And I wasn’t sure how we were ever going to get us back.
Chapter
Thirty-Two
FRANKIE
By Wednesday, the hallways had become a war zone.
Not of gossip or tension—though that still simmered like bad leftovers—but of glitter bombs, choreographed marching bands, helium balloons, and too many roses to count.
Homecoming proposal season had officially begun.
And as usual, our school didn’t just lean in. We went full Broadway.
Archie and I walked into first period behind a girl holding alive goatwearing a t-shirt that said “Will youbleatmy date?” and I wasn’t even surprised.
With a snort, Archie dropped into his desk. At his lack of biting commentary, I raised my brows. “Too easy,” he mouthed and I grinned. For a few seconds, we were just us again.
The only thing that shocked me at the moment was how quickly people forgot about the mess at lunch just days ago. Trauma had a short shelf life at Robertson High.
Rachel met me at my locker with a dry smile and a barely concealed eye roll.
“Three promposals by 8:20. A new record. I’m calling FEMA.”
I popped open my locker and tried not to laugh. “You think they’d show up?”
“Only if someone sets off a pyrotechnic display. Which, honestly, give it until third period.”
She leaned against the row of lockers beside me and tapped a notification on her phone. “Someone just posted that the mascot’s doing a halftime proposal at Friday’s pep rally. I give it ten minutes before we have a mascot brawl.”
“Let me guess,” I said. “Chad versus other Chad?”
Rachel gave a solemn nod. “The two species.”
As we made our way to class, we passed a girl covered in rose petals from a “Love Actually”–style cue card proposal that ended in a fog machine fail and a minor asthma attack. A theater kid’s a cappella group serenaded someone in the stairwell. And someone else, I swear, was building an actualarchwayin the quad. With scaffolding.
It was… a lot.
During lunch, things got even more chaotic.
A guy in a Cupid costume skateboarded into the cafeteria and nearly crashed into a lunch cart. A girl screamed as confetti rained from the ceiling. At our table, Bubba wore the expression of someone two seconds away from giving up on humanity altogether. He’d already stared down one guy carrying a bucket ofsomethingand they took a wide circuit rather than cut past us.
“You’d think they were proposing marriage, not a dance,” he muttered, watching a junior literally unfurl a banner with a drone. “What happened to texting and keeping it casual?”
Mathieu, seated beside me with his ever-calm expression and a sandwich he’d been politely ignoring, gave a small shake of his head. “I didn’t think this kind of thing was real,” he said. “I thought it only happened in movies. The glitter. The signs. The livestock.”
I smirked. “Everything’s bigger in Texas.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Even the romantic gestures?”
“Especially those,” I said, a little rueful. “There’s an unspoken rule here—if you don’t rent a mariachi band or stage a flash mob, do you even like the person?”
Mathieu looked faintly alarmed. “I didn’t realize there were… expectations.”
Rachel snorted into her iced tea. “Don’t worry. Frankie hates flash mobs. And mariachi bands. And public emotional displays. Basically, she doesn’t like anything involving feelings in font size 500.”
I gave her a flat look. “Thanks, Rach.”
