Free What's Your Status? by Katie Finn

again, feeling that I had been put in the middle of far too many friends’ relationships recently.
    “He’s being kind of stubborn,” Kittson went on, “about this whole prom royalty thing. I mean, I know he wants me to win queen. He’s told me so. But he also seems to have this vendetta against whoever is going to be king. He keeps saying he’ll beat up whoever dances with me.” Kittson had been frowning, but as I watched, it changed to a slightly dreamy expression. “He’s just so…protective of me.”
    “Really,” I said, trying to keep my expression as neutral as possible so that she wouldn’t guess I’d had almost the same conversation with Turtell. The beating-people-up thing was new information, though.
    “Yes,” she said, the dreamy expression fading. “And now all these guys are saying that they don’t want to be prom king. I think they’re afraid that Glen’s going to beat them up. You know, because he keeps telling them he’s going to.”
    “I think you should talk to Glen,” I said. “Relationships are about communication.” I paused, wondering why that sounded so familiar, before I realized it was what Schuyler had said to me the day before. “Just tell Glen that he has nothing to worry about. And tell him tostop threatening to beat up our potential prom kings.”
    “I didn’t think you’d mind,” she said slyly. “I mean, since it’s probably going to be Justin.”
    I put my clipboard down and looked at her. Although we didn’t talk about it much, Kittson and I had a shared history with Justin. She’d dated him after I had, but had broken up with him after only a few weeks and then immediately started dating Turtell. But the me-and-Justin thing felt like ancient history. Justin paled in comparison to Nate. It seemed like we’d dated in another lifetime. I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d thought about him. “I don’t want Glen to beat up Justin,” I said. “I don’t want Glen to beat up anyone.”
    “Oh,” Kittson said, looking disappointed. She’d probably been hoping that there was still some drama to be mined from the situation. “I just thought you might still be mad at him.”
    “Not at all,” I said. “I mean, compared to Nate, Justin’s just…”
    “I know,” Kittson said. “Same with Glen, that is.” She took a lip gloss out of her bag and applied it skillfully. Watching her, I suddenly felt bad for Justin. After all, both his ex-girlfriends were in relationships with other people, and both were happy to not be dating him anymore. As far as I knew, Justin hadn’t dated anyone since Kittson had dumped him. Which, it now struck me, was a little strange. Guys like Justin were rarely unattached. After Ruth, pretending to be me, had dumped him on Friendverse, he’d been single less than forty-eight hours before Kittson asked him out.

    “Back to business,” Kittson said briskly, capping her lip gloss and frowning at me, as though I was the one who’d gotten us off track. “Where are we with the gift bags?”
    “Hello?” a voice called out from the ballroom entrance. I turned and saw a girl standing in the doorway, but I couldn’t see her face, as she was silhouetted by the light outside.
    Kittson looked over as well, and I could feel her stiffen beside me. She stood up and crossed toward the girl. Not wanting to miss anything—and happy to take a break from the inspection form—I followed.
    The girl was on the short side, even though she was wearing a serious pair of stiletto heels. She looked about our age, but was dressed older, in a pencil skirt and gauzy shirt that, I could tell just by looking at it, had probably been incredibly expensive. She had dark brown hair pulled back in a ponytail, with blunt bangs, and she was carrying a thick black binder.
    “I thought I heard your voice,” the girl said as Kittson approached. She gave Kittson a tight smile, and her eyes flicked to me before returning to Kittson. “Doing some