Page 51 of Perfect Score

Gran looks down at the table as if trying to work something out in her head.

But the minute Gran looks back up at me, she plasters on a small smile as if whatever realization she just had, evaporated into thin air.

“It’s not for me to say, dear. Brent needs to come clean with you, and it sure as hell is about time.”

Not only did Brent’s sweet gran just curse, but it’s apparent now that she has no intention of telling me what she just pieced together about why Brent didn’t take me to prom.

“He’s not going to tell me Gran. Phoebe, David, and a few of our other friends have tried to get it out of him. He only tells them the same excuse. Are you really not going to tell me?” I ask, pleading my case. “I just want to know if it’s because he didn’t really want to take me. Did he feel obligated because Liam dumped me? Did he feel sorry for me but then changed his mind?”

Her eyes turn soft towards me and then she gently slaps my leg under the table a few times as if to comfort me in some way.

“No honey, he didn’t ask you because he felt obligated. When he came home after leaving your house that day, he told me that you said yes to prom, and it was the first time I had seenhim truly smile since his parents passed five months before. I don’t even think he smiled when he got drafted into the NHL. I promise you Zoey, he wanted to take you to prom.”

I shake my head.

I had let myself believe that Brent just felt bad for me and asked me to prom to be nice and that’s why he decided not to go through with taking me. Gran doesn’t seem to be the kind of person to sugarcoat things. And she seems to be sure that Brent wanted to take me.

The truth is… I believe her.

Which makes this entire situation even more confusing than before. At least prior to this conversation I was so sure I had the answer but I just couldn’t get Brent to admit to it. I needed that admission to get closure.

And now?

Now I feel like I’m back in my childhood kitchen, dressed in a tight-fitting sunset orange trumpet dress and heels staring back at my phone as the call from Brent ends.

Eleven seconds.

That’s how long it took him to call me and tell me that he wasn’t coming. I was in shock that before I could even get a word in, he told me that I should still go and have a good time.

Then he hung up.

“It didn’t feel like he wanted to take me when he called me to tell me that he was headed to the rink instead and that I should take myself.”

She lets out a deep sigh.

“If I had known what he said—”

“Please tell me,” I interrupt. “… because he isn’t going to.”

She pulls my hand off the table and cradles it into hers.

“He’s a big boy and he needs to come clean with you himself. Besides, if you two aresupposedto be a serious couple in acommitted relationship, there shouldn’t be any secret between you two, right?” she asks, eyeing me carefully.

Something in the way that Gran is looking at me tells me that she isn’t actually falling for our fake relationship but hasn’t called me out about it yet, either.

Did she know it before we walked through the doors of the ballroom, or did I just say something to give us away?

“You’re really not going to tell me what you know?” I ask one last time in hopes she’ll take pity on me and put me out of my misery.

I bypass over asking if she knows that Brent and I aren’t actually together. This is Brent’s mess either way. I have my own life to worry about and an ex-fiancé to win back.

“It’s time that my grandson is honest with you… and with himself too.”

Please stop speaking in code. My head is already spinning.

“What does that even mean?” I ask.

Gran looks back over at Brent and then so do I.