Born to Perform

Chapter 32

The next day, Cassie and Sienna and I meet up before school to discuss what we’re going to do about Sam. We agreed over the phone last night that we can’t just let Elisha and Ariel humiliate him in front of the whole school for a second time. I mean, he may not really have forgiven me yet but I still consider him as a friend and therefore it’s my duty to protect him from ‘psycho bitches intent on ruining his life’, as Sienna so eloquently named them. 

“So what are you going to tell Sam when you see him?” Cassie asks me nervously as we stand in front of our lockers. Today I have my first class with just Sam and no Ariel, in other words: my first opportunity to talk to him without him being dragged away. 

“I guess I’ll just tell him the truth about Ariel and-” I begin but Sienna cuts me off with a little squeal. 

“No! You can’t tell him that his girlfriend is secretly plotting his doom with his ex-girlfriend!” she protests. Cassie and I look at her with puzzled expressions. 

“But that’s what’s actually happening,” I remind her as if she’s just gone insane. 

“Have you two never seen what happens in the movies in this sort of situation?” she asks us. We both shake our heads and she lets out an exasperated sigh. “You can’t just go and blurt out everything to him, especially when things are still kind of awkward between you. It’ll look like you’re just coming up with some desperate excuse to split him and Ariel up so you can get your hands on him. You’ll end up arguing, he’ll accuse you of lying and being jealous, you’ll tell him he’s stupid to be dating someone so evil, etc… It never works,” she concludes, shaking her head solemnly. Now that she says that, she does have a point. Sam is pretty unlikely to believe me and I don’t think our friendship can take another argument without breaking down for good. 

“Okay, so what do I do instead?” I ask her. Sienna gets a mischievous glint in her eye. 

“We try to take down their plan from the inside,” she states with a smug grin. “It’s pretty simple really. We need Sam to take you to prom instead of Ariel. Start off by sitting together in this class and making up, try to get your friendship back to where it was and then get him to fall madly in love with you and there you have it. Plan foiled.” Sienna beams at us as if she just solved a really difficult math problem. 

“Are you sure it’ll work? I don’t think Sam’s going to fall in love with me that easily, if at all,” I fret, thinking how doomed our relationship has been from the beginning. How could I get him to ditch his girlfriend and ask me to prom in less than two weeks when it took more than two months for him to break up with Elisha and ask me out last time? 

“When you left, it was obvious that Sam had pretty strong feelings for you. He was devastated that you had gone. It takes more than a month for those kinds of feelings to fade away. I think you’ve got a good chance of making this work,” Cassie encourages me. Before I can reply, the bell rings and we have to go to class. 

“You’ve got this, Melody,” Sienna says, patting my arm and smiling. Feeling more determined, I smile back at my friends before walking into the class and beginning phase one of our plan. 

I scan the classroom and find that Sam’s seat is empty - I had guessed this would happen as Ariel often makes him walk her to class, no matter how far away her class is from his. What I hadn’t really considered was that the seat next to him may not be empty. My eyes fall on Elliott, who is unpacking his books onto the desk where I need to sit. I panic for a second that the plan has failed already but then I look over to my old seat next to Victoria Fletcher and remember all the times I saw Elliott’s eyes drifting over to her table and a new plan forms in my mind.