At 3 am, my eyes itched. Rubbing the corners, I blinked hard and opened my dewy eyes to zero relief. Exhaustion hung across my body, and I held myself up with my elbow on my desk. One of my monitors played a DIY video on how to make my envelope out of construction paper (my fifth time watching because I had the dexterity of a four-year-old with finger paint). My second monitor played Notting Hill. It was my third Julia Roberts movie of the day. I had never seen one of her movies before, but I googled "best romcoms" and she kept popping up.

I also stumbled upon Erin Brockovich, which I quickly learned wasn't a romcom at all. However, it did teach me a lot about hexavalent chromium. This also led to a lot of googling about litigations and other large settlements.

My door clicked and my hand whipped to the corner, changing the romcom to the nature documentary I had queued up just for the occasion. "Zoey?" My mother called, peeking through my door and letting a stream of golden hallway light in. "Are you still up?"

"Uh, yeah," I made my voice light and fixed a smile to my cheeks. "I'm fixing up a work cited page."

Her face pinched with confusion and the aversion to light. She shook her head. Going back to bed was better than having this conversation. She got up earlier than me for her job. I guess we looked alike, but I didn't see it. She was tall too, taller than my dad. Her late-night fashion was a robe, slippers, her mess of a choppy pixie cut, and the look of disapproval in her eyes.

She asked, "Why didn't you do this earlier today?"

"I just wanted to do some tweaking."

My answers and explanations were quick.

I've already rehearsed all my answers.

"Well..." My mother lingered. "Go to bed soon, Zoey. You have school."

She said, like I didn't already know. Still smiling, I nodded and promised that I would go to bed. That satisfied her enough, so she finally left. Closing the door behind her, I was encased back in the darkness.

A year ago, I might reach for my phone and text my sister that mom was being annoying and pestering me too much. I might've sent her a selfie of my face, bracing the audacity of the situation. I might've walked into her room and groaned until she asked me what was wrong. Acted like a baby as much as possible until she comforted me.

But a year ago Jess was here.

A year ago I wasn't staying up at 3AM.

Looking down at my letter to Mona, the words turned into incoherent scribbles. I blinked until words started making sense again. Back to making an envelope and researching romcoms.

#

This is my plan:

1. Pick Mona up alone (Elena and Skipper have agreed to take the bus).

2. Get coffee (that I have already ordered because I memorized her order).

3. Go to school.

4. Walk Mona to class.

5. Give her my letter asking her to the dance.

The next step depended on her answer. My stomach was in knots from the moment I woke up from my two-hour nap to walking out my front door. Before I could put her address into my GPS, I noticed a text from Mona.

MONA: [Good morning 😊]

MONA: [Just wanted to tell you that Allison is picking me up today!]

Mona might as well just drop me into the middle of the ocean because I was lost. Checking the time, I took a step backwards, but changed my mind, walking down the porch steps to just go back into my house again. Going for coffee felt dumb now. I went inside for my father's famous drip that came out liquid but tasted like sludge. A pharmacist by trade, a magician in the morning.

I walked the school halls like they were tilted, like my shoes were too tight, and everyone was calling me the wrong name. Just off. Couldn't place where this anxious feeling started or ended in my body. It just existed like a second layer. Everything seemed wrong. I had to borrow a pencil during AP Lit and my phone went off during AP Chemistry. From across the room, I could hear the thunder of Daniella snickering. She loved it when she didn't have to put in an effort to make me look like a idiot.

Even interacting with Skipper and Elena. For whatever reason, it just felt like they were mad at me. They were just so wrapped up in talking about some TV Show called The Vampire diaries I knew nothing about. It made my mouth dry and my stomach small. My parents didn't really let me watch anything that they deemed inappropriate, which included teens dabbling in drugs, alcohol, sex, and anything satanic. Now and then, I got away with watching movies with the girls, but I didn't really have the attention span for it.

"What's wrong?" Skipper had asked during lunch.

"Oh, um, nothing," I said, reminding myself no one was mad at me. That was genuine concern.

"Have you talked to Mona yet?" Elena asked.

"Not yet."

My smile was tight. They didn't need to worry that I was freaking out. If I could make it to the end of the day, I could enact my new plan:

1. Get through the hell that is school.

2. Meet up with Mona.

3. Find out what cool thing she made for me (and if I guess it, I get a date no matter what).

4. Give Mona the note...

And then, I guess I'll just see what happens. At the last bell, I hurried to my locker to avoid Daniella and headed for the art room. Unfortunately, the universe had other plans for me. The universe saw fit to punish me further. Walking to fast around the corner, I slammed into someone. Thunder crackled, the lights flickered, and I snapped my eyes up to find Daniella James scowling at me.

She was wearing gray overalls, a black T-shirt, and an expression of abhorrent disapproval. Her hair was down as usual, an oil spill slipping off her shoulders. 

"Watch where you're going, Summers," she said and I already felt hot. Just the sound of her voice was enough to make me crazy. 

"I'm surprised I didn't hit the ground," I said before I could filter it out.

Her face slackened. Daniella didn't have a comeback at all. A blush slapped her across the cheeks instead, and it was the first time I had ever seen color on her gaunt face. So, she had blood and a human heartbeat. Maybe even a sliver of guilt.

Last year, during the semester's first track meet, Daniella James shoved me to the ground right after we lost the baton relay race. It was close to being my first ever fist fight, but they broke us up before things escalated. That was when I left track and joined soccer. They kicked Daniella off the team.

"Whatever," she grumbled and made a move, so I did too. We collided again and this time we dropped everything in our hands, and I felt the collusion. Pain pounded my chest and shoulder. Daniella made my days worse, like it was her favorite hobby.

