The Hidden - Jessica Verday [54]
“The right color bow tie?” I gave him a confused look. “Um, what?”
“For the Hollow Ball? I got your note. In my locker.”
A suspicious feeling filled the pit of my stomach. “Can I see the note?”
He dug into his pocket and pulled out a folded slip of paper. I recognized Caspian’s handwriting right away. He’d even taken the time to draw little hearts.
One word was all there was: YES.
Clearly all signs were pointing to yes.
Why fight it? I sighed. “Yup. It was about the Hollow Ball.”
“I knew you couldn’t resist me.” He grinned, then said, “Beth’s going with Lewis, so do you want to rent a limo with them? We could take Candy Christine, but the limo is classier.”
Ugh. This means dress shopping … “Um, yeah, sure. That’s fine with me.”
“Okay. I’m on it. Oh, and what about the wrist flower thing?”
“Corsage?”
“Yeah.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
He looked relieved. “Okay. Great. Let me know about the bow tie, though. Gotta go.”
“Will do,” I called as he walked away. I’ll get on that just as soon as I’m done chewing my boyfriend out.
When Caspian came to pick me up at the end of the day, I was waiting for him. Arms crossed. He read my face. “You found out about my note, didn’t you?”
I glanced over at Cyn, who was rearranging her dead plant menagerie to make room for another one. “Not here,” I said quietly.
“All I wanted to do was—”
“Something that I didn’t want you to do,” I interrupted. “I told you I wanted to make my own decision. Why didn’t you respect that?”
Cyn paused and glanced over her shoulder at me.
I moved away from her, away from Caspian, and started walking down the hall. We needed to finish this discussion somewhere private. Where no one could hear me. I didn’t let loose again until we were home, in the safety of my room.
“How could you do that?” I stormed, stalking around the bed. All of my words were pent up inside me and ready to burst out. “I just can’t believe it.”
“I thought it would help.”
“Help? How is making the decision for me helping me? In what way, shape, or form is that ‘help’?”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have—”
But I was too mad to listen. “Now I’m going to have to go. I told Ben yes, and I can’t back out. How is that fair to me?”
“You’re right. I’m sorry. It was a stupid thing to do.”
I paced back and forth. “This also means that I’m going to have to go dress shopping. Most likely with my mother. Which is never fun, by the way.” I blew out an angry breath. “And now—”
“Astrid.” He stood up, and came to face me. “Give me the note.”
“What? Why?”
“Because I’m going to write a new one. I got you into this. I’ll get you out. Consider it already done.”
I fished the note out of my pocket. It was crumpled around the edges from where Ben had been holding it. As I stared blindly down at it, all I could see was the expression on Ben’s face as he talked about his bow tie and the limo. Then I saw him giving me the tickets in case I said no.
Caspian reached for it.
“Wait.” I sighed, holding it back. “You can’t. I’ll feel bad.”
“He’ll get over it.”
“Yeah, but I won’t get over it.”
He paused, hand outstretched. “I don’t want to make you do anything you’ll regret.”
“Other than the dress shopping with my mother, the only regret I have is that I won’t get to go with you.” I exhaled again and sat down. “Actually, I think that’s what I’m really mad about. Going with Ben is no big deal. It’s the fact that if I want to go at all, it has to be with someone other than you.” I glanced up at him and said softly, “I want to be there with you as my date.”
“I know. I want that too. Believe me, I actually thought about …” He shook his head. “It’s selfish, but I actually thought about telling you not to go. To stay here with me.”
As he said that, I realized how much it must have hurt him to push me to go with Ben. All so I wouldn’t miss out on my senior prom. “I’m not letting you off the hook for pretending to be me and writing that note,” I said. “But I understand why you did it.”
He went over to my desk and opened