Super Awkward (26 page)

“Stop judging me, nose! I only found out hours before I saw you in the art room. And Dad had just given me a massive talk saying I could only go if I proved to him ‘I was maturrre enough to make the money worrrth spending.'” He let the info sink a bit.

“That's why nailing this placement was such a big
deal
to me. Why I had to get full marks. It wasn't the uni testing me – it was Dad. But it's not like when I messaged you, I could have been honest and thrown it all out there – that Mr Lutas was my Dad, and was watching my every move – so I had to think on my feet. Think of another reason I had to keep under the radar.” Zac laughed under his breath. “Kind of funny that it was him who let the dad cat out of the bag.”

It would be funny, if it wasn't the most dramatic family revelation since any episode of
EastEnders
.

I was speechless.

But I needed to become speech-full.

As rubbish as it was finding out I'd been lied to, I totally understood why he had. And who was I to judge after what I'd done? It was time for me to say my sorry for doing the same.

“Well, thanks for letting me know. And congrats. And happy art trip, I guess?!” Zac grinned, clearly relieved to have his secret out in the open too. But I hadn't finished. “But, I want to say sorry too. I should have just been honest from the start. I guess . . . I guess I was just trying to make you think I was something I wasn't.”

“You were dressed as an arrow – you should have let me come to my own conclusions.” He was teasing me,
but
he was right. “People who dress as cardboard road signs are EXACTLY the kind of friends I like. Right up my street.”

Friends. The word punched me in the stomach.

The confirmation that while I'd been working on winning him back, Zac had been working on moving on. I was glad he couldn't see how crushed I must look. But he was happy chatting away, unaware every cell in my body had just done a little cry.

“I haven't even told you the best bit.” Well he'd certainly told me the worst bit. “But you CAN'T let Dad know I told you. . .”

“Go on. . .”

“Well, last night over dinner he mentioned that if you guys finished all your props by the end of your last session, they were going to let you all go to prom.”

Zac held up his hand for a high-five and despite being a JUST A FRIEND, I couldn't help but give it a massive thwack. This
was
most excellent news! What a rollercoaster the last ten minutes had been. Who knew Mr Lutas had a nice side after all?! I couldn't WAIT to tell the others. Although I definitely could wait to tell them Zac and Bella – Zella – was no more.

I stood up so fast I bashed into a mannequin and ended up in a hug-mount with it. Zac laughed. His
horsey
laugh. And for the first time, it didn't sound as cute as I used to think. Which made me feel all kinds of weird.

Had this week made me feel differently about Zac
too
? But I'd been too caught up in winning him back to notice? Could him being so clear we were friends actually be a bit of a relief? At least this way I could stop pretending I wasn't entirely uncool, and practising a fake birthdate, and revising where places like Singapore are.

Zac reached out his hand to help me untangle myself.

“C'mon, we better get going. They'll be wondering what we're up to. Although, we might as well play Luke at his own game, so try not to look too happy.”

“Deal.” I shook my face out and concentrated on looking like I'd just been cringed-out by a really fit boy. I was worryingly good at it.

As I pushed the door open, Tegan and Rachel were staring in a way that meant ‘OMG, you've just come out of a cupboard encounter with that hotness, are you OK? You have to tell us everything.' I gave them a look back which they could hopefully interpret as, ‘Of course I will. It was unbelievable. Like, we didn't snog or anything, in fact I guess the opposite, as we're officially
“
friends”, but obvs he's still totally hot. And we all might get to prom after all. But I have to look moody so Luke thinks he got one up on me.' I think I managed it.

Like a pro, Zac got straight back to work, with no hint of what went down. This only made Tegan give me even more concerned looks, so when Mr Lutas had his back turned I did a full on hand-on-head phew gesture at her. I noticed Luke eyeing me suspiciously so styled it into the ‘ow, I've got a bad headache' gesture instead.

As soon as Mr Lutas gave us permission to leave, I bundled Rachel and Tegan as far away from Luke as possible and filled them in. They were gutted that our team effort to win Zac back for me had failed, but they almost vibrated with excitement when I told them the prom news. Rachel maintained an impressively long ‘Yeehaaaaaa' without stopping for breath,
and
that was while leaping around in circles. It was so loud that Mikey came bursting into the girls loo, thinking there had been a murder. But when we explained the news, he stopped looking for evidence and led a chorus of ‘we've got ninety-nine problems, but prom aint one' instead.

