Twelve The Great Wait

“Thanks for walking early with me,” I say as we pass between the stone columns in front of school.

“It’s no sweat,” Stella says. “Besides, I was gonna go retake Zapata’s calc test anyway. Gotta keep my A up in that class.”

“You mean, having your mom be his booty call isn’t enough?” I say, nudging against her, relieved that she finally told me about this. Once Stella speaks a thing into existence, it usually takes all the power out of it.

“Right, okay, well... you’re going into a Conversion Club meeting, so. Looks like you may already be brainwashed,” she says back, waving her middle finger at me as we split off in different directions.

There’s a sting in her tease. I know she’s quasi-joking. I know she doesn’t get how the whole Grace Redeemer experience hit me, because I’ve been blowing it off every time the conversation swerves in that direction. And she’s not stupid—she knows the vague shape of my feelings for Beckett. I mean... I’ve had a proximity crush on her for three years. But I’ve never felt the need to share the finer details of it even with Stella. Some things have to belong just to ourselves.

As usual, the only people around school this time of morning are a handful of teachers and custodians, and of course, a steady trickle of Great Wait members.

The door to room 333 is closed when I get there. I don’t know if Beckett’s inside yet. All I know is, I definitely don’t want to be the first to go in.

I jump at the sudden “Boo!” next to my ear. At least she doesn’t cover my eyes from behind. I hate that.

“You’re back,” Beckett says when I spin around.

I feel like I just got caught peeking through her bedroom window or something.

“Yeah, I... uh...”

She hijacks my awkward attempt at an explanation by asking, “Does this mean you’re coming on Saturday?”

“I don’t know,” I say, my heart stammering just a little because of the deal I made with myself last night. After a couple hours of back and forth about whether to ask B’Rad to do Pure Prom with me, I decided to go to one more Great Wait meeting. The answer, I felt sure, would be here. “I mean, maybe.”

“You’re such a tease, Daya!”

The word pulses in the air between us.

So far, Nestor and Alexa are the only other people here. They’re wearing the same blue True Love Waits T-shirts I saw on Sunday, only these say Ask Me About Pure Prom on the front, in big yellow letters.

“Wow,” I whisper as we head to the back of the room. “That’s next-level commitment.”

“They’re handing them out again today,” Beckett tells me.

“Handing what out?”

“The shirts.” She nods in Nestor’s direction.

I blink a few times before asking, “To who?”

“Everyone. They’ve been going around since spring break, from campus to campus, every school from here to Oviedo, handing them out.” She catches the look on my face and adds, “It’s to boost attendance.”

“Wait, so... they’re handing all those T-shirts out for free?”

“Yep.”

I think back to Sunday, to the “giving” portion of the service. All the options for ways to donate. How everyone in the jam-packed building took out their phones or their wallets, credit cards, phones, cash, and paid something. I can’t even begin to calculate how much money that must bring in every week. No wonder they can afford to give out free T-shirts by the truckload.

Beckett tilts toward me and drops her voice even lower.

She goes, “Sorry about ditching you yesterday.”

The touch of her arm pressed against mine stitches itself into my skin.

I back away without being too obvious about it. It’s hard enough just to sit in the same room with her, knowing what’s real and what isn’t. And I never want to be one of those people who confuses niceness with flirtation, but damn if this doesn’t feel like something a few notches above merely nice.

Beckett instantly notices the shift.

“Everything okay?” she asks.

I nod. “Everything okay with you? I mean, you bolted out of Chula’s pretty fast yesterday.”

She starts fidgeting with her gold ring again.

“I promised my dad I’d do something for him after school, and—”

I wait for her to finish, but she stops there.

“And...?”

Her gaze drops completely away, but all she says is, “He has this thing about being trustworthy.”

The door to room 333 swings open and Cason rolls in, followed as always by Lucy and a few others.

Cason scuds right for us.

“Hey, babe!” he says, dive-bombing Beckett with a kiss.

Nestor lobs a swift look in their direction, smoothing down the front of his True Love Waits shirt.

I swallow hard as I watch them in my peripheral vision. His technique could use some work. Like he’s channeling the proverbial bull in a china shop. I would kiss her slow. And soft. Like tasting the first peach of summer—not like diving into a bucket of hot wings from the QT gas station on route 9.

Lucy throws me eyes like she can tell what I’m thinking.

After Cason plants one last chicken-peck on Beckett, he straddles the chair on the other side of her, and Lucy sits directly behind us, weapons-grade shade pouring out of her in my direction. I look away as the room begins to fill with people and the band starts playing a fresh acoustic jam.

Nestor finally comes to the front and calls on us to bow our heads in prayer.

“Lord, we ask for Your blessing in every endeavor. We choose to glorify You in word and deed, Lord, to commit ourselves to purity in our hearts and purity in our bodies, because all our thoughts and actions sanctify You.”

His amen is echoed by everyone in the room except me.

Alexa comes forward next and reads off the day’s action plan.

