Prom Queen Perfect Read online

  The wheels in my head came to a screeching halt. After everything, he thought I did something wrong?

  This was so not happening.

  I did my best to look down my nose at him, even if he was several inches taller than me. Unable to hide the disbelief in my voice, I said, "Um, hello? I improved her?"

  “You improved her?” Adam said, running his hands through his hair in frustration. He backed away a few steps, like he was going to start shaking me if he didn’t get some distance between us. “We’re talking about another person here.”

  “Another person I helped.” My voice sounded defensive even to my own ears.

  This whole plan was blowing up in my face, and for the first time in my life, I had no idea what to do. No backup plan. No clever scheme to save face with.

  "So, this whole thing isn't part of some little game you and your friends are playing?" Adam was right in my face again. He was so mad that a red flush started creeping up his neck. "Because Christy is a genuinely nice person, and she has had to put up with more than enough from the people in this school."

  Stop right now, I told myself. You’re going to regret this.

  But it was like some foreign being had possessed me, someone furious at the thought that Adam was defending Christy. Why did he care so much about her? Why did he always see me as the spoiled brat who manipulated other people?

  Maybe because he’s right, a voice that sounded suspiciously like Mommy whispered in my head. At the thought, a red haze filled my eyes. The words were out of my mouth before I could even stop them. "Do you have a crush on her? Is that why you're making such a big deal about this?"

  "You don't need to have a crush on someone to treat her like a human being," Adam said, his tone eerily calm in the morning air. "When are you going to realize that?”

  If Adam had slapped me, the pain would’ve rolled off me in about five seconds. His words, on the other hand, were more lethal. They branded themselves into my brain as I tried to process how Adam really saw me. He was acting like I trampled all over people's feelings in Manolo Blahnik heels without giving a damn.

  Seeing me flinch, Adam took a step forward and said, "Alex, I… I didn't mean—”

  "Yes, you did. You meant every word." I shook my head and took a step back. When he reached for my hand, I yanked it away. It was only then that I noticed how hard I was shaking. My carefully crafted façade was cracking beneath the eyes of the one person who didn’t need to see how vulnerable I was. I steeled myself. "But you know what, Adam? I don't care what you think. So you can go to hell."

  I spun on one heel and headed for Homeroom, my chin up in the air like I was bulletproof. The only problem was, I wasn’t.

  Not in the least.

  ***

  Mommy’s parties were often lauded in the society pages as the most elegant the country had ever seen.

  This one was no exception. Our garden, a wide expanse of well-maintained lawn and fresh flowers, looked beautiful on a normal day, but on this cool night, it was majestic.

  Fairy lights hung from trees and bushes, and made me feel like I’d walked into a fairy tale. White lilies served as centerpieces on tables covered by even whiter table cloths. The scent of lilies and evening dew hovered in the air. Guests in designer suits and dresses mingled around me, their jewels twinkling in the moonlight. I loved my mother’s parties, relished the sense of importance playing hostess made me feel.

  “Have you seen my mother?” I asked Tita Miranda, the wife of a textile titan and one of Mommy’s many acquaintances.

  Tita Miranda’s took a sip of wine. “I saw her a few minutes ago, but she disappeared somewhere. You know how she is.”

  I winked conspiratorially as if to say, Yes, I definitely do. All these women pretended they were Mommy’s best friends, buying the same Gucci dresses and wanting to believe they were half as classy. The truth was, none of them knew my mother. Not one of them had even scratched the surface.

  Alice and Clay sat on a table talking with glasses of wine between them, caught up in their own little world. Adam was nowhere in sight. I wanted to stop and say hi, but I continued looking for Mommy. I found her in a corner of the garden lit up by candles. Even when surrounded by other beautiful people, my mother still stood out, like a goddess among mere mortals for a few short hours. Her dove gray dress resembled spun moonlight, the diamonds in her ears like frozen raindrops.

  With a huge smile on my face, I headed in her direction. I had prepared for this party for weeks, from my perfectly messy fishtail braid to the silver Jimmy Choos on my feet. My mother detested anything that looked out of place, and I wanted to make her proud.