The evening went downhill from there (as in, it got better, as surely going downhill is way better than
uphill?).
Jo was waiting outside for us, so we scored a free lift home, and chatted at a million miles an hour, making proper plans for prom. But despite my hurried briefing as we got in the car, in all the excitement Rach let slip the ‘d' word. Detention. I'd tried to extra-loud-whoop-for-no-reason as she said it, but Jo never misses a trick.

As soon as we were alone, Jo called me out on it. With nowhere to escape, and full of adrenalin from the last hour, I came clean about the whole thing, from the art lesson onwards. Well, obviously I'd tried coming half-clean first, but Jo sussed that there was no way I'd choose to spend extra-curricular fun-afternoon time locked in a room with Zac, Luke and ZAC'S DAD. She almost crashed the car when she'd realized I'd snogged Mr Lutas's son. And then almost crashed it into our house when she couldn't stop laughing that she'd seen my almost-boyfriend's dad's life drawing pictures. I made a mental note to never share that with Zac.

When I went to bed that night, I felt the happiest I had done all term. Yes, I was going to have to work on accepting Zac and I were never going to happen, but prom
was
going to be back on, and it
was
going to be an epic night with the others. I'd just have to appreciate Zac as a supervisor, rather than a snogavisor. Plus
mounting
the mannequin might make a funny story for
PSSSST
.

But when I opened up the app, in amongst the likes, and comments, and jokes from LilDrummerBoy that always made me snort-laugh, there was something I hadn't seen before. A direct message.

THANKS FOR SHARING YOUR SECRETS

PRUNEFLAPPER. THEY'RE 10/10.

I clicked delete. Obvs just spam.

But there was another one in the thread.

PF NEVER DOES DISAPPOINT.

Why thank you, mystery fan. Although no one had ever abbreviated PruneFlapper to PF before.

But when I looked again my world stopped.

They hadn't written PF. They'd written BF.

Someone out there knew it was me.

CHAPTER

TWENTY
-
THREE

I love Saturdays. It's so nice to wake up and not feel like you have to jump straight out of bed. You can just lie there and wait for it to become the right time to get up. Which might be four p.m. and that'd be totally cool as long as I bang my foot on the floor a couple of times to make Mum think I'm up and I'm doing something constructive in my room, like rearranging my posters.

My phone buzzed loudly. Eurgh. Not like me to set an alarm? But as I fumbled for it, I accidentally answered. It wasn't an alarm, it was Rachel ringing me.

“Halloohowareyou?” Why is there no way of hiding lying-down voice?

“Hi, lazy poo,” Rachel teased. “Just wanted to see if you still wanted a lift.”

What
?

“To go in to town . . . 'member?”

“Errrrrrrr. . .” This was too early for my brain to be functioning.

“To meet up with Tegan?”

Mum put her head round the door and started doing an impression of a teapot. Why did she not understand phone calls were private? I waved her out.

“To go dress shopping for The Prom of the Century. . . You've totally forgotten, haven't you?!”

“No, I
totally
have not forgotten. . .”

Mum was now making a ‘T' shape with her hands, whilst helpfully saying ‘tea' in a loud whisper. I nodded so she'd go away, sticking a finger in my spare ear.

“And I'm totally getting ready as we speak. Sorry, Mum was being weird.
Go away
,
Mum
.”

Mum pulled an ‘ooh, so you're going out' face. I got out of bed and closed the door, physically pushing her out of the room.

I
had
sort of forgotten a bit about the whole shopping trip, as I'd been a bit pre-occupied with working out who'd messaged me on
PSSSST
. Had it been a typo, or the world's creepiest message? I'd deleted the app and everything on it just in case. Still, I could hardly tell the others what was on my mind, as
I'd
never actually got round to telling them about it in the first place.