“If your team still needs to buy stuff, purchase orders are now in your packets, so you can go after school and get whatever you need. Food committee, you can buy things that don’t have to be refrigerated, like candy, but the parent team will get everything else. Oh, and save your receipts. Team leaders, come get your manila envelopes with your group’s budget, purchase orders, and task list inside.”

Beckett bumps me with her elbow and motions me to follow.

Cason is too busy talking to Javi Benitez to notice what his girlfriend is doing. Lucy, on the other hand, tracks every movement Beckett makes, like she’s her personal Secret Service detail.

I stare at her for a beat or two as I follow Beckett down the steps. She’s not shy about staring back.

I don’t care. Whatever Lucy’s jealousy is made of, I kind of hope she chokes on it.

As we wait in line for the officers to hand out committee packets, Beckett tells me, “We’re signed up for Ticketing. It seemed like the easiest one.”

We?She must mean her and Cason and Lucy, because I never said—

“How many on your team?” Nestor asks as Beckett steps forward to get her packet. She takes the envelope from him and says, “Four.” She looks at me and smiles. “Five.”

I toggle from Beckett to Nestor, then back again. “Wait, no, I never said I was—”

Before I can even finish, he hands her five T-shirts and pushes us off to one side, where Beckett slides the paperwork out and gives it a quick once-over.

I’m one part elation and one part terror at the possibility that my indecision may have just answered itself. She said we.

She wants me there.

She wants... me.

“Yeah, so, all we need is those vinyl wristbands that are impossible to tear off, which I think we already have. And we should each download the QR scanner too. Then on prom night, we just scan tickets and make sure everyone gets a wristband. As soon as they close the doors, the rest of the night is ours.”

Sometimes, Beckett Wild walks around like she’s permanently wearing one of those sparkle filters that she and her friends seem to love. The rest of the night is ours. Man. If only that could be remotely true. Ours. As in mine and hers.

She looks up at me, smiles.

“What?” she asks, and I shake myself out of it.

“Aren’t we supposed to monitor who comes and goes or something?” I ask.

“We?”

Whoosh. Ignition.

“If I go, I mean.”

“You do realize that’s your first we.” Her gaze eases into mine. “I guess that makes it official.”

It does. I’m officially a flame that can no longer be extinguished.

“Don’t worry,” she says. “No one can come or go. It’s a lock-in.”

“It’s a... what?”

“A lock-in?” she says.

“Okay... what does that mean, exactly?”

I can’t tell if she’s confused or amused.

“It literally means they lock us in overnight. Which is great for us.”

The phrase lock us in knocks the wind out of me. But the great for us part finishes me off.

“Great, how?” I ask.

She slips the papers back inside the envelope. “No exit privileges means we’re off the hook as bouncers. We can just go have fun.”

That word rings in my ears like someone shot off a rifle next to my head. And it keeps ringing as we meet back up with Cason and Lucy to dot the i’s on the to-do list in our instruction packet.

In fact, the whole phrase we can just go have fun screech-echoes on reverb.

People like Beckett can just go have fun at something called Pure Prom. People like Beckett and Cason can dry hump in the front seat of the car and tell themselves they’re still chaste and pure and virtuous or whatever, and everyone is okay with that. People like Lucy can judge me for being the token lesbian at a Great Wait meeting without worrying about sounding less like a protective friend and more like a jealous girlfriend.

But people like me have to peek through the fence slats on a daily basis. Lift the bottom hem of the curtain, wondering who’s coming for us. We don’t just listen to a person’s words—we study the spaces between the words. The exhale of a person’s breath. The shape of the letters as they talk to us, or about us. We would never not know if the curve of the D is burned out on the Fool City sign. Someone like me doesn’t get to go to Pure Prom and just have fun. We have to look over our shoulder, hold our breath until we make it home safe—if home even is safe. We don’t get to just have fun. It’s not fun. It’s fucking exhausting.

B’Rad shoves a pink pastry box across the lunch table at me. “So what did you want to ask me about last night?”

Damn. I was kind of hoping he’d forgotten about that.

“Nothing,” I say. “Just a rando late-night idea.”

A rando late-night idea that I’m ridiculously fixated on. Even though the possibility of going to Pure Prom to spend time with a girl who’s probably-straight-but-giving-off-Care-Bear-energy is so far out there, it has no place to land. I mean, really? Go to a dance where I can’t technically be with the person I want, surrounded by people who hate who I am? On what planet?

“I love rando late-night ideas,” B’Rad says.

I shake my head. “It’s so cringe!” I say with a pained laugh.

But B’Rad just sits there, waiting to hear it.

“Okay. I know it’s not your original invitation, but... did you know that there’s a prom alternative... and it’s free?”

B’Rad’s nod is not unlike the nod he uses when negotiating a deal on shit from his granddad’s lot. “Go on,” he says.

“It’s... it’s Pure Prom.” I hope my face adequately reflects the pain of this agonizingly embarrassing suggestion.

But B’Rad seems unfazed.

“Honestly, Daya, it doesn’t matter which prom we go to,” he says, reaching into the pastry box. “Prom, Pure Prom... Alien Prom, it’s all the same to me.”

