Thanksgiving break is over, and Jake hasn't mentioned his invitation to winter formal since the day he asked her. Which leaves Amy worried, because she doesn't want to stand him up, if he was actually asking her, because they're friends, after all, and that's not the sort of thing you do to a friend. But if he was joking, she sure as hell doesn't want to show up to the dance and look like an idiot when he doesn't pay any attention to her.

She knows that the reasonable thing to do is just go ahead and ask him: a simple, "Hey, we still on for winter formal?" would do the trick. But she feels incapable of being casual about this, so she resorts to the age-old strategy of the intermediary.

"Hey, Gina," she says, one day before class, figuring that Gina a) is up on all gossip ever and b) has known Jake since they were in the womb, practically, so she's most likely to know what's going on-"Hey, Gina, were you planning on going to winter formal?"

Gina looks up from her phone with raised eyebrows. "Oh, I don't know, why don't you ask THE SIXTEEN SUPER-HOT GUYS who are currently vying for my hand?"

"So, yes?"

"Aaah-bsolutely."

"Oh, cool."

"Why are you asking?"

Amy's stymied. The subject's out there, but how exactly is she supposed to bring it around to Jake?

"Oh, I, uh, I was wondering if you had a dress yet? Because if not, we should totally go shopping together. Or whatever. I'm cool with whatever. I'm cool."

"Oh, yeah," Gina says, "you're going with Jake on that weird-ass half-date thing."

"I am? I mean, yeah, I am."

Gina doesn't seem to catch the stumble, though, because she just says, "Kay, let's go this weekend," and goes back to playing Kwazy Kupcakes.

So, okay. She's apparently still going with Jake. Which is good, right?

Rosa leans over and taps her on the shoulder. "Santiago, you're going to winter formal?"

"Yeah. You?"

"I dunno," she says flatly. "Boyle asked me."

"Of course he did."

"And I told him I'd think about it."

"Wait, what? I thought you weren't into him."

"I'm not. But, I don't know, you're going with Jake, and you're not into him, right? So…"

"But Jake and I are just friends. Charles definitely wants more than that."

Rosa shrugs. "He knows it's not gonna happen."

Amy's opening her mouth to disagree when Jake and Charles walk in, and she quickly changes the subject.

"Well, do you want to go dress shopping with me and Gina this weekend, then?"

"Sure, why not?" Rosa does her little half-smile thing, and Amy grins back widely.

"Dress shopping, huh?" Jake asks, sliding into his seat next to her and slouching down. "What's the occasion, ladies?"

"Winter formal," Gina tells him.

"Oh!" He looks over at Amy. "I have high expectations, then. For reference purposes: I like red, purple, and blue, and I'm not so much a fan of the strapless."

"Thank you so much for the information," Amy says, rolling her eyes.

"What? Don't you want your dress to match the corsage I'm going to bring you?"

"Oh, a corsage? Wow, you're really going all out, aren't you?"

"You betcha. I even looked into hiring a limo, but then I realized it would cost several hundred dollars and I have no money."

Amy still can't tell if he's joking or not. Corsage, limo...this sounds like a real date. Is he into her like...like that?

Of course not, she tells herself sternly. They're friends, and they're going to winter formal as friends, and this is just Jake being silly. Jake being Jake.

She's spared having to think of something clever to say in response by Holt entering the room.

"I hope each of you had a pleasant Thanksgiving," he says, putting his books down on the table.

"How was your holiday, Mr. Holt?" Amy blurts out, then curses herself for sounding like a suck-up.

"It was extremely enjoyable, Ms. Santiago. I had a spirited discussion with several of my relatives regarding controversial political points of disagreement."

"Very nice, sir," Amy says, still not able to tell if he's being sarcastic.

"Now, today we commence our unit on poetry," Holt continues, "and I believe I asked all of you to bring in a winter-themed poem to read aloud to the class. Who would like to go first?"

"Oh, I would," Jake says, and everyone swivels to look at him, because Jake volunteering in class is far from normal.

"Very well, Mr. Peralta, go right ahead."

Jake clears his throat. "All is quiet on New Year's Day. A world in white gets underway. I want to be with you, be with you, night and day. Nothing changes on New Year's Day. I will be with you again. I will be with you again. Under a blood red sky, a crowd has gathered, black and white. Arms entwined, the chosen few. The newspaper says, says, say it's true, it's true, we can break through. Though torn in two we can be one. I, I will begin again. I, I will begin again. Oh, maybe the time is right. Oh, maybe tonight, I will be with you again, I will be with you again. And so we are told this is the golden age, and gold is the reason for the wars we wage. Though I want to be with you, be with you, night and day, nothing changes on New Year's Day."

He grins impishly and looks around, meeting Amy's Death Glare with a wink.

"I don't understand, Mr. Peralta," Holt says calmly. "That does not sound like a particularly good poem."

"That's because it isn't," Amy pipes up.

"What do you mean, Ms. Santiago?"

"Those are song lyrics. God, Jake, do you not even understand what a poem is?"

"Ah, yes," says Holt, "now I recognize the words to the U2 classic 'New Year's Day.' I don't appreciate your attempt to undermine this assignment."

"Right. Sorry. Just thought I'd lighten the mood a bit," says a chastened Jake.

"You were unsuccessful," replies Holt, and the class moves on.

On Saturday, Amy meets Gina and Rosa at the mall.

