“I… wanted to… surprise you,” I said—unable to speak more than three-syllable spurts. “Surprise!”

“I’ll say,” said Imogen. She seemed to notice me tensing up. She let go of my hand. “So you’re driving, right?”

“Yeah, sure,” I said, mindlessly.

“Great. Where’d you park?”

We were walking out the front doors of Piles Fork and down the concrete steps. I was already starting toward the B-Lot, raising my hand to point, when I realized:

That’s where I parked—not Wynonna.

I didn’t know where she parked.

I didn’t even know what her car looked like.

And if I did, it wouldn’t matter because I COULDN’T DRIVE A STICK.

My brisk pace just sort of floundered to a confused halt. Imogen took a couple steps past me, then stopped and turned awkwardly.

“You okay?” said Imogen.

“Yeah!” I said, forcing an ungodly level of enthusiasm into Wynonna’s face. “Here’s an idea: What if we get a ride there with Ezra and Holden?”

Imogen looked at me like I had proposed we drive in a clown car filled with thirty-eight clowns.

“You’re serious,” said Imogen finally, after a silence that spanned the cosmos.

“Yeah!” I said. The longer I forced the smile on my face, the more I felt like the Joker—Jack Nicholson version. “We’re all in this together, right? Might as well make the most of it!”

Imogen’s eyelids narrowed to slits so thin you could have flossed them.

It appeared there was no way out of this without at least a granule of truth.

Now, whether it was my truth or not was a different matter entirely.

I dropped the smile like a veil of lies.

“Prom,” I said. “I want to ask Holden to prom.”

Slowly, Imogen’s eyes widened like a pair of flowers blooming in a fast-motion time lapse.

“Oh. My. God,” she said. “You’re doing it. You’re actually doing it!”

Once again, I was forced to smile like an idiot. Or a Batman villain. It occurred to me that smiling was maybe the least Wynonna-like thing I could do. However, the Smiley Train was already rolling, and there was really no stopping it at this point.

Once I dropped the P-bomb, Imogen became a Holden-seeking missile. Meanwhile I trailed behind desperately in my punk heels, trying—and failing—to keep up.

She found Holden in less than a minute. By himself.

He didn’t look happy.

Mostly, he looked irritated. And maybe a little bit mystified. He was standing aimlessly in the middle of the B-Lot, hand cupped over his eyes like a visor, scanning the after-school pandemonium. Between the two of us—Holden and me—there was a very Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? vibe going on.

Where the fuck was she? Wynonna, I mean. Not Carmen Sandiego.