A Tale of Two Proms (Bard Academy) by Cara Lockwood

think of that?”
    “Go where?” Heathcliff echoed, seeming a little distracted.
    “Prom.” I had to fight off a distant, queasy feeling of panic. It was almost as if he didn’t know what I was talking about. “We are still going to prom, aren’t we? I mean if the faculty let us. When I asked you…”
    “You asked me?” Heathcliff said, again sounding dazed.
    I stopped and stared at him. Had he forgotten the conversation we’d had just last night ?
    “Do you not remember because you were drinking?” It must have been more alcohol than I thought if he blacked out and forgot everything I’d said.
    “What?” Heathcliff looked thoroughly confused now.  “I don’t drink.”
    He sure smelled like alcohol. First Catherine shows up then Heathcliff gets drunk and blacks out? And then he doesn’t remember any of it? Weird.
    Well, if he was going to deny it, fine. But the fact that he smelled like beer and now can’t remember anything I asked him yesterday was pretty damning proof all on its own.
    “What I want to know is—are we going? To prom? You and me. On a date? If the faculty let us?”
    Heathcliff stared at me for a long time and didn’t say anything. For a heart-stopping second I thought he was going to tell me he wouldn’t be going to prom with me.  I stopped walking and stared at him. He asked me to marry him. Surely, prom wasn’t a deal breaker.
    “Heathcliff?” I prompted. My heart was beating fast and I was trying to keep my voice level. “Did someone else ask you?”
    Heathcliff avoided my eyes, and I thought for a horrible moment, that he was going to tell me he planned to take someone else. But then, he looked at me.
    “No,” he said. “Do you think the faculty will let us go?”
    “I don’t know,” I said. “Miss A said she would put in a good word for us.” I mentioned this again since Heathcliff seemed so distracted. I didn’t know if he’d absorbed it the first time.
    Heathcliff said nothing. He walked at the proper distance from me, our hands too far apart to even accidentally touch as we walked. I suddenly wanted to grab his hand and hold it, but I glanced up and saw Headmaster B standing near the library watching us. She was frowning.
    “I need to go,” Heathcliff said, eyeing Headmaster B. He turned from me abruptly, doubling back to the chapel.
    “Wait—what about prom?”
    “We have to wait for the faculty to decide, anyway,” Heathcliff said, moving away from me.
    I nodded. This much was true.
    “I’ll find you later,” he said, and then he moved quickly and was swallowed up in a crowd of students heading off to class. I realized as I stood there that technically Heathcliff hadn’t given me a straight answer on prom. I felt like I’d lost some important ground without even knowing how it had happened. I felt Headmaster B’s eyes on me and when I looked up, she was glaring, her face grave and serious.
    For a second, I thought about running after Heathcliff, but the look on Headmaster B’s face stopped me cold. Instead, I turned and headed to class, thinking as I went that I didn’t understand Heathcliff.
    Not like I once thought I did.

C HAPTER S IX
     
    I didn’t know what was more infuriating—the drunk Heathcliff who said he’d go to prom with me and then tried to maul me or the cold, aloof Heathcliff who saved my life but then couldn’t quite commit to a prom date. I’d never had Heathcliff run so cold and hot before. It was as if he were two completely different people. 
    Maybe it was Catherine at work. Maybe he became schizophrenic when she was around. After all, she was driving me crazy and I hadn’t even talked to her.
    “Can we go back to the part where you were almost killed ,” Hana exclaimed as we stood in line for lunch. “Why didn’t you tell me that part first?” I’d been explaining why I’d disappeared after morning announcements. I was in the mood to talk about Heathcliff, not about my near-death-by-gargoyle, but I guess Hana