When Rachel's car pulled up outside thirty minutes later, I still had dripping wet hair and no make-up on. I flung myself on to the backseat gibbering apologies, not realizing it wasn't Rach's dad driving, it was her River Island catalogue modelling HOB, Dan. I threw him the hottest look I could muster via the rear-view mirror (hard when you only have eyeliner on one eye and are impaled on a seatbelt holder). He smiled back politely in a you're-my-little-sister's-friend-and-someone-should-really-tell-you-I-have-a-boyfriend kind of a way. Well, in your face, Dan, someone
has
told me, but little do you know you're just one in a long line of boys that I drool over who will never go out with me. It really doesn't stop me.

Tegan was already waiting when we pulled up at the Elgar Statue. I didn't bother explaining that it was my fault we were late, cos I knew she'd know. And she knew that I knew that she knew.

Last night we'd group-called Mikey and made exact plans on how we were going to get all the props finished on time. Tegan was even giving up gymnastics for the week to make sure the banners got done. So with props-completion fully planned, and tickets guaranteed, today
we
were going to concentrate on the fun stuff instead. After a term of ups and downs, it felt amazing to finally look forward to our first prom together. All we needed to do was find some serious YAAAAS outfits. We hit the shops up like a military operation.

Group shopping is political. Rachel naturally drifts towards shops that sell dresses for more than my whole year's allowance, so Tegan and I politely pretend to look round and fake-browse socks and keyrings. I need them both with me, though, as when I do finally try stuff on, I rely on their faces more than I do mirrors. Mirrors seem to say, ‘Yes, Bella! No one else will be wearing this neon-striped dress!' while their faces say, ‘Is glittery-traffic-warden a
thing
?'

But after hours of searching, none of us had found a dress.

“Laaaydeeeez, we've been looking for daaaays now, and no one's got
anything
.” Rachel was slumped outside Tegan's changing room and had obvs forgotten the two CDs, one bracelet, new lipstick, stick-on eyelashes and bag of pick'n'mix she'd bought without even noticing.

I held up my little shopping trophy.

“I did buy this nail varnish, but no one's going to
notice
my nails if I'm naked everywhere else.”

Tegan popped her head out of the curtain. “Guys. Honest opinions. What do you think of this one?”

I clapped my hands like an excited fashion-loving seal as Tegan flung back the curtain like a sexy matador. Woah, she looked HA-MAZ-ING. The fitted, slash neck dress clung to every bit of her body, only stopping at the floor, and she looked so sophis, I swear she was actually gliding around the changing room.

“Wow, Tegan, just wow.” I snapped a picture of her. “See? You look increds.”

She beamed at our reactions.

“High-five to this.
And
it's in the sale!” Her voice got muffled as she dived back into the changing room and wriggled the dress off over her head. “Maybe I could sew some black tasselly things on the shoulders. But in a good way.” She didn't need to clarify; she always had a knack of making things look customized in all the right ways.

We headed to the till happy one of us was sorted. Tegan fished out all of her change.

“Woohoo for me managing to find something I could afford. Mum was a total no-go for lending me any money after she'd got that detention letter!”

I
winced.

“You know mine never arrived, right? I'm living in total fear!”

Rachel shook her head.

“You're so jammy. Did you train Mumbles to eat post or something?”

“I wouldn't put it past her. The other day she tried to eat a bee, but it stung her in the mouth and made her look like she'd had doggy botox.”

Rachel looked impressed.

“She might be on to something there. Dogs are well wrinkly. Anyway, enough TALK. I'm fading here. Is it TIME yet?!”

Rachel was referring to our ritual, and the answer was ‘yes'. So the three of us, Tegan happily swinging her new purchase, headed off to our routine shopping stop-off, Froth, a converted old church with sofas so big you could lie on them. We ordered three hot chocolates (obvs with marshmallows), plus an extra-large bowl of potato wedges and mayonnaise. Surely that ticked all the nutritious food groups? We left on a marshmallow high, with new enthusiasm to attack the racks, only detouring to pop into the shoe shop where a boy Rachel likes works. Turns out they only sell man shoes, so he ended up recommending some slippers for her
granddad.
By the time we left, Rachel was completely in love. And the proud owner of three pairs of size 11 odour eaters.