Leeza shoots me a dark look. “Maybe read the handbook—it’s just full of sins you can commit.” Is it just me, or does her tone slide past cool snark into sharp dig?

“Prom comes from the word ‘promenade,’ which means walk.” Ernie thinks he’s helping. He is not.

“So we’ll just walk all night? I mean, that’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”

Weirdly, Chaz defends it. “No! Some of the kids sing, and there’s a movie—”

At prom?!

“And they cater instead of serving cafeteria food, which is worth it in its own right.”

Ma Elena chimes in. “It’s really just about getting dressed up and having a big night with your friends. Nothing wrong with that.”

Chaz gently ribs me. “I bet you miss Connecticut now …”

I thought prom would suck if ASA wouldn’t let me dance with Chaz. But First Secondary has gone and made it worse. Kudos to them for being so extra.

“It’s going to be great, I promise.” Ma Elena seems very invested in this, which is a little surprising since she will tell me for years that she didn’t go. She bites her lip and then makes a decision. “I wasn’t going to show you guys yet, but maybe this will help.”

She tells Ernie to turn off the lights, and the room is a field of stars as if we’re floating in the cosmos. That’s not the surprise. She tells us just to be patient while we stand in this celestial night. We can hear her fiddling with equipment of some kind. She hits play on the boom box just as a faint hum of electricity kicks in.

All at once, “Drive” by the Cars fills the air with wistfulness, and a black light disco ball swirls a pattern of light through the space so that the glowing stars become twinkling ones. Oh my god. It’s amazing.

We pretty much all gasp and then fall silent—the yearning in the song. I’ve never really heard the words before. The singer keeps asking someone—a girlfriend, maybe?—who’s gonna watch out for her when things fall apart, but apparently, they’re not together because he keeps asking who will drive her home that night. Maybe he’s not even with her, just thinking about her and worrying. The lights flickering around us just ramp up the melancholy effect.

Leeza and Chaz have each other. Ma Elena has Gordo. Who’s going to be there for me when school ends? What if I’ve lost Cheng forever? What if I lose Nix too?