"Okay," she says, "so I figure we should be able to do this in just a few hours. I ranked all the stores by likelihood of containing something good, and then plotted out exactly how much time we ought to spend in each, with breaks built in for trying stuff on and a trip to the food court."

"Gimme that," says Rosa, and snatches Amy's schedule out of her hand. "No. This is bullshit." She crumples the paper up and tosses it into a nearby trash can. "It's a goddamn shopping trip. This level of planning is not necessary."

Gina snaps her gum. "I'm gonna have to go with Scary Lady on this one. Amy, no offense, you're adorable, but this whole thing?" She gestures at Amy's outfit. "Not exactly winter-formal-level sexy here, girl."

"What do you mean?" Amy asks indignantly. "I look fine!"

"Fine as in how'd-you-do-on-that-test fine, sweetheart. Not fine fine. We're gonna get you to fine fine. You too, boss bitch," she adds, glancing over at Rosa. "I saw you in that slinky black number when we went to that play. You looked hot. Use that."

Rosa does not look pleased, but she doesn't say anything.

"All right, well, where do you suggest we start?" Amy snaps.

"We're going in here," Gina says, and shepherds them into Macy's. "All right. Thirty minutes on the clock. Grab whatever looks good to you and meet me at the fitting rooms then, got it?"

"Got it," Amy and Rosa chorus.

Half an hour later, Amy approaches the fitting room, dresses slung over her arm, where Rosa's waiting.

"You only picked out one thing," Amy says, confused.

"Yeah," says Rosa. "I'm gonna look great in it."

She holds it up for Amy to see, and she can't help agreeing; it's black, of course, and tight, like the one she wore to the play, but longer, and fancier.

"Nice," she says, nodding. "Where's Gina?"

"In there, trying stuff on. She asked me for her opinion and I told her no."

"No to the dress?"

"No to giving her my opinion."

Gina marches out of her stall, in an iridescent sequined number that Amy kinda hates, but of course Gina's pulling it off. "You look great," she says truthfully.

"Of course I do. Now, what did you manage to dig up?"

Amy hesitantly holds up her favorite of the dresses she's found: something she'd never be brave enough to wear, but isn't that the whole point of formal dances?

"I like it," Gina says approvingly. "Very bold. Very un-Amy. Go try it on!"

So Amy, alone in her stall, slips the dress over her head and looks at herself in the mirror for a moment. She looks-good, actually, better than she'd have thought. The dress is red (totally not because Jake said that was one of the colors he liked), made of some kind of satiny material with beading or something (all right, Amy doesn't know that much about dresses), fancy but not overstated. She actually likes it kind of a lot.

When she steps out, it seems like Gina and Rosa agree.

"Oh, girl, we are going to Hermione-Granger-in-Goblet-of-Fire the shit out of you," says Gina, and reaches over to pull Amy's hair out of its usual ponytail.

"Nice," says Rosa simply, and nods.

So, okay, she has a dress for winter formal.

She talks things over with Jake about a week before, and they agree that he'll pick her up outside her house and drive her over to the dance, and then she'll catch a ride home with Rosa. Separately. From Jake. She is not going anywhere with Jake post-winter-formal. She finds it pretty much impossible to overstate that point, because they are not dating and this is not a real date and she doesn't want anyone to forget it.

A few days before the dance, he texts her:

JAKE: so I got a suit

JAKE: for winter formal I mean

JAKE: and don't worry

JAKE: also a normal non-ugly tie

AMY: Good to hear.

JAKE: what color is your dress again? for corsage purposes

AMY: Red.

JAKE: ooooh nice. i like red

AMY: Do you? I didn't remember.

JAKE: liar

JAKE: is it weird that i'm excited for this?

AMY: Super weird.

It belatedly occurs to her, when he doesn't reply, that the sarcasm may not necessarily have come through in text-message format.

Jake's picking her up at seven, but she's ready two hours early. Her mom helps her dress her hair (in a non-pulled-back way, thank you very much, Gina) and do her makeup (light but flattering), and she has a little clutch purse that seems actually kind of impractical and a pair of high-heeled shoes that she's not entirely sure she can walk steadily on, let alone dance, and even though she's still kind of nervous about the dress, it does look good when she checks it in the mirror for the forty-eighth time.

She sits on the inside stairwell of her building, near the door, waiting to buzz him in, a book in her lap and her phone by her side. (She's supposed to call her parents to let them know she's arrived safely.)

Her father's just given her the no-alcohol-young-lady lecture when the doorbell rings, and she kisses him lightly, careful not to smudge her makeup, and heads downstairs quickly but not too quickly to answer the door.

It's not Jake, though, but a liveried man, and beyond him is a limousine.

She's frankly shocked. Even if Jake hadn't said he was broke, limos are just not Schur High's style. They're kind of-traditional. And romantic. Definitely romantic. A limo is not something you get for an evening with someone you're just going with as a friend.

Her heart starts fluttering, which she's fully aware is irrational. She starts coming up with things to say to him: "Wow, Peralta, whose dick did you suck to get this thing?" (Not appropriate.) "This is really nice, Jake." (Too bland.) "I can't believe you did this." (Too sincere.)

The driver holds the door open, and she steps in.

And Jake isn't there.

Instead, on the seat next to her there's a corsage, perfectly coordinated to her red dress, and a piece of paper, folded in half, with "Amy" written on the back in Jake's untidy scrawl.

She opens it to read.

"Hey. Sorry I bailed. I figured you should still go and have a good time, though. Enjoy the limo. -J."

That's all. No explanation. Nothing.

Jake Peralta stood her up.