Monday morning came and everybody who was intending on going to the homecoming dance with someone seemed to already be paired up. The hallways were papered with posters with this year's theme. Fairy Tales. I'd personally found it a lazy choice, given the fact that we pretty much lived in the land of Disney Princesses, but whatever. The people had chosen, even if they were wrong.

I reached my locker with a relieved sigh and dumped the many plastic bags I'd been carrying on the floor. Since Toni, mama and I were going to the mall over the weekend to start buying essential baby things, I also volunteered to make a stop to buy supplies for the night of the dance. Now I looked at all of them and wondered if they'd even fit in my locker. I had my doubts.

As I contemplated how to make this tetris work, a red rose suddenly bumped into my nose. I yelped and launched myself backward, which meant I slammed into the rows of lockers. Courtney appeared in front of me, her eyes round and mouth shaped into an O, but then she started laughing. The rose was clutched in her hand and I told my heart to calm down, that it wasn't some secret admirer appearing out of the blue, wanting to invite me to the dance. Which was a good thing, anyway, since I'd have had to say no. I was busy with the dance committee, yearbook, the school newspaper and Sawyer Logan. And that was excluding our upcoming family member. I had absolutely no time for distractions of any sort, especially of the male variety.

Still, my jaws tightened as I contained my disappointment. This was stupid. I couldn't be upset if I didn't get something I wasn't actively working to find.

I took a deep breath and said, "Jesus, Courtney. You scared the living lights out of me."

"I just thought you should stop and smell the roses," she said, breaking into a fit of giggles. "Get it?"

I rolled my eyes and said, "Yeah, I get it."

"What's all this, anyway?" She pointed at all the plastic bags at my feet. "Are you planning a secret party after Homecoming or what?"

"No, it's for the dance." Then as a second thought I added, "Actually, can you help me put like half of this in your locker?"

She shrugged. "Sure."

Fortunately hers was close by, and we stuffed our lockers with all the party junk. We were going to make some glittery crowns for everybody, so that all the boys could feel like princes and all the girls like princesses. Meanwhile everybody in the committee was going to carry fairy godmother wands so that we could find each other easily in the crowd. It was all going to be a lot of work, and it'd better be worth all the glitter I wouldn't be able to wash off my skin for weeks. It was already speckling my hands, just by handling the bags. I tried to dust them off.

"So, who are you going to the dance with?" she asked me out of the blue. The question was so silly it made me laugh.

Courtney was serious, though.

"Oh, um." I frowned. "Nobody."

She put the thorn free rose behind her ear and folded her arms. "It's our senior Homecoming Dance. What do you mean you don't have anybody to go with?"

I turned around, hoping that if she saw that we had to get going to class it'd mean she had to keep this conversation short.

"You just saw my date," I told her lightly, jerking my thumb at our lockers. "It's all encased in plastic and covered in cheap glitter."

"You're kidding." Her jaw dropped.

As we walked down the hallway, some guy was so engrossed in checking her out that not only we both noticed—and got visibly creeped out—but he bumped into another guy and knocked him off his feet. A brief commotion ensued, but we kept going and Courtney picked back up where we left off.

"So you're saying that we're going to have the best Homecoming Dance in our entire high school career, where Casual Friday Funeral is actually freaking come to play live, and you don't have a date."

I shrugged. "I've been busy doing things like, for example, securing the hottest band in town for the dance."

There was a shout of laughter behind us that we ignored. My friend put her hands on her hips. "One night of fun is not going to derail your entire plan of world domination, you know?"

"Yeah, tell that to my sister," I murmured, but she heard this loud and clear and smacked my head. I rubbed at the throbbing spot, looking at her like I'd just been betrayed. "What was that for?"

"I'm not saying that you should go and get laid this Saturday, geez." She tossed the waves of blonde hair behind her shoulder and pinned me with A Look. "Just grab some mildly good looking guy who won't get handsy with you and have fun."