  When I was only a few meters away from their circle, my mother caught my eye. I stiffened, bracing myself for her inspection. My dress was gorgeous, my makeup subtle and highlighted all of my features. There wasn't a thing she could find lacking.

  Cradling a glass of white wine in her right hand, she said, "Alex, darling, why don't you go inside and change? Your shoes clash horribly with your dress."

  My blood turned ice-cold in my veins. I forced the smile to stay on my face, feeling like my teeth might break at any moment. "Sure, Mommy. I'll be back in a while."

  Do not cry, I told myself as I spun around and made my way back to the house. This wasn’t new, was it? I should’ve been used to it by this point. Memories from the past couple of years flooded into my head.

  Alex, darling, why aren't you at the top of your class like your sister?

  Darling, that shade of lipstick simply doesn't look good on you. It makes you look washed out. Go inside and swipe on something more flattering.

  Don't you think your sister looks beautiful in our company's newest billboard? I'm so relieved one of you looks like me.

  The memories made me want to scream. A familiar fury began to build in my chest, threatening to burst out of me like champagne out of a shaken bottle. It curled around my throat like a vise.

  I threaded my way around the people who no longer looked so glamorous. Thankfully, no one tried to stop me and ask questions about school and my life in general. Screaming in someone’s face would’ve felt so good right then and there, but it wasn’t an option. I couldn’t believe I wasted weeks of preparation to impress Mommy.

  All because I chose the wrong pair of shoes.

  I was such an idiot.

  When I walked through the oak doors of our house, the maid who was dusting the 18th century mirror in the living room took one look at my face and scurried away. Good. She didn’t need to be a casualty of the fury I was about to unleash. Standing in the middle of our living room, I took off the offensive Jimmy Choos I had spent hours choosing.

  The marble floors felt cold and completely satisfying underneath my bare feet. I hurled the shoes in two different directions. One landed perfectly on the couch. The other slid under the legs of the antique mirror.

  I turned around and found Adam standing behind me. The look of pity on his face told me everything I needed to know. He’d heard what happened in the garden.

  It would’ve been easier to accept his pity if he didn’t look so good. His charcoal suit fit him perfectly, like he stepped out of the pages of GQ. Jazz music floated through the open doorway, and it occurred to me that I was supposed to be dancing with a cute boy at that moment, a cute boy who thought I was wonderful and would never call me selfish.

  I became angrier than ever.

  Clenching my fists, I took a step forward and said, “You.”

  “Me.” Adam took a step back.

  “You were a complete asshole to me at school the other day,” I said, pointing an accusing finger in his direction.

  To my utter surprise, Adam didn’t disagree. He tried to smile but stopped upon seeing the murderous expression on my face. “Yeah, I was about to apologize for that. What I said was—”

  “—way out of line? Completely obnoxious?” I finished for him.

  Adam averted his eyes from mine, pulling his necktie away
like it was choking him. “I was about to say inappropriate.”

  “Inappropriate?” My eyebrows rose so high they must’ve reached outer space. Inappropriate didn’t even begin to cover it. “Is that the best you can do? This is your fancy apology? Thank you so much for wasting my time.”

  I turned to go, leaving my Jimmy Choos scattered like fallen debris.

  “Wait.”

  Adam grabbed my wrist, sending a not unpleasant buzz of electricity up my arm. His hand felt warm around my wrist, his touch light but firm. Butterflies came alive in my stomach. I proceeded to crush them with sheer willpower alone.

  This was Adam. Butterflies had no business being in my stomach because he touched me.

  Wrenching my arm out of his grasp, I faced him. “What?”

  He cleared his throat but didn’t say anything.

  Our eyes met, and we stood looking at each other for a few seconds, maybe a few minutes. My eyes focused on the scar on his chin from when he tripped on the soccer field a few years ago. It made him look wise and world-weary, like he’d lived a few more lifetimes than I had.

