariously through me at this point?”

  She shot me an annoyed look. “We only have eight weeks to do this and this is the only idea I have. It’s not like you can show up at her school. A party is our best option.”

  “And what exactly do you expect me to do?”

  “Start a conversation, of course. Make sure y
ou’re confident, and don’t seem desperate. And don’t kiss her on the first night. We want a slow burn, so you have to play hard to get at first.”

  “This is evil,” I declared with a sudden sense of clarity.

  “She’s evil,” Skylar countered. “And looking back, she definitely liked being the one to initiate everything with me. Maybe it’s, like, a chase thing, you know?”

  “You didn’t even sleep with her,” I reminded her.

  “I know, but she thought that I was going to. So we have to make her think that you will, too, but you can’t seem desperate,” she replied. “I think that’s what I did. Well, on accident, because I really liked her but I wanted to wait for it to be special. Anyway, what I’m getting at is that you should seem uninterested at first. Play hard to get so that she’ll be up for the challenge. So don’t be your normal flirty self.”

  “But be confident?” I said with a laugh.

  “Be confident in what you want and that it’s not her. Yet.”

  “Uh huh. But be the one to speak to her first.”

  Skylar looked at me with sudden realization. “Oh, you’re right! You should definitely try to get her to come to you.”

  “And also get her number, I assume. But don’t act like I want it. You’ve been reading too many women’s magazines.”

  “This crap is hard, okay! I’m trying my best. Maybe I over-researched.” She heaved a sigh and snatched the study guide back out of my hands to rifle through it again, as though a hidden solution might be found inside.

  “Why don’t you just let me figure it out?” I offered. “You handle getting us both into one place, I’ll handle the seduction. This is apparently where I shine.”

  “At least make sure you know the stuff in the guide,” she insisted. “It can’t hurt to have things in common with her, right?”

  “Sure,” I agreed. “When’s the party?”

  “In three days.”

  “Oh.” I heaved a sigh and laid back against the couch’s armrest. “Great.”

  I did not read the study guide. Partly because as much as Chelsea probably deserved a taste of her own medicine, reading up on her made me feel scummier for participating than I already did, and partly because I remembered enough about her from middle school already. Accepting too much help from Skylar felt like condoning the whole plan, so my own little silent form of protest was to do it my way.

  I did, however, let her dress me on the night of the party.

  “Devon’s gonna swing by and pick you up in about half an hour.” Skylar examined my outfit with a critical eye, then shook her head and motioned for me to remove my shirt. “You need something with a lower neckline.”

  “You’re not coming?” I asked, and she laughed.

  “No way. What if she catches me there?”

  “What if she’s not there at all?” I countered.

  “Unless she’s sick or something, she will be. You know how many parties she talked about? It was like she went to a new one every other weekend.” She tossed me a new shirt.

  “Why did you like her?” I wondered. “She doesn’t even sound like the type of person you’d get along with. Your perfect girl, like, plays video games every day and does calculus for fun.”

  She shot me an amused look and rolled her eyes. “She was hot and interested and I was naïve. Anyway, don’t mention anything about this to Devon; he just thinks you’re going because you want to meet girls. Which isn’t totally untrue, technically. But Chelsea might recognize him from pictures, so make sure you aren’t seen with him. He knows to leave you alone.” I finished adjusting my new shirt and Skylar grinned at me. “Perfect!”

  I looked down. “Is this supposed to cover my boobs? Because it’s not working.”

  “If it’s too revealing, why do you own it?”

  I felt heat rising to my cheeks. “Alex bought it for me.”

  Skylar wrinkled her nose with disgust. “That’s not a mental image I wanted. Sorry I asked.”

  We moved onto makeup and hair next, and around the time Skylar was finishing up with me, my door swung open a crack and I saw my mom peek her head into my room. “You girls okay?” she asked.

  “We’re great, Mrs. Seever,” replied Skylar with a faux brightness she only reserved for adults who made her uncomfortable.

  “Just finishing getting ready,” I added.

  “Alright. What time will you be back? Before midnight, right?” There was a warning edge to her tone.

  I nodded. “Definitely.”

  “Okay. Your dad and I are going to bed for the night. Make sure you lock the door when you come home.”

  She disappeared, and I called after her, “Nite!”

  Skylar fixed me with a confused look once my mom was out of earshot. “Your parents are so bizarre.”