The last word came out as a whine, as if this were a topic important enough to get her riled up. I couldn't help but teasing her a bit.

I gasped. "Wait, guys like that exist?"

She grimaced. "Not really, but I'm sure Ryan and Matt can drive the fear of God into one of their friends from the team to take you to the dance and keep it in his pants."

A pity date? I would rather die.

As if on cue, and not because he fit the bill, Sawyer sauntered down the hallway as if he owned the place. His very presence mocked every one of the arguments I'd been about to toss at Courtney. He was the example of a guy who couldn't keep it in his pants and he wasn't mildly good looking by any stretch of the imagination. He was disgustingly, absurdly freaking hot. Enough to make me break into a sweat when he was too close. And for some reason he was getting closer.

"Aurora, don't do this," my friend whispered only so I'd hear. "Tear your eyes away from him. You can do this."

I snapped a glare in her direction, feeling a particular tickling on my cheeks. "You know this is why I can't even think about having fun with some random guy."

Her brows creased together. "Because you have a crush on Sawyer Logan?"

"What?" I screamed. Half of the hallway stopped what they were doing to look at us. I pushed Courtney against the lockers and covered her mouth with my hand. "Where the heck did you get that crazy idea? No!"

She peeled my hand off and said, "Well, there's all that crazy hot chemistry between you guys, never mind the history. Plus," she added, as if what she'd said hadn't mortified me enough. "A new crush isn't a terrible thing."

She meant a new crush after Ryan. We'd been together in chemistry lab last year and a girl could dream. But even then I knew nothing was going to happen between us, and rather than rally Courtney's or Lina's enthusiasm at the prospect of pairing their virgin, saintly friend with a guy, I decided to just swallow it up until it disappeared. And it had disappeared without much ado, even before Courtney and Ryan got together.

But I couldn't let her think that I now had a crush on Sawyer. Even though she knew that he'd stolen my first kiss and the universal truth that was the fact that every single girl in Metropolitan High School had erotic dreams at night featuring him prominently. Including me.

Either way I was pretty screwed.

I took a deep breath and said, "Definitely not on Sawyer."

"I wasn't, what?"

I turned around and saw a couple of guys transporting the backdrop for the Homecoming pictures. Once they passed through, there he was, Sawyer Logan in the flesh, standing in the middle of the hallway.

Like every time I had to deal with him, irritation bubbled to the surface and it combined with embarrassment this time. I didn't sound exactly nice when I said, "What are you doing here?"

His eyebrows shot up. Even Courtney gave me a look. I cleared my throat for all apology.

A corner of his lips quirked, but the usual smirk didn't appear as he said, "I could say I'm here because I heard my name falling from your lips, or I could say I was looking for you. Which one gets me out of trouble?"

Neither. As a matter of fact, none of the options got my fast beating heart out of trouble, either.

"Hi Sawyer," Courtney said with a brilliant smile, and bless her, she didn't make a single move to leave me alone with him. "What can we do for you?"

His slate grey eyes shifted her way only once. "I was hoping to talk with Rory."

Courtney and I folded our arms at the same time. Then I said, "I'm listening."

He took a deep breath and expelled it as though he was dealing with small children. After running his hand through his hair he said, "We have a couple of study sessions this week and I need to cancel them."

I fought very hard to not let any disappointment show.

I frowned. "Why? My time isn't for free, you know?"

"Yeah, mine either. I get paid by the hour." His lips thinned into a line and I noticed that they were almost healed by now. Finally. Then they opened again and I forced myself to focus on the words that tumbled out of them. "I don't hope you'll understand, but not all of us are financially secure and I need to put extra hours at the shop."

"If this is to buy cigarettes or some stuff like that, I swear-"

But he interrupted me, leaning closer to me so that not even Courtney could hear. His teeth gritted and his eyes flashed with anger, and for a second I was scared. Then he said, "No, nothing frivolous like that. I just have to pay the mortgage."