  I found it hard to believe that this was Adam, the person who was becoming more familiar and more distant in equal measure with the passing of each school year.

  Three years ago, our families took a trip to Paris. I was fourteen and he was fifteen, and the adults let us explore the city by ourselves for an entire afternoon. We ended up staring at the magnificence that was the Seine River for hours. We looked at the passing boats and let the breeze caress our faces. Moments like that with Adam were impossible now.

  Finally, he decided to break the silence. He tucked his hands into his pockets and said, “Alex, you may be many things, but you aren’t cruel. You never have been. I was wrong, okay?”

  I nodded. “Okay.”

  Adam let out a little sigh of relief. “So, apology accepted?”

  This was the part where I grinned not unlike the Cheshire cat from Alice in Wonderland. I formed a steeple with my fingers under my chin, pretending to think long and hard about his question. Adam’s jaw tightened.

  “No, apology most definitely not accepted.” I headed for the stairs without saying another word.

  My heart threatened to burst out of my chest as I climbed up the stairs. Its pounding was so loud that it almost eclipsed the volume of the jazz music playing in the party outside.

  I won this round, but why did I still feel like a loser?

  Chapter Three

  I loved sipping champagne while wearing a glitzy dress at a garden party, laughing and twinkling into the eyes of a college boy who looked suspiciously like Adam in my fantasies.

  High school parties, on the other hand, were so… unsophisticated. People usually drank one too many shots of tequila and wound up kneeling in front of the toilet before the party was even halfway over. Not my idea of fun.

  But this party was an exception. I stared at the ranch-style mansion as our driver parked in front of it.

  Stephen sent out invitations to a pool party at his house to Asia Pacific Academy’s elite last week, and this was a great opportunity to teach Christy how to own a party in a matter of seconds.

  I sent her a text message asking where she was and checked my reflection in the rearview mirror. In a striped romper and my boldest shade of red lipstick, there was no doubt that I was going to be the light of this party. I could almost imagine Cory asking where I got my romper and begging her film producer father to get her one exactly like it.

  Standing outside, Christy replied.

  Wait, what?

  I grabbed my tote bag and jumped out of the car, scanning the lawn for Christy. A bunch of our schoolmates were making their way to the house’s wide double doors, and they all waved at me. I distractedly waved back, still looking for Christy. When I found her hidden behind a huge, elephant-shaped hedge, I couldn’t hold back my grin.

  With her hair tied up in a high ponytail and no makeup on, Christy looked fresh-faced, like one of those eternally happy girls in strawberry yogurt commercials. She wore a bright pink bikini underneath a see-through cover up and denim shorts that showed off her long, slim legs.

  We were going to blow this pool party out of the water.

  Pun intended.

  But first, it was time for a little pep talk. Slinging my tote bag over my shoulder, I walked over to her. “Hey, Christy.”

  “Ohmygod, Alex, I’ve been waiting for you.” Christy’s whole body practically vibrated with energy as she ran toward me. She grabbed both my shoulders and held on. “Patricia and her friends are inside, and I really couldn’t go in by myself. Do you think I could skip this party? I’m sure there’ll be another one soon, right?”

  So, this was why she was hiding behind the shrubbery like a summer-themed burglar. Before I could even think twice about what I was doing, I took out a pack of wet wipes from my bag and wiped away my lipstick. I firmly believed that red lipstick could give a person an instant confidence boost, but we couldn’t walk into the party wearing the same shade. I loved my Russian Red, but Christy needed it more. I asked her to come closer and told her to pucker up.

  “Christy, when we walk inside the party, I want you to do one thing,” I said as I spread the lipstick all over her lips. “Walk up to the hottest guy there and drag him to the middle of the dance floor. You look so hot right now that no boy will be able to turn you down. Are we clear?”

  She nodded.

  When we walked inside Stephen’s family’s mansion, a maid in a black and white uniform stood ready to greet us by the door. The entire house was the picture of opulence, decorated in varying shades of gold and cream. Christy’s eyes took everything in as the maid guided us to the backyard where the infinity pool was located.

