God Save the Prom Queen

Blunders and Blenders

It wasn't until after school on Tuesday that I'd remembered Jessica Williams' invitation to meet her at Sam's Coffee. Truthfully, I didn't really want to go—I barely knew her, and we seemed to have completely different interests. For example, she was the kind of girl who frequently curled her perfect dark brown hair, and I was the kind who would sometimes absentmindedly chew on my hair when I was reading a really intense book.

Nevertheless, I'd promised to meet her in the coffee shop, so I couldn't back out. I walked from my house to the café, since it wasn't too far. When I entered through the glass front door of the business, the combination of coffee beans and girly perfume scented the air.

Jessica was sitting at the little round table closest to the door. However, it caught me off guard that her best friend, Adriana Martinez, was sitting with her. My stomach twisted nervously.

Allow me to explain: even if I had liked Jessica personally, I still wouldn't have liked Adriana. While Jessica was a sort of nice popular person, Adriana was definitely at the opposite end of the spectrum. She'd been suspended numerous times for petty bullying, defying teachers, and even having an illegal substance on the school campus. I could never figure out why someone so offensive had so many friends. It could've been because she was obviously beautiful, with her long, black hair and balanced medium skin. Or, maybe all of her friends were simply less fortunate subjects to her rude remarks who felt like they had to be her friend.

But what made me even more nervous was the fact that I had probably cost her a nomination for Prom Queen. Me, Chloe Taylor—the type of socially awkward girl she was accustomed to bullying. Walking in to that coffee place felt like digging my own grave.

"Chloe!" Jessica said, apparently noticing me. She smiled and waved me over to the table.

I flashed a smile that was as normal as possible and filled the empty seat. "Hey, guys."

"Do you always wear that jacket?" Adriana asked.

"Uh... No, not really. Just sometimes."

"Huh." She pushed her dark hair in front of her slender shoulder. "It just seems like I've always seen you in it."

"Let's go get something to drink," Jessica suggested. "I'm having a Frappuccino withdrawal."

We stood from the table and approached the idle front counter. To my relief, David was working at the time, and he smiled when he saw me. His favorite thing about having a part-time job at Sam's Coffee was purposely misspelling people's names on their cups.

"Hello, ladies," he greeted, leaning against the counter with his arms. "What can I get for you today?"

"I'll have a strawberry Frappuccino," Jessica said.

"Iced latte," Adriana added.

"All right." He tapped a few keys. "And you, Chloe?"

"The usual," I replied.

"Oh, of course; it's always the usual." He winked at me as he took a cup from the shop's large stack.

The three of us girls wandered back over to our table. I noticed that Adriana kept stealing glances at David. To be honest, her staring kind of ticked me off. David deserved a sweet, tender-hearted girl who could keep him grounded—not the school's most notorious flirt.