Groaning, in my altered state, I bent down and just went for my stuff and my letter.

"Hey," Daniella snapped, and ripped the letter from my hand. "That's mine."

"No," I insisted. "It's mine-"

But then I looked down at the rest of the scattered books, opened binders, and papers. In this mess, I spotted an envelope on the ground addressed to Mona... but it wasn't mine. Daniella's eyes widened at the recognition, but before she could react, I grabbed her letter from the ground.

"Where are you going?" I asked, and she lunged for the letter, and I pulled away. She was inches from my face. Closer than she's ever been to me. My heart thundered to the sound of her storm.

"None of your business, Summers," she bit out, and I lunged for my letter in her hand. Instinctively, she kept my letter from me. Something sparked, something akin to the lightning bringing life to the Monster.

"I'm sorry..." Skipper spoke up from the end of the hall. She was doing a poor job, not looking absolutely amused at the chaos surrounding us. She wore slouchy jeans and a cropped sweatshirt. Her braids were gathered in a ponytail with a scrunchie I immediately recognized was Elena's by the pinkness and the sparkles.

Grinning, Skipper asked, "Are we interrupting something between you ladies?"

She stood beside Allison Baxter, Mona's best friend and resident local celebrity. When she was a kid, they crowned her Little Miss Chipmunk and she went on to become the face of Chipmunks Chunk Trail Mix. Her commercials were everywhere. People still asked her to say her famous catchphrase: "Happy chipmunks have chubby cheeks!"

For now, Allison had spindles of curly black hair, but that was likely to change depending on her mood. She had warm brown skin like sunshine shining through amber. Taller than even me, Allison was also lankier with sharp eyes, a button nose, and glossy lips. She was photoshopped in real life.

When it came to her wardrobe, it wasn't what I ever expected. It was usually cringey graphic tees that said things like "Come to the dark side, we have cookies" and "Sarcasm is my first language." Today's treat of shirt was all black with white comic sans text reading "To be fair, I was left unsupervised."

Every single one was eye poison.

I scowled at them as if everyone in this moment was my enemy. "Where are you guys going?"

Allison snorted. One brow raised, she glanced at Skipper and then back at us. "Same as you. We're going to the art room. Mona made everybody mugs." She motioned around to the group and it took me an extra second to register what she was saying. When it hit, it hit like she yanked the floor out from beneath me and I slammed onto my back. All the air left my lungs as I snapped a wide-eyed look of horror at Daniella.

"E-everybody? Including her—" I said it closer to accusing Frankenstein of murder than a girl. Daniella was immediately not amused. I gawked at her and laughed, or I'd probably cry out of frustration. The tension has been pulling my resolve all day, and it was one more bad news away from snapping. "And what? You wrote her a thank you card?"

I waved her envelope around and she lunged for it once again. "No, I already told you," She snapped. "It's actually none of your business."

She bucked at me, and I instinctively started running. This time I really wasn't trying to annoy her. Though if my breathing caused Daniella problems, my general movements might bust a cornea. She really made me go from zero to hundred at a drop.

We circled around the mess of paper and things. I said, "I think it is my business if you want me to hand you this letter back!"

"God, Summers. If you weren't so obsessed with me, you might have developed the cure for cancer by now. I'll make it a little more obvious for you, I'm asking her to the dance."

"B-but you don't even want to go to the dance!" I backed up, staying opposed to Daniella like we were the same negative magnets.

"I never said that."

"You said you hated the theme."

"I hate the theme, but I'm still going to the dance. And now it's your turn. What's your little note about?" She held mine up and my heart detached from the stem and crashed onto the floor at our feet.

With nothing clever to say, I copied her. "None of your business."

You'd think I smacked her by how pink her face brightened. She shook her head. "Oh, no, Miss Summers, we're not going to play that. I know what you did because I did it too. You don't have the personality to be original. You did the same thing I did because we both know her favorite movie is The Shop Around the Corner."

I made a face because I didn't have a clue what that movie was about.

"Because we both wrote letters."

"Right." I nodded a bit too enthusiastically and rolled my eyes. "Of course. We both know this basic thing about Mona."

Her grimace darkened. She didn't even look a little convinced. "You've never even seen You've Got Mail, have you? That's the Shop Around the Corner's modern reboot, by the way. I bet you haven't even seen a single Meg Ryan movie."

"I have."

"Name one."

"You've Got Mail."

Skipper yell laughed from the audience and quickly covered her mouth. She waved her hands. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry!"

"Oh, wait!" I piped up and pointed an accusing finger at my friend. "Why didn't you tell me Mona invited you to the art room?"

Skipper raised her hands in surrender. "Literally just found out, dude. Allison grabbed me after class."

"You're actually ridiculous," Daniella said. "No. Not ridiculous. Sad."

Whirling around, all the blood rushed down my face and black spots speckled my vision. One, for spinning too fast and two, because Daniella had opened my letter and was reading it.

AUTHOR'S NOTE

Well hello~ Looks like the art room is the place to be. Lol. I've had terrible writer's block since I finished writing "Ned Gets Stood Up" and now, I'm happy to say I'm excited to write again! I'm having a ton of fun planning thing book and actually writing it. It's been so long since I felt this good 😭

Let know what you think of the chapter! When's the latest you stay up before school, haha? Would you dare stay up past 3? Are you like Zoey? When things aren't going the way you thought, it feels super bad? What did you think about Daniella ALSO writing Mona a letter? And now we're reading Zoey's??? How do you think Zoey will respond?

Also! If you like this book, please consider reading my other books :)) 30 Day Trial Period is a fake dating, enemies to lovers, full of musical theater references romcom. Ned Gets Stood up has a huge cast of queer characters and the narrator is a lawn gnome.