  Asia Pacific Academy’s elite from freshmen to seniors were already gathered around or inside the pool, all equally well-groomed and beautiful. Most of them were holding beer bottles and making tipsy attempts at flirting. A bunch of sophomore girls in their matching bikinis danced to loud pop music blaring from unseen speakers. It was impossible to miss the smell of chlorine and freshly cut grass.

  Stephen sat in a hammock surrounded by his groupies, including Patricia and the Clones, but he stopped and winked when he caught my eye. He had on a jaunty sea captain’s hat that made him look like a seaman after a night of debauchery.

  He was most definitely the hottest guy at this party, the one Christy needed to snag while Patricia and her friends watched. It was the best form of payback imaginable.

  I turned around to give Christy further instructions, but she was nowhere to be found. My eyes landed on Adam instead, and my jaw dropped in surprise. Seeing him at a party was like seeing a pair of this season’s designer shoes on sale. Virtually impossible.

  He stood by the pool in red board shorts, holding a glass of iced tea with a little paper umbrella floating inside it. Cory, currently in a wet blue tankini, giggled at something he said, her hand snaking out to touch his arm once in a while. Droplets from her hair and swimsuit formed a puddle around her feet. Adam’s jokes were never funny, so why was she giggling like an audience member at Saturday Night Live?

  It was disgusting.

  All of a sudden, my romper and flip-flops made me feel too young, like a little kid who walked into a serious meeting about climate change or something equally serious. When Adam detached his gaze from Cory after a few minutes, he saw me standing there. Instead of walking over to me with a sarcastic comment at the ready like he usually did, he returned his gaze to Cory, pretending he hadn’t seen me.

  The. Nerve.

  I wanted to walk over to them, push Cory out of the way, and hit Adam in the head with the duck-shaped life buoy currently floating in the pool.

  “Sorry, I always end up having to pee when I’m nervous.” Christy was back at my side, her cheeks high with color. “So, who are we looking at?” Before I could answer, her eyes followed my gaze, right to the spot where Cory’s hand was still attached to Adam’s
arm. Her mouth dropped open when she saw them, and she sneaked a quick glance at me. “Oh.”

  “Oh?” I kept my voice as nonchalant as possible.

  “You like him,” Christy said, a smile I could only describe as beatific on her face.

  I scoffed. “Yes, as much as I like working on my Economics homework.”

  “You do. You like Adam.” Christy’s smile turned into a full-blown grin. “Well, I can’t blame you. He’s really nice. A few months ago, Patricia stuffed the canned goods we were supposed to donate to flood victims into my backpack, but Adam caught her. He said something that scared her so much she didn’t bother me again… until that day in the hallway.”

  Patricia and the Clones.

  How could I even forget the reason we were at this party in the first place?

  “Whatever’s going on with Adam and me, it’s not important right now.” I grabbed Christy’s shoulders and steered her in the direction of Stephen’s hammock. “Now, go over there and ask Stephen to dance with you. It’s a ballsy move that only a few girls here would even dare to try.”

  It also showed everyone that the old Christy Marquez, the girl who cowered in fear at the thought of Patricia and her friends, was gone.

  Christy gulped. She got a dreamy, faraway look in her eyes when she looked at Stephen, but it was quickly replaced by anxiety at the sight of the girls surrounding him. When Patricia ran a hand down his bicep, she gulped again. “Maybe there’s something else I could do?”

  I shook my head. “No, you have to do this.”

  “Those girls, they’re going to try to choke me to death with their glares.” Christy chewed on her lower lip, her fingers playing with the hem of her cover up. “Okay, I have to be brave, but so do you.”

  “What?” This was not part of the deal.

  “You also have to go up to the hottest boy at this party and ask him to dance with you.” An unbelievably sly look crept into Christy’s eyes, and I got a bad feeling that I had rubbed off a little too much on her. “For me, the hottest boy at this party is Stephen, but in your opinion, it’s clearly someone else.”