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Chapter 27
Izzy
I’m not sure if Matt is going to be wearing the Star Wars shirt when I get to school. He said he was, but our conversation ended how a lot of our conversations seem to end lately. They start out great and end horribly. If anyone asked me after the prom court meeting yesterday if he and I were going out, I honestly wouldn’t know what to tell them. He was flirting with me so much that Yvette’s scowl was locked on me for the entire meeting. But after I brought up the prom situation again, that’s where we went off the rails and not in a good way.
I don’t know why I’m being so stubborn about the prom challenge, as Cindy and Veronica are calling it. He obviously likes me, and he doesn’t have an issue with me being a nerd. And try as I might, I can’t act like I don’t like him. I’m sure he sees my knees wobbling when he leans in close, and I’m not very discreet about staring at his lips. Those kissable lips that I can still remember. Still feel. How is that possible, when I haven’t kissed him in weeks?
Even more than his flirty smiles, I still remember the one I found on him at PopCon. It was brief, as shock and horror took over his face as soon as he saw me, but seconds before that he had a carefree smile. A true smile. I want to see that smile on him. He can make my insides melt, and believe me, he has, but nothing gets me more than seeing him being who he really is.
As I sit at my desk in sociology, he opens the door, and there’s the Star Wars shirt. The Empire Strikes Back logo stretches across his chest.
“You wore it.”
“It’s twin day,” he replies monotonically.
Okay, so he’s still a little upset. Throughout class, I toss him side looks, smirks, and even turn around and whisper something to him. All of which earns me barely a nod. After all my talk of keeping distance between us, now that it seems like it’d be easy enough to have that distance, I don’t want it.
At lunch, we meet up with the others as Greg is going over the rules for our event, which is a three-legged race.
“Do you think it’d be easy for a three-legged person to go poop?” I ask Matt, looking up at him, as Greg continues on. Matt casts a glance to me, before focusing back on Greg. “I mean, how would they squat? Do they have to prop up their third leg or something?”
I chuckle. Not so much at the joke but the comment in general, hoping Matt’s attitude will have eased. It hasn’t.
“Are you gonna be mad at me forever?” I blurt out as Greg makes his way down through the couples, tying their legs together.
“I’m not mad at you,” he answers but doesn’t look at me.
“Really? Because it sure seems like you’re mad.”
“Well, I’m not.”
“Upset?”
“No.”
“Annoyed?” He looks at me, raising an eyebrow. “Perturbed? Exasperated? Vexed? Irked?” He shakes his head, and I can see him fighting off a smile, but I still get a smirk. “Finally.”
“I’m not annoyed or perturbed, or any of those things. I just …” He looks away.
“What?”
He takes a moment, staring at me. “I just don’t want to argue anymore.”
“Oh.”
“All right.” Greg steps between us. “Middle legs forward.”
For the three-legged race, each prom court couple has to run around the courtyard, and the team that wins gets ten extra votes for prom king and prom queen. Second place gets five extra votes, but third place through fifth doesn’t get any. These all add up for the final vote count, to see who’ll be named prom king and queen.
Greg takes a megaphone to explain the rules to all the students watching and the point system to everyone. While he’s going over everything, I elbow Matt in the side.
Pushing aside his last comments, Matt looks over at me and smiles. “Let’s do this, Nerd Girl. You’d look great in a crown.”
“Even if we win, which we won’t because I’m totally uncoordinated and would trip over myself in this race even if I wasn’t tied to a person, you really think ten votes will knock out Yvette. She’s plastered her face on posters all over the school.”
“You’ve got a following though. People are digging you.” He grins in a way that tells me he’s one of those people. “You did come in second in the voting, after all.”
“What?”
