Read Prom Dates from Hell for Free Online

gargantuan book bag for five blocks. The angry churning in my stomach had time to die down, too, until I remembered it was time for P.E., and the pool.
    It wasn’t that I couldn’t swim. I could keep my head above the water and move from place to place with all the grace of a Labrador retriever. I’d made it through the past five weeks by stubbornly moving down my lane in a sort of combination dog paddle/breaststroke so I could keep my eyes on the bottom of the pool, and anything that might be sneaking up on me from below.
    The other problem with swimming in P.E., which had nothing to do with my fear of the water, was the difficulty of embarking on this exercise without, at some point, being completely naked in the locker room. Most of us changed in the shower stalls. But even so, to stand there in the buff, for even a transitory moment, while your classmates lurk on the other side of a very flimsy curtain was fifty kinds of vulnerable.
    I had done extensive experiments in changing in stages: Remove pants. Slip suit on while shirt hides important bits. Wiggle arms out of sleeves while keeping shirt down around other bits, then contort out of bra and into remainder of suit.
    Having worked up quite a sweat this way, I bundled up my clothes and bent to pick up my shoes. Gran’s cross swung lightly against my collarbone as I straightened. I’d forgotten about it until then. I debated for a moment, then unclasped the chain and stuffed it into my shoe.
    We made our way out of the locker room and into the cavernous aquatics gym. The administration was always telling us how lucky we were to have a pool. Only they called it a “natatorium,” which is an old-fashioned term for “really expensive indoor swimming pool.” I hate that word. It’s too much like “crematorium” and I have enough liquid issues as it is.
    Some sadist at the health department had decreed we had to shower before getting in the pool, so we trudged through the spigots then stood dripping in our swimsuits while we received instruction from the girls P.E. teacher. Coach Milner had the whipcord-lean frame of a long-distance runner. She’d competed in the Boston Marathon for ten consecutive years. Her age was difficult to determine, because her fitness regime clearly did not include the vigorous application of sunscreen.
    The deal with Coach Milner was that she didn’t just run marathons, she lived them. “Quitters never win,” she had yelled at me as I wheezed around the track. “Never say die,” she hollered up at me as I dangled from a rope trying to climb more than four feet off the mat. “Mind over matter,” she cajoled as I threw up my lunch after taking a basketball to the gut. Fitness was her religion, and she preached these things like the Gospel according to Nike.
    The class lined up like a multicolored, omnisize, Bizarro-world Miss America contest. Coach Milner strode in front of us, our judge, jury, and executioner.
    “Congratulations, ladies. Today we move on to the diving portion of our aquatics unit. We’ll be in the deep pool now, so grab your towels and—” My hand shot into the air. “What is it, Quinn?”
    “I just ate,” I lied. “Aren’t we supposed to wait an hour before going in the water?”
    “Winners never make excuses. That’s an old wives’ tale. Twenty minutes is sufficient.” She grasped the whistle hanging around her neck and blew a rousing note, like Gideon on his trumpet. “Come on, ladies! This way.”
    Coach marched us from our spot beside the lap pool (good-bye, safe haven of only moderate distaste) to the diving area (hello, bottomless pit of liquid doom).
    “Are you all right?” A blur of fingers broke my gaze and I dragged my eyes from the depths and focused on the concerned little moon of Karen Foley’s face.
    “Huh?” That was all I could manage. Behold the wordsmith.
    “You look really pale.” Karen was one of the nicest girls I knew, which was why, though I pitied Stanley, after his