Chapter 10 #2
Amber, of course, is a shoo-in—again—but Beth Jones is having a moment. She’s dating the quarterback, and she’s likable in that bland, inoffensive way. Unthreateningly pretty. Which means, gasp, Amber might have to settle for Court Princess instead of Queen.
“What if you promise the senior class free Starbucks for a month?” Tiffany suggests, brow furrowed in genuine thought. “Beth’s not that great. Kind of a suck-up, really.”
“You can’t just buy people’s friendship, Tiff,” my sister replies, flipping her long blonde hair over one shoulder. “It’s not genuine. People can tell.”
For just a moment, I’m weirdly impressed by my sister—and maybe even a little proud. That’s shockingly grounded advice coming from Amber.
“I’ll just start a rumor that Beth cheated on Brady,” Amber adds. “Everyone loves Brady.”
And she’s back. There’s the sister I know and loathe.
“Ooh, good idea.” Brooke sips her green tea, nodding along.
“On it!” Tiffany says brightly, already scrolling through her Instagram feed, probably hunting for some half-suggestive photo to spin the narrative.
I open my car door, doing my best not to laugh. I thank every higher power there is that I never gave a shit about any of this silly Homecoming nonsense when I was still in high school.
“Hey, what’s so funny?” Amber calls out, eyes narrowing as she zeroes in on me.
“You are.” I smirk, shaking my head. “You guys are absolutely Machiavellian. And for what? It’s a stupid school dance, not a presidential campaign.”
Amber drops her backpack against Tiffany’s car with a dramatic thud.
“Well, you don’t have to mock us,” she huffs. “Just because it’s not your thing doesn’t mean it’s not important.”
I falter for a second.
Huh. Maybe… she’s not entirely wrong.
Sure, I think Homecoming Court is ridiculous, but who am I to decide what matters to someone else? Just because I don’t care about it doesn’t make it meaningless. Writing something off as stupid simply because it doesn’t matter to me—that’s not insight. That’s arrogance.
And even if Homecoming Court is performative bullshit, maybe that’s the point. It gives shape to something otherwise formless: the need to be seen, to feel significant, to matter, even if only for a moment in time.
The truth is, I’ve spent so long rejecting that kind of validation—mocking it, distancing myself from it—that I sometimes forget I’m not immune to the same ache. The same quiet desire to be chosen. To fit in.
Even if I’d rather die than admit it.
“You know what? You’re right.”
Her mouth falls open. “Seriously? I am?”
“Yeah. I’m sorry,” I say. “I hope it works out for you.”
“Oh. Uh… thanks?” Her expression shifts—suspicious but intrigued. “So, what would it take for someone like you to vote for me?”
“Someone like me?” I draw back slightly. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing bad.” She waves me off. “Just… you’re not like us. You’re one of the Regulars. The common people. You get what they care about. You know how they think.”
She says it with all the gravitas of royalty. It’s absurd, but also, I suppose, kind of true. And the fact she said it with total sincerity rather than malice is weirdly disarming. I have to respect her honesty.
I laugh. “I guess I do.”
“You’re really smart too, Ally.” For once, there’s no sarcasm, no smug twist to her voice. Just a rare flicker of respect. “You have good ideas.”
I pause, momentarily stunned by an honest-to-God compliment from my sister.
“Yeah, tell us, Alysander,” Tiffany chimes in, her eyes wide and earnest. “What should we do to get votes?”
Amber and her friends actually lean in, suddenly attentive, like I’m some kind of expert campaign strategist instead of the person they barely notice most days.
I hesitate.
Not because I don’t have an answer, but because the real ones—the ones that actually work—aren’t the kind people want to hear.
Anyone can offer flash: empty promises, shallow charm, performative virtue.
That’s what most people do. Say what sounds good in the moment, even if it’s meaningless.
Politicians. Royals. Influencers. Half the candidates for Homecoming Court probably do it too—promising free pizza they’ll never pay for, pretending to care about causes they Googled that morning.
But being decent to people? Actually treating them with kindness, with basic respect?
That isn’t transactional. It doesn’t expire after voting week or get walked back in a campaign speech. It’s not flashy, but it’s real. And real matters.
“Have you tried just being nice to everyone?” I offer. “People like nice people.”
