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Contents (64)
  1. Copyright
  2. Contents
  3. Prologue
  4. {OCTOBER}
  5. Days ’til prom: Eons
  6. 1
  7. SECOND HALF OF SENIOR YEAR {JANUARY}
  8. Days ’til prom: 103
  9. 2
  10. Days ’til prom: Still 103
  11. 3
  12. Days ’til prom: 100
  13. 4
  14. Days ’til prom: Still 100
  15. 5
  16. Days ’til prom: 89
  17. {FEBRUARY}
  18. Days ’til prom: 83
  19. 6
  20. Days ’til prom: Still 83
  21. 7
  22. Days ’til prom: 65
  23. Days ’til prom: 64
  24. 8
  25. Days ’til prom: 61
  26. Days ’til prom: 57
  27. 9
  28. {MARCH}
  29. Days ’til prom: 51
  30. 10
  31. Days ’til prom: Still 51
  32. 11
  33. Days ’til prom: 50
  34. 12
  35. Days ’til prom: 49
  36. Days ’til prom: 48
  37. 13
  38. Days ’til prom: Still 48
  39. 14
  40. Days ’til prom: Seems irrelevant now
  41. 15
  42. Days ’til graduation: 31
  43. 16
  44. Days ’til graduation: 30
  45. 17
  46. {APRIL}
  47. Days ’til graduation: 17
  48. 18
  49. Days ’til graduation: 11
  50. Days ’til graduation: 6
  51. 19
  52. Days ’til graduation: 5
  53. 20
  54. Days ’til graduation: Still 4
  55. 21
  56. Days ‘til graduation: Still 2
  57. 22
  58. Days ’til graduation: Still 2, but minus a few hours
  59. Epilogue
  60. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  61. PRAISE FOR
  62. Dear Universe
  63. PRAISE FOR
  64. Love & Other Carnivorous Plants

Dear Universe,

I like cold nights we disappear into.

I like when our shadows touch.

I like the metallic taste in my mouth from his mouth from his lungs.

I like Elvis songs playing in my head as I move.

I like what his spandex hints at.

I like everyone tucked in their houses and us escaping toward each other.

I like my heart taking up the drums.

I like procrastinating.

Seriously, I like it so much I put off procrastinating.

I like college essays with incomplete endings.

I like imagining us dancing into freedom on prom night.

I like you.

Clap once if you like me too.

7

Days ’til prom: 65

EVERY SO OFTEN I GET A PING OF EXCITEMENT WHEN I LEAVE the house for school in the morning. I walk up the street, avoiding December’s ice patches that are continuing their midlife crisis into February, and I’m happy about catching the bus. Obviously, I don’t like school. I’m not in second grade. But as annoying as the rules (and the teachers who just love catching us breaking those rules) are, school is exactly what I need sometimes. There are so many lives going on all around me in the crowded hallways and the deafening cafeteria, and I’m just another girl with a plaid skirt and a backpack on. At home I’m my parents’ daughter, and who we are is as much a part of the house as the furniture is.

It gets claustrophobic. My mom decides to embark on a special cleaning project of the cleaning products. My dad puts the milk back in the oven. At school I’m free of all that as I walk past Mr. Garcia’s office, with the countdown to graduation and the vending machine with the condoms that wave as I pass, as if to say, Look at how intact your virginity is! At school it’s nice to be no one specific, just talking about prom and working on my Spanish so that when I arrive in Nicaragua, I can say a little bit more than Me llamo Cham. Unfortunately, the ping of excitement doesn’t usually last the whole school day, or even through homeroom. One opening of my in-box, and the ping often turns to a thud of Oh, shit.

E-mail received at seven o’clock on Tuesday morning but not read until this morning because it’s impossible to find a good secretary these days:

Hi, Cham,

Just a reminder that your college essay is due Friday. Looking forward to reading it!

Thanks,

Evelyn

Dear Universe,

In light of this recent e-mail, could you please send me a celestial Uber before last period? Gotta leave the world real quick. Do me this solid, and I will not make any more desperate requests for Gene to ask me to prom in such a cute way that kittens everywhere shit their pants. I will even write my college essay. Or try to.

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“How is everyone doing?” Evelyn asks when last period is upon us. (The celestial Uber is decidedly not coming.)