I blinked up at him. Did I hear that right?

"But," I said as he pulled away. I could see that it had cost him something to say that. "That makes no sense."

"Life makes no sense," was all he said as he turned to leave.

I clutched at his forearm and he looked back at me with surprise. Courtney did, too. I pulled him back closer and whispered, "But what about your dad?"

It took him a second, but when his mouth opened I knew that what was going to come out wasn't rainbows and sunshine. Instead he got interrupted by a shout. We turned in time to see a fight start to break out. We recognized one of the guys as the one who'd been ogling my best friend, and as he got shoved by the other guy he'd smacked into, he lost his footing and fell backward. A scream was torn from my throat but it was too late. The fall was faster than the two guys carrying the backdrop could maneuver in a hall full of bodies. The idiot went right through backdrop and tore it in half before he landed on the floor.

Silence ensued. I pushed away from Courtney and Sawyer to assess the scene of the crime. Yeah, nothing could save that backdrop. I pulled out my cellphone just as the first bell rang and made a few calls. The Homecoming Committee arrived along with a couple of the advisors and a among all the angry complaints, the desperation and the random ideas, one emerged from a louder voice.

"Why don't you make a new one?"

We all turned to see Sawyer and I realized that his had been the loudest voice. He tilted his head at me, and as if there was no one else in the hallway he said, "I've seen why you can do, Rory. Why don't you paint a new backdrop?"

I sucked in all the oxygen in the vicinity. Flashes of heat and cold traveled through my body.

This was my big secret, and he'd casually tossed it into the wind for anybody to catch.

"Can you do it?" Trevor, the president of the Homecoming Committee asked. His eyes pleading as though I was a life saver and he a drowning man. "Rory, please."

A girl from the committee nodded. "We saw your sketch for the decorations and it was great. I'm sure you can do a good job!"

"No, I-" I tried to back away but got swarmed by all of them. There were only five days left, they said, we were nearly out of funds and couldn't afford to splurge on another high quality print. Could I really do something?

Could I?

I'd never painted something so big. It would require so much time, and that wasn't the worst of it. The worst was that I'd have to come up with a solid idea with a fairy tale theme and-

Oh no. I actually did have ideas. The hallway seemed to fade in front of my eyes and I stood in the middle of an enchanted forest, the thick canopies of the trees let only a few sharp rays of sunlight through and in turn, they caught on the dew dotting the leaves of the bushes. It was as though the foot of the forest was covered in stars and it was beautiful and I absolutely wanted to paint it.

But if I did, then everybody would know that I could create art. And my papa and mama would find out, and they would ban me from it again. Art makes no money, they said.

"Rory?" Courtney's voice snapped me back to reality. "Are you okay?"

Sawyer's voice came from right behind me. "I think you should do it."

I whirled around, and we were both as shocked to realize that tears were streaming down my eyes.

He spluttered like I'd never seen him do before, but I pushed him away and dashed into my classroom. I hid in the back and spent the rest of the morning trying to avoid everybody, but at lunch I locked myself in a bathroom stall and pulled out my cellphone. I scrolled through the hundreds of text messages I'd received over the past few hours, at least half of it were from Courtney and Lina in their attempt to be supportive, and the other half was from the Homecoming committee with various degrees of please and sorry to ask this of you but...

In the middle, there was a text from Sawyer. It said, Seems like I fucked up, I'm sorry.

I reread the words as though I expected them to morph into a longer text. I'd never told him this was a secret, and I was mad that he'd volunteer me for a task like this without checking with me first. But he'd seen my drawings, and in his own stupid way he was probably trying to make me happy. Proud. Show off to everyone my one big talent that would make me stand out. I should be pleased. But I was mad and above it all, I was cornered. I was part of the committee and now that they all thought I could fix this, I was going to have to.

I texted the president of the committee. Fine, I'll do it.

meanwhile our petty queen is like