  “Ever since Alex they’ve been trying this hands-off parenting thing,” I explained. “I overheard my mom on the phone with her church-approved therapist a few months ago. Basically, the whole lesbian thing is me acting out because I want attention. They think if they tell me not to do something, I’ll just do it more, and on top of that it’ll ruin their relationship with me. But if they pretend to be ‘cool parents’ who are okay with it, I’ll just get bored and move past this ‘phase’ of mine. We’re four months in and they’re still holding out.”

  “So basically you get to do whatever you want because your parents are in denial?”

  “Obviously I’ve tried to explain that they’re wrong, but they don’t wanna hear it.” I shrugged my shoulders. “This is definitely better than the reaction I spent years having nightmares about, though. In a way, I guess they must care, or else they’d just kick me out or send me to some camp.”

  “That’s still messed up,” said Skylar, grimacing. “I mean, I knew they were bad, obviously, since me and Alex always pretended to be straight at your house before you came out, but I didn’t realize they were still so not okay with you after all this time. I know they don’t love it, but I thought they were at least trying to get over it. I figured they’d just blamed it on me and Alex and were hoping you’d at least settle down with one girl eventually.”

  “Well, maybe we’ll reach that point someday,” I offered, not really believing it. “Or, more likely, it’ll dawn on them that this phase sure is lasting a while, and they’ll either have a total meltdown over their gay daughter or they’ll turn over a new leaf and join PFLAG. In the meantime, I’m gonna have as much fun as I can and make sure they know as little about it as possible.”

  “That explains a lot about you, actually,” Skylar said, squinting at me like I was one of her study guides. I felt uncomfortable under her microscopic gaze. As much as I hated when Skylar assumed that I was a Chelsea-lite sex-crazed husk, knowing that I’d given her a window into the truth was somehow even worse. Emotional vulnerability wasn’t exactly one of my strong suits.

  But before I could deny whatever it was she thought she’d discovered, she rolled her eyes and added flippantly, “God, imagine what your parents would do if you ever actually cared about a girl. They’re so uptight. Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

  I breathed a quiet sigh of relief. “That isn’t the only thing you don’t know about me,” I told her, avoiding the question, and then picked my phone up off my bed and offered it to her before she could reply. A text from Devon had lit up the screen. “Time to go.”

  Once we’d settled into our drive, Devon said, “So I’m a little confused. Why isn’t my sister coming along, again? You’d think after Chelsea she’d want something fun to take her mind off it.”

  “She’s worried Chelsea will be there,” I explained, and Devon shot me a confused look.

  “But she’s the one who told me to tell her if I heard about someone from Brooks hosting a party. Now she’s ditching because it just dawned on her that Chelsea will probably show up? That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Yeah, I don’t know.” I shrugged my shoulders. “Guess she changed her mind.”

/>   “And why am I supposed to stay away from you tonight? Does she really think I’m gonna swoop in and try to steal some girl away from you? Why does she care whether or not you talk to girls at all?” I gave him a look and he sighed with understanding. “Should I just not ask any questions?”

  “For your sake, I wouldn’t. Just enjoy the party and forget I’m there. It’s better that way.”

  “I won’t ask what you two are up to because I’m trying to have a nice last few months of high school and lately you both seem to attract drama wherever you go,” he said, “but make sure to tell Skylar that I’m choosing not to figure out what’s going on because I don’t want to, not because I can’t. It’s an important distinction.”

  “Is it?” I teased.

  “Twins have a mental thing,” he explained. “We can tell when the other has something weird going on. I just want to remind her it goes both ways.”

  “Is that still a thing for fraternal twins?” I wondered.

  “Totally. How else would I know something’s off tonight?”

  “I don’t know…logic? Common sense?”

  I grinned at him and he shot me an amused look. “Let’s just have a nice night and stay out of each other’s way. Deal?” He pulled up to a house surrounded by cars and parked against the curb. I wrinkled my nose at a front yard already littered with cups as a teenager in his underwear sprinted after a larger group carrying a pair of pants and a T-shirt. Some rap song with a heavy bass blared from the open front door.

  “Confession,” I said to Devon, “I actually don’t like parties. I faked the flu to get out of the last one.”

  “The plot thickens.” He laughed as he got out of the car. “I was told to go in separate from you because my sister’s insane, so have fun.”

  “You too.”