Hate to Love You novel · Chapter 16 of 24

Chapter 16: The Formal Ask

By the second week of December, Mason spoke to me only through Dad.

"Tell your sister the casserole's in the oven," he'd say, from three feet away.

I'd say, "Tell my brother thank you."

Dad would look from one of us to the other, deeply puzzled, and eat his casserole.

It was a Monday when I found my locker.

I came around the east hall corner and thought for a second that I had the wrong one.

The whole door was covered in paper snowflakes.

They were white and blue and silver, cut by hand, some of them lopsided, taped in rows from the top hinge to the bottom.

A crowd had already formed down the hall.

Jess stood at the front with her camera up, grinning wider than I had ever seen her grin.

In the center of the door, taped at eye level, was one big snowflake with writing on it.

WINTER FORMAL, it said. FRIDAY, 7 PM.

Under that, in smaller letters: NOT AS A TUTOR.

I turned around.

Shay stood at the far end of the hall by the water fountain, hands behind his back.

He had on a button-down shirt, ironed so hard the creases looked sharp enough to cut paper.

He had clearly done the ironing himself.

He walked toward me through the crowd.

Nobody moved aside for him.

They didn't block him either, though.

They just watched.

"You cut all these?" I said when he reached me.

"Forty-one. My mom helped with the last ten." His ears were red. "She's a nurse, she's good with scissors."

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