“Really?” I slide out a donut, courtesy of Mrs. Morales, who saves B’Rad the leftovers from the Great Wait meetings whenever she can. She knows he doesn’t always get breakfast.

He says, “I just want to hang out and have fun with you. Look. I already offered to be your date. So, what you’re really begging me to be is your—”

“I swear to God, B’Rad, if you say beard...” I tell him. “This whole thing is already confusing. Don’t make it weird, too.”

“Fine, I won’t. But... maybe someone whose super-clandestine crush will also be at said event might need a beard.”

The whoosh of my heart is literally the only thing I can hear for a few seconds.

“Shit... really?” I say when I finally exhale again.

“Don’t worry,” he whispers. “Your secret’s safe with me.”

“Is it that obvious?”

B’Rad pushes his glasses up.

He goes, “It’s more of an energy thing.”

This is bad. If my feelings for Beckett are obvious to B’Rad, who else are they obvious to?

“What up, bitches!”

Stella appears out of nowhere and plunks herself next to me on the concrete bench. I give B’Rad a desperate look and a minuscule shake of my head, praying he gets the message. He volleys a subtle nod that he understands: My secret stays on lockdown, even from Stella. She’s like a sister to me, yes. But sometimes my sister has a mouth big enough to remind me that things like this aren’t always safe in her hands.

“Donuts!”she blurts.

He slides the box toward her, and she spends way too long deciding which one is worthy of her consumption. I’ve seen her land a girl at a party faster than this.

“So, what are we talking about?” she asks, shoving a chocolate bar with sprinkles into her mouth.

“Just so you know?” he tells her. “That’s a Jesus donut. You’re eating the body of Christ.”

“As long as it doesn’t make me straight, it’s all good.”

B’Rad snickers, and I go, “You both need Jesus.”

“Since you asked,” he says, “we were debating the pros and cons of zoos.”

He launches into a recap of a conversation we never actually had, and I’m fascinated by how easy this bogus narrative just spills out of him. Same as he did with Joanna at his “estate sale,” with that story about his parents dying some horrible death.

By the time Stella finishes her donut, B’Rad has successfully pulled her into a debate about the cruelty of keeping animals in captivity simply for the gaze of the curious human.

While they go on, I quietly roll thoughts of Beckett around in my head. Her arm heat-fused to mine at the meeting this morning. The way she says the best about anything from coffee to my line doodles. How beautiful she’s going to look at prom. How at some point, Cason Price will drape his arm around her without even thinking about what it really means to be able to touch her, and I’d die a hundred kinds of death wishing it was me, not him.

She’s coming over after school today. All I should be thinking about right now is making sure we crush our presentation. Not the endless ways in which I pathetically crush on her.

Valentina Orozco strolls by, head-to-toe the fly vibe Stella always falls for, and Stella’s whole chest and neck goes red when she sees her.

“Have fun, kids,” she says, swiping another donut out of the box before she runs to catch up with her. I watch her give the donut to Valentina, watch Valentina peck her on the cheek as a thanks, watch a kid nearby call out, “God hates fags!”

Stella goes, “She hates hypocrites and liars too, so you can fuck right off.”

B’Rad snort-nods.

“I wish I knew how to do that,” I say, watching them walk away.

“Do what?”

“I wish I could be part of Stella’s zero fucks club, you know? That God hates fags bullshit freaks me all the way out. You can’t get away from it. Not at this school, not in this town. It’s like... there are some things even adults have no trouble looking away from. I wish I could challenge it the way Stella does.”

He rubs his ear and goes, “Why can’t you?”

I think about Joanna. How even early on, there were subtle messages, about how we were not to draw attention to ourselves in general, or let people see our flaws specifically. I get how her fear of being humiliated probably came from the way people at St. John’s turned on her, how my dad’s sins were rewritten and projected on to her in a lot of ways. But the remnants of those days still exist, and they still hold me back from defending myself or anyone else in those God hates fags moments. The stakes are too damn high, especially in this town. And they rise higher every single day.

But all I can say is, “It’s complicated.”

The bell rings, and as we pack up our stuff to walk to class, he goes, “So it’s set, then. I’ll be your date on Saturday.” He uses air quotes around the word date, adding, “And, uh... I’ll make sure Cason is impaired enough to give you some time alone with her.”

Oh God... this whole Pure Prom idea just went from impossible to ridiculous. Me, going to Pure Prom with B’Rad. B’Rad, making sure Cason Price is super-stoned so I can low-key pretend I’m there with his girlfriend. It’s too messy. It’ll never get off the ground....

My eye catches Beckett across the commons, walking with a group of girls I recognize from the Great Wait meeting this morning. I went to that meeting hoping the universe would give me a sign about going to Pure Prom. And I thought the message was a loud and clear NO.

But now, watching Beckett ripple past with B’Rad’s still-fresh offer lying like drops of nervous sweat on the surface of my skin, I feel pulled in a very specific direction.

It makes no logical sense to say yes.

But when I look at Beckett... yes is all I know.