The Tuxedo Man (boyxboy)[Wattys 2016]

Chapter 7 - Don't Panic

[Picture: Dylan James Callaghan. Video: Dying For You - Otto Knows Ft. Lindsey Stirling and Alex Aris]

(Accordingly: Cassie, Astrid, Braydon, Mason, Ruth, Ella) 

"Oh my god!" Ella looks around the classroom before yelling, making sure that no one else was there. She takes quick steps towards where Ruth and I were seated, talking to each other before she arrived. 

"Are you okay?" Ruth asks, clutching her phone to herself, keeping it from dropping.

"Yeah." I agree. "You good?" 

She sets her bag down on the seat next to us before bursting out into tiny little particles of joy all over the area. "So you know that Ryan Seacrest radio show right? And how people win concerts by just calling?" 

Ruth and I nod suspiciously. 

"I got two tickets to Tori Kelly tonight!" She beams, holding her arms up.

I've never listened to Tori Kelly until Ella introduced me to her. She has a thing for hidden gems, small, aspiring artists that have amazing capabilities and opportunities ahead of them, she always seems to find them before they get big, and Tori was one of them. I think the first time I've ever listened to Tori was when she sent me a link of her song "Nobody Love" and immediately, I was obsessed with it. I grabbed my phone and purchased her album without even really looking at the price.

"Are you serious?" I ask, placing my hand over my mouth. "That's awesome! Take me!" 

"I am!" She yells, and we both get up and go in for a tight hug. The both of us are basically on drugs right now. By the way we were both so energized and excited, you would think that we've downed eight cups of coffee before leaving. We both relax as we take deep breaths. We were both going to a Tori Kelly concert tonight, and it's free. 

"I'm right here." Ruth complains. 

"Oh, shut up." I wave her away. "You don't even listen to her." 

_ . _ 

The rest of the day was filled with my anticipation of what's going to be happening tonight. I knew that if I kept waiting for the day to be over, it's just going to feel longer and longer every minute, so I tried to not think about it and block it out of my mind until the final bell of the day rings. 

"We should totally go clubbing after the ball." Ruth says as we were all gathered around in a circle at one corner of the room. We were in Arts class, which was the only class of the week where the six of us were together, and was also the only class where the room was Great-Bang-free. 

"Red and White Ball is like, a month away, Ruth." Cassie scolds. "We shouldn't be planning things so far ahead." 

It's twenty minutes in and our teacher hasn't shown up yet, and so the classroom has been divided into different small clusters of students, but nonetheless everyone was anti-GB. We were discussing about what we were planning to do when the Red and White ball comes. The Ball is a formal gathering for the juniors, as the seniors have their Promenade. It's what we like to revel in and convince ourselves that it's going to be the night of all nights, until senior year rolls in. The formal ball was a month away, set on the first week of February, and not one junior has not talked about it. It's slipped out of each and everyone's mouths at least once. The lower classmen have their formals to, but I don't really care.