Another shiver passes through me.

Chapter 12

Shut Up and Dance

By Monday, everything starts to get back to normal. I walk the halls of Jackson High with the same students, and I attend the same boring classes (except for Brit History, of course, where I watch Christian and Brady do a presentation on William Wallace and entertain a brief fantasy of Christian in a kilt) and soon enough, the Black Wing seems like a bad dream, and I feel safe again.

Still, I decide I need to take the whole purpose thing more seriously. No more playing at being a normal girl. I’m not. I’m an angel-blood. I have a job to do. I need to quit whining, quit stalling, quit questioning everything. I need to do it.

So Wednesday after school I catch up with Christian at his locker. I go right over to him and touch him on the shoulder. A small zing passes through me like a static shock. He turns and fixes me with those green eyes. He doesn’t look like he’s in any mood to talk.

“Hey, Clara,” he says. “Can I help you with something?”

“I thought I could help you. I noticed you were out of class last week.”

“My uncle took me camping.”

“Do you want to borrow my notes for British History?”

“Sure, notes would be great,” he says like he couldn’t care less about British History but he’s humoring me. He’s not acting like himself at all, no jokes, no confidence, no subtle swagger in his step. There are shadows under his eyes.

I hand him my notebook. Right as he takes it, a group of girls pass by, popular girls, Kay’s friends. They whisper and shoot him dirty looks. His shoulders stiffen.

“They’ll forget,” I tell him. “You’re front-page news today, but give it another week. It will all settle down.”

“Yeah? How do you know so much?”

“Oh, you know. I’m queen of the rumor mill. It seems like there’s been a new rumor about me every week since I got here. Comes with being the new girl, I guess. Have you heard the one where I seduced the basketball coach? That’s a personal favorite.”

“The rumors about me aren’t true,” says Christian heatedly. “I broke up with Kay, not the other way around.”

“Oh. In my experience, rumors aren’t usually—”

“I was trying to do the right thing. I couldn’t be what she needed, and I was trying to do the right thing,” he says, a fierceness in his eyes that reminds me of how he looks in the vision, this combination of intensity and vulnerability, which only makes him impossibly hotter.

“It’s really none of my business,” I say.

“I didn’t know it was going to be like this.”

We stand in the hallway as the other students stream by. On the ceiling, practically dangling over Christian’s head, hangs a banner for prom. MYTHIC LOVE, it reads in bright blue letters. Saturday, seven to midnight. Mythic Love.

My mind is suddenly spinning a million miles an hour, like the wheel on Wheel of Fortune. Then it stops.

“Do you want to go to prom with me?” I blurt out.

“What?”

“I don’t have a date, and you don’t have a date, so maybe we should go together.”

He stares at me. If my heart beats any harder I will pass out. I try to keep cool, act casual like if he says no it’s no big deal.

“No one’s asked you?” he asks.

Why does everyone keep saying that? “No.”

A light comes on in his eyes. “Sure, why not? A date with Queen Elizabeth.” He smiles.

I can’t help but smile back. “Apparently it’s Saturday, seven to midnight.” I gesture at the banner. He turns and looks up at it.

“I don’t even know where to pick you up,” he says. I quickly rattle off my address and start to explain how to get there. He stops me by doing this thing where he laughs by exhaling. He shakes his head and reaches into his locker to pull out a pen. Then he grabs my wrist, and instantly the back of my neck prickles with electric heat.

“Email me your address,” he says. He uncurls my fingers and writes his email address across my palm in green ink.

“Okay,” I say, my voice suddenly ridiculously high and quivery. A strand of hair falls across my face, and I swipe it behind my ear.

He clicks the pen closed and swings his backpack over his shoulder. “Seven o’clock?”

“Okay,” I say again. It seems that I’ve been reduced to single syllables by a touch. Maybe Angela’s right. Maybe the swoony hand-holding in my vision means that part of my purpose is getting this really hot guy as my boyfriend. That wouldn’t suck.

“Okay, I’ve got to bail,” he says, startling me out of my reverie.

His mouth lifts into that lopsided half smile he pins on all the girls. He seems himself all of a sudden, the thing about Kay forgotten for the moment.

“See you Saturday,” he says.

“See you then.”

As he walks away I close my hand into a fist around his email address. I’m a genius, I think. This is a genius idea.

I’m going to prom with Christian Prescott.

Mom’s crying again. I’m standing in front of the full-length mirror in her bedroom a few minutes shy of seven o’clock on prom night, and she’s crying, not sobbing or anything because that would be too undignified for her, but tears spilling down her cheeks. It’s alarming. One minute she’s helping me pull two silver ribbons through my hair, something Greekish, she said, and the next she’s sitting on the edge of her bed silently weeping.

“Mom,” I say helplessly.

“I’m just so happy for you,” she sniffles, embarrassed.

“Right. Happy.” I can’t help the disconcerting feeling that she’s unraveling lately. “Get it together, okay? He’s going to be here any minute.”

She smiles.

“Silver Avalanche coming up the driveway,” calls Jeffrey from downstairs. Mom stands up.

“You stay up here,” she says, wiping at her eyes. “It’s always better for him to have to wait.”

I go to the window and covertly watch Christian pull up to the house and park. He straightens his tie and sweeps a hand through his tousled dark hair before he comes to the door. I give myself a last once-over in the mirror. The theme Mythic Love is supposed to bring to mind the myths of gods and goddesses, Hercules, that kind of thing, so my Greek-inspired dress is perfect. I’ve let my hair hang in waves down my back so I won’t have to wrestle it into a style. I’ll have to dye it again soon. My gold roots are starting to show.