Background Character

Chapter 21

The halls were littered with posters Jake and Hannah noticed as they entered the school. There were a scattered few advertising the prom itself, but the majority of them were plastered with faces and slogans from Prom court hopefuls. Jake recognized a few, but the majority were outside his usual circles. There was nothing wrong with that, people are popular for different reasons.

"There I am." Hannah pointed to a poster above the water fountain. "I told Cheryl I didn't want to run for Prom court, but she never listens. It's not my fault she got in school suspension last week, it's her fault for skipping class again."

"What did she do this time?" Jake couldn't say the news surprised her

Over the course of their friendship, Cheryl had gotten in trouble for a laundry list of things. In third grade, one of the teachers caught her selling Valentines chocolate to a group second graders and it blew up when they found out she had created an entire operation. It was almost like a business and her clientele extended to from first grade to fifth grade. She had always been smart, although usually she got in trouble for less impressive things.

Hannah rolled her eyes, "One of the Spanish teachers caught her making out with someone behind the dumpster."

"Who?" Cheryl wasn't in a relationship with anyone to Jake's knowledge and she hadn't mentioned that was interested in anyone. "The guy she's going to Prom with?"

"I doubt it, Cheryl kind of hates the guy. She said something the other day about how he makes her look good, she wouldn't be going with him otherwise." Hannah loved Cheryl, but sometimes she cared a little too much about what people thought of her. "Though I doubt Cheryl plans to get serious with anyone now, it's almost the end of the year. What's the point of starting a relationship when in like three months you'll be separating for college."

Ouch, right where it hurts, "Yeah..." Jake said, sounding very unconvinced.

"Seriously Jake, who can she nominate in my place? Voting is tomorrow and there is no way I'm going to be on that ballot." Hannah led him to her locked and rustled through it.

She had an AP US History exam, which she wanted to review for a little during her next class. The sooner she figured out who to throw under the bus, the better. Otherwise, she'd probably spend valuable time thinking of that instead of focusing on the material.

Lightbulb Jake thought to himself.

Jake turned to Hannah with his winning smile, hoping she'd agree to his suggestion, "What about Olivia?"

"Olivia?" Hannah couldn't believe her ears.

"Yes, Olivia. She's be perfect, not too popular which makes her an underdog and a challenge so I bet Cheryl would agree to it. She's also arriving with us, and she's been hanging with Tomas so that has to have gotten her noticed by quite a few people." Jake couldn't help but beam, thinking of how brilliant his idea was. He'd be crowned Prom king and she would fall in love with him as his Prom Queen.

There was a big flaw in his plan, "Doesn't Cheryl hate Olivia, and vice-versa?"

"No, I think Olivia is still a little miffed with Cheryl, but Cheryl seems pretty over it. This is the perfect way to reconcile the two. Don't you think?" Jake was far too eager to let the idea go without at least trying, "You could always go with her friend Laura if that doesn't work. We both know she's the kind of girl who says she doesn't want popularity but totally does."

"I definitely agree that Laura would be willing, and she's also a senior which is an advantage, but I doubt she'll win. Olivia just has some sort of star quality, don't you think? Add to that that she's walking in with you, I think Cheryl might actually go for. That's a crazy thought."

Jake could picture the posters of Olivia on the wall and there was no way she'd lose with Cheryl endorsing her. She had been the frontrunner herself before the suspension, so people were definitely willing to listen to who she thought would fit. She had the support of so many organizations on campus, from the drama kids to the volunteer club to the band kids, the president of which had been pining after her since the sixth grade.

This could actually work he thought to himself.

I remember seeing Olivia's face plastered all over the halls of Rockwell high. I had been surprised to see her up there because she hadn't been known as the kind of girl who cared about that sort of thing. Plus, she was only a junior. It's possible for juniors to be nominated but it had been years since one had been. It doesn't really make sense to nominate a junior because they have Prom the next year. For the seniors, it's their last year of high school and Prom because the only real criteria is you can't have been suspended in the last month or have been suspended more than four times in the year, and to actually be a student at Rockwell.

Hannah slammed her locker shut, breaking Jake from his reverie, "Well I'm going to class to study, I'll text Cheryl in the meantime. I'll see you at lunch, I'd walk with you to your locker, but I really want to get a head start on this."

"No problem, I understand completely." Jake gave her a quick hug, "Tell me at lunch how it goes with Cheryl."

"I will!"

"I'll see you then."

Hannah hurried off the class, praying not to run into Tomas. More than that, she hoped not to see him with Laura, she had winced when Jake had mentioned her as a potential nomination candidate for Prom court. She knew Jake had not meant to hurt her, or to use her name as a means of justifying his suggestion of Olivia, because he probably hadn't said it hoping her dislike for the girl prompted her to support Olivia more.

There was a part of her that knew she shouldn't dislike Laura simply because Tomas spent time with her, she didn't deserve that. It was Hannah's fault, all of this. As the days passed without Tomas, she had realized her fear of rejection had led her to this. Tomas had deserved to know a long time ago, and she knew most of his anger stemmed from her keeping it a secret for so long. Though, there was the nagging part that told her maybe they wouldn't have become so close if he knew, maybe he would have rejected her anyway.

She paused to collect herself. She was at school, now was not the time to be freaking out over all of this. Hannah like the persona she put off, the one most people thought of as her true self. Being calm and collected, the strong sense of self she presented, made her feel in control of her life and it made some of those insecurities she buried down melt away. For the most part, when she pretended to be strong, eventually it turned into reality.

So she put on a brave face and fell into step with her usual grace and strength because she was beginning to feel more vulnerable than ever before.

Hannah managed to breeze past just before Olivia and Tomas walked through the intersection and carried on perpendicularly, with Laura trailing a little ways behind. Tomas was happy for his friend, he knew how much Jake liked Olivia. And despite her attempts to make him think otherwise, Tomas knew that Olivia like Jake back. He could see it in the way she spoke about him.

"Look at those posters." Tomas always loved to see the lengths people went for Prom and Homecoming court. Cheryl, Homecoming Queen extraordinaire, had plastered her face all over the school before she had been suspended even when she knew everyone already knew her. 'It's part of the campaign process' she'd said whenever Jake or Tomas had complained. Hannah always managed to get out of poster duty.

"Oh, yeah," Olivia had all but forgotten about the posters. Her teacher had probably told her she had won at some point the day before, she just hadn't really cared, "I designed that one. I forgot they even put it up. It's a little late though, they already stopped selling tickets. The Prom is this week and I doubt anyone has forgotten about it, the posters are a little overkill." She saw one with a guy from her math class, he was on lacrosse, "Especially with the insane amount of posters. Why are people just campaigning for nominations, is that necessary?"

"It is when you need people to know who you are," Tomas was surprised by the sheer number of unfamiliar people whose faces and names decorated lockers and every inch of available hallway space. "I feel bad because most of these people won't even get nominated. The people who do are usually the ones who don't need to do the initial campaign, people just see their name on the ballot and vote."

"That kind of sucks."

"Well that's highschool, there are a couple hundred kids in our class. It's hard to know every single one."