Mask of Celibacy

Chapter 12

Prom brought questions to the fore that I'd hoped to ignore for the rest of the year. Even though the damn thing wouldn't take place for months, my classmates had already started hounding me about it.

Now that I'd lost a good thirty pounds, people began to show an interest in me that was far from welcome. Shallow little asshats! I'm still the same person!

In my Christian Ethics class, we got into groups to discuss the death penalty. Even though I tried to keep the group on target, everyone jabbered about prom, dates, dresses, and other stupid crap like that.

For fuck's sake, I don't need this! Focus!

"What about you, Jess?" asked Sarah. "Who are you going with?"

"I'm not going."

Silence fell for the first time in twenty minutes. Blessed silence. If I'd have known that was all I had to do to shut them up, I would have told them long ago.

"What do you mean you're not going?" asked Nicky, flabbergasted. "Everyone goes to prom."

"Clearly not because I'm not going."

Sarah rolled her eyes. "If you need us to set you up, we can. Lots of guys would like to go with you."

"Pfft. Name one."

"Bryan."

At this point, Bryan had turned a shade of purple and cursed under his breath. He started to strike up a conversation with his football buddies while I furrowed my brow at both of them.

I scoffed. "Yeah, all right. Very funny."

"I'm not kidding."

 "Uh, aren't you two dating?"

"Not anymore." Sarah crossed her arms. "I kicked his ass out the door the moment I'd heard how someone lied in order to get in someone else's pants."

"Stop talking about it, Sarah!" Bryan hissed. "I made a mistake, owned up to it, apologized, spent the summer at boot camp, and the first three months of senior year grounded."

"Not nearly enough."

"Short of inventing a time machine and changing the past," he sneered, "which I would gladly do if I could, there's nothing more I can do."

"Can we just get back to the project, please?" I asked in a resigned tone.

"The point is lots of guys still don't have dates," said Sarah, deflecting the question. "We just have to find you the right one."

I heaved a heavy sigh. "I can imagine that'll go down a treat. Hey, Mom. Guess what? I have a date for prom. Because she took it so fabulously when Eric gave me his email address."

"That was my fault," said Bryan who turned beet red under everyone's scrutiny. "And I'm very sorry. I'm sure your family wouldn't get upset if you asked someone."

"Like you?" muttered Sarah.

"Of course she's not going to ask me." He crossed his arms. "That's clear. Doesn't mean Jess can't enjoy the prom with someone else."

"Never mind freaking Bryan," Sarah whispered to me, her eyes gleaming. "We can find you a cute date."

Since when did this become about me getting a pity date to the prom? For fuck's sake!

"Enough!" I hissed under my breath. "Everyone sit the hell down and let's do this damned assignment. I have enough crap to deal with at home."

"The more important question is: Who does Jess think is hot?" said Nicky. "If we know that, you can kick back and relax and let us do the hard work."