Chapter Text
Senior prom was in less than 8 hours, and to say that the seniors of Hillridge High School were having a hard time concentrating on anything else would be an understatement. The cheerleaders were comparing notes on how they would accessorize for the night, while the jocks were debating who would host the wildest after-party. And just about everyone was ready for the last period bell to ring so that they could get home and get ready for what was anticipated to be the best night of their collective young lives.
Miranda sat in 3rd period Creative Writing trying not to fall asleep. She and Lizzie had stayed up pretty late the night before finalizing their prom night looks. Miranda was planning to wear a gorgeous dark purple halter-neck gown with sequins on the bodice and a deep slit up the thigh, while Lizzie had settled on an elegant cream-colored spaghetti-strap gown in silk that hugged her in all the right places. They were so ready to hit the dance floor looking stunning, and they knew that Larry and Gordo, their respective boyfriends, would without a doubt be left speechless when they saw them in their prom dresses later that evening.
But first, they had to get through their remaining classes for the day. Miranda glanced up at the clock. Lunch was still 20 minutes away, and it felt like time was intentionally moving extra slowly. Knowing she couldn’t possibly hold the attention of twenty-five, distracted 18-year-olds who were mere hours away from their senior prom, their Creative Writing teacher, Ms. Dawes, had smartly given them an open writing period. All they had to do was write about something, anything, for 55 minutes until the period was up. Then they could go off on their merry way.
Hearing a bit of whispering in the room, Miranda looked up from her desk to see one of the popular senior girls, Holly Jacobsen, passing a small folded piece of paper across the aisle to Katy Kurland several rows ahead.
Yet another prom poll? Miranda thought to herself. Not exactly creative, but it technically did count as writing she guessed. She rolled her eyes and turned her attention back to her own writing, with which she admittedly had not gotten very far.
These ‘prom polls’ had been getting passed around like wildfire in the weeks leading up to prom, and the topics were typically a bit scandalous. The seniors were quick to get and give opinions on everything from which type of hard liquor should be used to spike the punch, to which after-party was most likely to get broken up by the cops, to which senior would be most likely to end up blacked out and butt-naked on the football field the next morning. And of course, no one ever questioned who originated these polls (because it was usually a different person each time), but they would somehow always find their way back to whichever inquiring minds had started it. And they always got people talking.
Polls would get passed around in the middle of classes, in-between classes in the halls, in the cafeteria during lunch and would sometimes even get slipped directly into peoples’ lockers. On any given day, there could be multiple polls circulating the school at the same time. And even the juniors were getting in on the prom night gossip, passing a poll around in their own circles before it would eventually make its way back to a senior. A poll that was started during 1st period on a Tuesday could easily have 200 votes or more by 6th period on Wednesday.
Across the room, Miranda watched as the note got passed to Parker McKenzie, who, upon opening it, promptly rolled her eyes and passed it to the next person without even voting. Whatever the poll question was, thought Miranda, Parker apparently didn’t care for it.
The note slowly made its way over to Miranda’s side of the room, eventually landing in the hands of Bethany Edelstein, who was sitting immediately in front of her. A small grin crept over Bethany’s face as she added her vote to the poll and folded the sheet of paper back up. Realizing that she’d be the one to hand the poll to Miranda, Bethany suddenly looked a little uneasy about passing it on. But at the silent egging-on of her classmates, she swiveled around in her seat and tapped lightly on Miranda’s desk.
Here we go again… Miranda sighed to herself as she looked up from her writing. And at that moment, she noticed something odd -- virtually everyone else in the classroom was staring at her. And Holly was giving her a particularly knowing look. What the hell? Raising an eyebrow, Miranda cautiously took the folded-up piece of paper from Bethany’s hand and unfolded it.
Her eyes immediately widened in horror as she scanned the poll. “What the f--”, she stopped herself before dropping the f-bomb aloud in the middle of class. She quickly looked up to the front to make sure Ms. Dawes hadn’t heard her. But fortunately for her, Ms. Dawes didn’t have the best hearing and appeared to be dozing off behind a romance novel anyway.
She looked back down at the sheet of paper in dismay. Scrawled across the top in someone’s squiggly blue gel ink was the following prom night question:
Are Lizzie and Gordo gonna smash after prom?
| yes | no | idk |
These ‘yes or no’ polls usually always followed this format, with columns for people to add a tick mark for their vote. Miranda quickly scanned over the votes. Holy shit, she thought to herself -- just from eyeballing, there had to have been at least 300 votes on this poll, which was the entire senior class and then some. It quickly became clear to her that she and her unsuspecting best friends had been among the few seniors left who hadn’t seen it. But what was even more glaringly obvious was that the entire class was pretty sure of itself in deciding that Lizzie and Gordo would be going all the way that night.
“Oh, no. No, no, no. Lizzie and Gordo cannot see this,” she vowed under her breath. With graduation fast approaching, her busy best friends had quite enough on their plates as it was and the last thing they needed was any extra pressure or unsolicited opinions from a bunch of horny, nosy classmates. Gritting her teeth and suddenly feeling everyone’s eyes boring into her again, she looked up to face the rest of the class. Holly, Katy and a couple of the other popular kids in the room were smirking and visibly struggling not to laugh. To the class’ collective amusement, Miranda flipped everyone her middle finger, very pointedly crumpled up the poll and shoved it into her bag never to be seen by anyone. ever. again. Assholes, Miranda thought to herself, disgusted.
Just then, the bell rang signaling the end of class. Ms. Dawes startled awake from behind her desk as everyone started collecting their things and shuffling out of the room. “Okay, everyone be safe out there tonight!” she yelled over the commotion. “Please use common sense, and have a nice time at prom!”. Heaving a deep sigh, she sat back down at her desk and picked up her romance novel to continue where she had left off.
Miranda shoved her notebook into her bag and stormed out of the classroom. There were obviously way more votes on that poll than there were people in her Creative Writing class, so she didn’t think any of them had started it. But Miranda swore to herself that if she ever found out who did start that poll, she would find them and crush them.