You Should See Me in a Crown: Chapters 22–29

She manages to recruit all the PomBots—even girls who have their own campaigns to worry about, like Quinn and Claire and Lucy—to help her atone...

I’m willing to do a lot for this race, but it’s going to take some definite mental fortitude to make that last one work.

I grab his arm and pull him with me into the alcove where the vending machines sit. It’s a pretty tight fit, but I find enough room to pull my fist back and punch him in his bicep.

“I wish more people like you won prom queen. Then Rachel wouldn’t get to live out this little fairy tale where she rules the kingdom and the rest of us are her little serfs,” he adds.

“I would deal with the long hours and the bad volunteer gigs and the diatribes by Madame Simoné all over again if it meant we would end up here.”

She never snaps at Stone. No one does. Stone’s, like, not capable of reciprocating anger. It’s like yelling at a newborn kitten.

“We’ve run the numbers, and the fact is that you poll better when you’re seen with Jordan,” she says. “So you need to leverage that relationship.”
“Leverage...”
“Yes, leverage. Be seen with him. Maybe make it look more than friendly.”

“I can take wearing these Stepford Wives clothes and brokering peace between the manga and anime factions or whatever, but I have to draw the line at stealing someone’s boyfriend!”

G had a conniption the first time she saw Amanda’s Jeep parked in the McCarthy’s driveway a few weeks ago and called me immediately afterward.

It’s not like New York wealth with fancy penthouses on Park Avenue, or LA rich with garages full of luxury SUVs and sprawling ranch houses in Hollywood Hills. Indiana rich is a little quieter but no less impressive to me.

I never wear it down, but after a lot of cajoling from G and a frankly ungodly amount of water, leave-in conditioner, Eco Styler gel, and Cantu curl-defining cream, here I am.

Gabi hikes her purse up on her shoulder and feigns complete disinterest in the guy in front of her.

“Well, by all means, please enter my humble abode.”

(I barely even know that word but there’s no other way to describe the massively beautiful situation Jordan’s family has in lieu of a regular backyard and porch.)

“You really are a caricature of a high school jock from a bad ’80s movie sometimes, you know?”

I’m suddenly indignant that she still hasn’t said a single word to me.

I’m going to try and get the theater troupe president to endorse you.

“That was before you didn’t talk to me all night and then deigned to introduce me to your new friend."

I feel petulant, childish. But I’m annoyed. This is all so annoying.

And meanwhile, you snatch your hand away from me in public like I have some sort of communicable disease when I dare to interact with you?

Sunlight streams in through the curtains and across the huge flat-screen on the wall connected to the Xbox with its cords knotted together and strewn about.

Inside the restaurant, everything looks as it always has: the fifties motif dripping through every bit of the design, from the checkered floors to the waitresses in slightly stained white button-ups to the buzzing, red cursive sign above the counter telling customers to “Takhomasak.”

“It feels like a bad reality show.”
A reality show is an understatement.

Four years of fear of ever being humiliated like that again, of forcing myself to the fringes, hiding in the tiny protective bubble of my friends and band and my family.

It looks like it could be right on the glass, but in an effort to save the janitorial staff undue stress, Britt’s managed to do it all on a series of those massive papers that come on a roll you find in art classrooms.

She finished it all with a gold crown hanging off one of the turrets.

“This is egregious!”

Credit my GPA, credit Robbie and Gabi and their incessant interest in all things prom, but I know the rules inside out.

Principal Wilson’s ruddy face somehow gets...ruddier?

I did a pretty haphazard job of applying some fake blood, but I figure it’s good enough for me to hang halfway out of an upside-down Tahoe for an hour.

Lucy, who spends most of her days donning her pom squad uniform, is wearing a sleek silver gown that would probably drag on the floor if she weren’t wearing heels.

“Rachel would be seething if she saw you two with the competition.”

Only hitch your star to one that’s rising, my congenial but credulous best friend.

Only hitch your star to one that’s rising, my congenial but credulous best friend.

Fraternizing with the enemy is okay as long as you end up on top.