Chapter Thirty-Four

Bailey

I saw the proof. I didn’t have to imagine him drunk at his party with all his friends, having a great time and totally oblivious to his ex-friend Bailey. I literally went to bed fuming over all the pictures of him with Devon and those Table Three girls. I finally forced myself to put down the phone and go to sleep, even though I barely slept.

This morning, I am very confident in my decision to walk away from Alex and pretend that stupid promposal never happened, even if the internet will always remember. I don’t care. My days at EHS are numbered, and I’m counting every last one down, like a prisoner trying to get out on good behavior.

At school, I spend a good amount of time racking my brain for a fresh angle for my new short film topic. I go through my interviews one more time, tweak my storyboard, and take notes on ideas that come to me. When I look over all my work at the end of class, I want to bang my head on the desk.

I thought there was a way to make college entrance exams funny or at the very least thought-provoking, but now I’m doubtful, or maybe my brain is too stressed out to come up with a solution. It’s all boring, lame, and none of it is going to win me any contests. There’s no way.

When I get to my shift at Java Infusion after school, Jax is in the back room, whistling. That’s a very un-Jax-like thing to do.

“You okay?” I ask.

He keeps his eyes trained on the computer monitor and smiles. “I am sublime,” he says. His southern accent is thick this morning. I reach for a purple apron on the hook and grab my nametag. He’s still whistling.

“Well, that’s good.”

“Had me a date after work last night.” His smile grows.

“Oh.” Great. Jax got some. Eww. “Good for you,” I say. Even though I really don’t want to know, I’m tempted to ask him for details. It’s hard to imagine what kind of person would go for him, but there’s a lid to every pot, I guess.

Before I can ask, he turns to me. “So it looks like your views are dying down. Definitely getting fewer comments.”

“Come on, Jax. Please. I do not want to talk about it.”

He stands up, freeing the computer so I can clock in. “Have you watched it yet?”

I lean over the keyboard and enter my password. He’s still hovering.

“Well, have you?”

I just got here, and already he’s making me crazy. “No,” I say over my shoulder. “And I’m not going to. Ever.”

I check that we’ve got enough milk and cream. I check that we have enough sprinkles for the middle school kids who will appear soon. I eyeball the pastry case. Jax leans against the back counter and crosses his arms.

“You should watch it.” He pulls out his phone. “Here, I’ll pull it up.”

“No, Jax. You’re usually the one yelling at me to get to work.”

He pays zero attention to my plea. “You should watch this one. It shows the whole thing in slo-mo.”

“Slo-mo? Seriously, people have that much time on their hands?”

“Come on.”

“No!” I shout at him, and he flinches. “I’m serious. I’m trying to put it behind me. I know it’s out there, trust me. I don’t need any reminders.”

He grudgingly pockets his phone. “Fine, but you should watch it and read the comments. They’re not all rude. There’s a whole slew of people who are rooting for you to get together with that boy. They’ve even got a couple name for you.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Girl, you’ve been shipped. Y’all’s couple name is Cow-lax.”

I stare at him, confused.

“Cowgirl and lacrosse boy? I think it’s cute.”

I feel my face get hot. I can’t take this. “I’m going to get cups,” I say. Back in the storeroom, I sit on a tall cardboard box and close my eyes. I try to breathe from my toes, but I can’t seem to get all the way there.

Clearly Jax’s one good date has filled his head with stupid romantic ideas that are completely misguided.

Cow-lax? That sounds like something you give a constipated farm animal.

I give myself another minute and pull it together. I’ve got a shift to work, and it’s going to be busy.

It was a long night, but I’m finally home. I’m alone, of course, and once again completely frustrated by my film project.

I think of Jax, telling me to watch the ruined promposal clip, and I start to reconsider ditching prom as a topic. I do have some really good footage. I wonder if I could still make it work. I’d have to go to prom, but I could go alone. I could maybe hide on the fringes, get what I need, and leave. I wouldn’t even have to dress up.

Thinking of dressing up makes me think of the dress, which makes me think of that closet, which makes me think of Alex, singing in my ear.

I should have pushed him away. I should have laughed him off and told him that his stupid “dress test” idea was not even a little bit necessary.

There’s a knot in my chest. It’s been there since we kissed, but it keeps getting tighter. Maybe it’s that broken heart, or maybe I’m giving myself an ulcer. I don’t know.

What I do know is that to get out of Edinburgh, I need to win this contest. So I download the file that Ashley sent me, clench my fists, and press play.

The opening scene is so cringe-worthy that I have to look away. Me, sitting there cluelessly waiting for my ultimate humiliation. Suck it up, woman. This is for NYU. I force myself to watch. There I am, a dummy sitting on a cow, trying to manage the poster board, trying not to flip out over all the people with their cell phones.

The tightness in my chest pulls at me. I want to cry. Also, scream. And die.

I know what that girl is thinking. Her heart is racing. She’s watching, waiting, for a lacrosse player. When she sees him, something happens to her. Her tense face muscles relax. She smiles. Not at Caleb, no. That would make too much sense. No, that happy, carefree smile was for Alex Koviak.

I watch as he runs to the side of the cow, or tries to, but it’s already acting squirrely. Bessie gives him crazy eyes as he attempts to move closer. By the time I finally understand what he’s saying to me, the cow has completely lost it and is trotting toward the field and then swoop, there I am, falling sideways onto the ground.

Glorious day!

The rest of the scene I watch with one eye closed. The tiny defeated me stands up and moves toward Ashley. Not on purpose. I didn’t even see her. Alex is talking to me, but I keep my gaze forward. Somewhere over the audio I hear the unmistakable drone of a Table Three girl. She says, “Oh my God, how embarrassing,” and is laughing, laughing, laughing.

Even here in the privacy of my own home I can feel the heat of shame and anger crawl up my neck. I almost press stop as on-screen me moves past the camera. Ashley doesn’t follow me, though, but pans slowly over my left shoulder. To Alex, trailing slowly after me. His brow is furrowed, and he looks—sorry? Sad? Like he’s going to cry?

She keeps the camera on Alex. There are people talking to him, laughing at him, calling his name—he doesn’t respond to any of them. He never takes his eyes off me as I go.

The heat of my humiliation cools. I’m still angry at him, furious actually, but who looks at someone like that? I’ve never looked at someone like that. The only word I can think to describe his face is—heartbroken?

I rewind and watch again, only this time I watch to the very end of the shot, when Devon McGill walks over to him and does her loud talking thing. She literally never shuts up.

He doesn’t pay attention to her at all. He’s still watching me.

The video cuts off. I put down my phone and lean my head in my hands. What was that face? What was he thinking? I know it doesn’t really make a difference. What really matters isn’t what you think, it’s what you do, and he did nothing except ruin the promposal and let me walk away. Then he celebrated with a house party.

I sit up and take a deep breath, all that air directly from my toes. Things are happening in my brain, and I’m thinking about my short film. If I look at this footage objectively, if I didn’t know the people in it, I would fight to get it in my project. All of a sudden, I have a new vision for the film—a tragic-comic take on promposals and how they don’t always come off and how sometimes they are just plain disastrous. Mine being the most disastrous, obviously.

A smile curves my lips up, something that hasn’t happened in a while. My life sucks to the millionth power right now—it’s confusing and frustrating, and I hate it—but I’m going to make that movie, and I’m going to win.