“That’s it?” Amber frowns, looking disappointed. “Be nice?”
“Hey, it worked for Cinderella.”
I flash a grin and slide into my car.
But as I pull away, the smile slips. Whatever brief warmth I felt toward Amber during those few minutes of almost-normal conversation fades under a slow, simmering resentment. She gets to spend her morning scheming over tiaras and tulle, while I’m stuck unraveling our mother’s mental health issues.
Not exactly fair.
At least Theater History offers a temporary reprieve, and today’s lecture on dramatic adaptations of Dante Alighieri’s The Divine Comedy is just engaging enough to keep my brain occupied.
“The Divine Comedy traces Dante’s journey through Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise,” Professor Guppy explains, pushing smudged rectangular glasses up her nose.
Professor Guppy is squat and round, with the voice of a sitcom aunt and the wardrobe of someone constantly under siege by lint.
She always looks one strong breeze away from being buried alive in cat hair.
Case in point: she’s already retrieved a lint roller from her desk drawer and is running it briskly over her pants, collecting a fresh coat of fuzz.
Rumor has it she lives alone with five cats.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that. I have a creeping suspicion I’m destined for the same fate.
“The poem is divided into three canticas, essentially, three books,” she continues, waving the lint brush now like a conductor’s baton.
“Inferno takes place in Hell. Purgatorio is Purgatory. And Paradiso is Paradise, or Heaven. We open on Dante lost in a dark wood, pursued by three beasts—a lion, a leopard, and a she-wolf. Of course, this is all allegory.” She paces theatrically, her voice gaining momentum.
“Can anyone tell me what the three beasts represent?”
Hands shoot up around the room.
I sink lower in my seat, avoiding eye contact. Between everything else going on, I completely spaced on the required reading for the week. Which is a shame because obscure ancient poetry about eternal suffering is right up my alley.
Thankfully, she calls on Tony, Hayes’s football buddy.
“The beasts represent three types of sin—self-indulgent, violent, and malicious,” he says, all easy confidence, like he’s been waiting all day to show that off.
Who knew? The school’s game-winning kicker is apparently a low-key theater-nerd aficionado.
“Very good.” She beams. “And why sin?”
“Because Dante was obsessed with moral redemption.” Tony smiles wider, reveling in the attention of the professor. “The entire poem is about the soul’s journey toward God.”
“Precisely!” Professor Guppy punctuates the moment with an emphatic finger in the air, like a human exclamation point. “Each of the nine circles of Hell also represent a specific sin. We’ll unpack those later this week.”
From there, she pivots to the parallels between The Divine Comedy and Greek mythology, noting how mythological references were part of the cultural fabric in Dante’s time, like how pop culture references are today.
That’s why he encounters so many familiar mythical figures, like Charon, the ferryman who delivers souls across the River Acheron, and Cerberus, the three-headed hound that guards the gates of the Underworld.
She moves briskly, highlighting a few other terrifying creatures: the Furies, winged goddesses who exact vengeance on the guilty, and Geryon, a dragon-like monster with a man’s face and a scorpion’s tail.
At some point in the middle of her monologue, my thoughts drift, uninvited, to my father.
Of course I know he’s not really trapped in some imaginary underworld realm like the one Professor Guppy’s rambling about from The Divine Comedy. But then… where is he? Where has he been the last sixteen—almost seventeen—years?
Did he stay in California? Disappear into another state? Another country?
Wherever he is, I hope he stays there.
After what he did to my mother, he forfeited any right to ever walk back into our lives. His absence didn’t just leave a hole. It hollowed something out in her, carved a wound so deep she’s still trying to cauterize it.
After class ends, I drift through Vocal Performance and then lunch, counting the minutes until French—until Hayes.
But when I get to the lecture hall, his seat is empty.
I text him—once, twice, three times.
Nothing.
Just like yesterday.
I don’t understand. Even when he’s buried in football and school, Hayes always responds to my texts.
It’s not just the missed class or bailing on coffee this morning without any notice, either.
Last night at his house, before I unleashed my family drama, something felt…
off. Like something was eating at him, something he didn’t want to say.
I don’t want to jump to conclusions, but I know Hayes.
Something is wrong.
And whatever it is, he’s not telling me, which worries me most of all.