“Go on,” mom urged. “Give it half an hour. If you’re not having fun after that, I’ll drive back and pick you up.”
My hands smoothed my skirt over my thighs. “You promise?”
“Of course.”
As I walked into the school hall, nobody turned to notice me. My eyes scanned the crowd, unconsciously looking for friendly faces. Except there weren’t any. I’d been at school for five days. If I was lucky, I could remember a couple of names from every class. They’d all been nice enough, but nobody had stood out as looking for a new friend.
Which meant I was going to have to be the one to make things happen. Even if I didn’t really know how.
Taking a few steps forward, I watched a group of girls who I was pretty sure were in my Canadian History class. Two of them were holding out lipsticks to the third, who looked dubious.
“I’ve got a pink lip gloss you can borrow,” I offered, hoping she might like that better.
The girls turned to look at me and my stomach turned with anxiety. God, how was making friends so hard? But then, the girls smiled. “Yeah, thanks that’d be great!” the blonde one nodded, making her hair bounce and yet still return to the exact same shape it’d been in before.
“You’re Helena, right?” one of the other girls asked, surprising me. I didn’t know her name, yet she obviously knew mine. She seemed to sense it, laughing softly. “I’m Lisa and this is Charlotte and Mia.” Both of the girls gave a small wave as I handed Charlotte the lip gloss.
“I love your dress,” she offered in return with another smile. Charlotte, I quickly decided, was going to be my favorite.
“Thanks.” Her appreciation was reassuring. Not knowing how different fashions might be here, my nerves had tied themselves in knots in case I unknowingly made myself look like a clown.
Trying to resist the urge to lick the lip gloss off my lips, my restless energy danced through my fingers, drumming against my thighs. “Did you all get ready together?” I asked, trying not to feel envious. “You look great.”
Lisa smiled, lifting a hand to smooth her own hair. “Yeah. Sometimes, I feel like the getting ready is more fun than the actual dance.” Looking around at the huge gulf between the girls on one side of the room and the guys on the other, it was easy to see her point.
This wasn’t any different than my old high school, I realized. Boys didn’t dare to ask the girls out and the girls probably didn’t even want to have the guys ask them out. Except, as I glanced across the room, my blue eyes met a pair of green eyes.
My breath caught. Like something told it to stay in, told me that this was important. It took me a moment to realize that there was a face there, too, not just the greenest eyes I’d ever seen.
Charlotte noticed my amazement, laughing slightly. “Well, guess you’ve caught Sam’s attention,” she teased. I pulled my gaze away to look at her instead. “He’s the hockey captain,” she explained.
Feeling like my heart was in my throat, I swallowed. “Oh.” That explained the broad shoulders barely contained by the fabric of his shirt. And the confidence that radiated off him as he laughed at something one of his friends said next to him.
Without even checking the rest of the room, I knew Sam was the best-looking boy in it. Jealously, I tore my gaze away, turning my head left and right as if that would show me how many other girls were out for Sam’s attention. There was no way I was the only one.
But maybe I could make being the new girl work for me. Maybe not knowing who I was would make me mysterious.
“Does he have a girlfriend?”
That startled a laugh from Charlotte. I was a little glad that both Lisa and Mia had moved on to a conversation between them, not hearing what I said.
“He doesn’t,” Charlotte answered, moving closer to me so the words would stay between us. I’d made the right choice, I felt, picking Charlotte as my favorite. “Unless, of course, you count hockey as a girlfriend,” she laughed.
In my previous school, football had been the big sport; I’d seen players treat it like they were in a relationship with it. So I kind of got it. But from how Sam looked at me across the room, it felt like I could give hockey a run for its money.
“Oh!” Charlotte’s eyes widened. “He’s coming over!”
And sure enough, Sam was. He walked across the dance floor like he was ready to bat anyone out of his way. Had there been anyone there, at least. It was almost possible to imagine what he looked like sliding across the ice on his skates. Hockey had never interested me. Suddenly, I wanted to learn everything about it!
“Hi,” he said as soon as he had approached us, turning briefly to Charlotte to acknowledge her but almost instantly looking back at me. “I’m Sam. You’re new right? I can’t dance, so can you show me?”
A squeak of surprise passed my lips before I could catch it. Luckily, it just made Sam laugh. And oh, his chuckle made my knees go weak. It was hard to believe Sam was my age, he looked and acted so much older. But surely no 12th grader would be caught dead at an 11th-grade dance? Not to mention, Charlotte would’ve mentioned it.
“I can dance.” It wasn’t completely a lie. I’d danced with boys at school dances before. It made my heart skip a beat to think that Sam might not have danced with other girls.
