The Weight of Blood (46)

“What the fuck?” he cackled, slapping a hand over his face.

Maddy winced. “Um, can you, please, not curse at me? Please?” Cursing had a violence to it that seemed too familiar to home.

“Oh! My bad. I wasn’t cursing at you, though . . . but, sorry.”

She took a breath. “My turn? Where’s the farthest you’ve ever been?”

“Easy. USC in California. My dad wanted to check out their stadium, even though I knew I wasn’t going to play there.”

“Is that near Hollywood?” she asked, leaning in. “What was it like? Did you see any movie stars?”

“No movie stars,” he mused. “It was nice, though. The palm trees and beaches. But no place like home.”

Maddy smiled, thinking of how glamorous all the mansions must be, just like in the movies.

“Okay, my turn,” Kenny said, resetting himself. “When you have kids, what is one thing you’d do different than your parents?”

Maddy knew the answer right away. “I’d love them for who they are. Not who I want them to be.”

Kenny blinked as if struck in the face. Had she said the wrong thing or maybe said too much?

“Um, my turn?” she mumbled, wringing her hands. “What’s your favorite movie?”

“Oh, I love action movies! Like Wolverine, 300, The Avengers, but I like the classics too, like The Matrix. What about you?”

Maddy bit her lip, trying to remember all the titles so she could look them up later.

“Well, I love so many, but Sabrina, staring Aubrey Hepburn, is one of my favorites.”

“Hm. Never heard of it. Is it on Netflix?”

What’s Netflix? She wondered, but decided to play it off. “I think it’s my go, right?”

He laughed. “You getting good at this.”

Maddy smiled proudly. “How did you know you were in love with Wendy?”

“I didn’t . . . well, I didn’t really know. Just sometimes you grow into it.”

She nodded. “Like buying clothes too big for you.”

“Damn, well, when you put it like that.” He laughed. “Alright, when you graduate, where do you want to live? Maybe Hollywood?”

Her heart sank. “I don’t know if I’ll ever leave Springville.”

“Naw, you can’t think like that.” He shook his head. “You will. You’ll meet some guy, run off, and get married. Happens all the time around here. And when you do, where are you gonna call home? Sounds like you wanna check out the West Coast.”

Maddy thought back to all the great love stories she’d watched with women running off to be with the men they loved and smiled. “Well, I guess, wherever he is, that’s home. That’s how love is supposed to be, right? You just feel at home.”

Kenny sat motionless and Maddy feared she had said the wrong thing again until he smiled.

“Yeah, it is.”

Maddy tensed, a sudden wave of heat hitting her chest. She could feel Kenny without touching him. Every emotion, like a shaken Coke bottle ready to pop, hummed off his skin as threads snaked off her fingertips.

Kenny’s eyes widened with a gasp. Did he feel her too?

Maddy shot up out of her seat and the threads retreated. She couldn’t lose control, not here, in front of him. She needed to be normal, or she’d never go to prom. “I—I’m sorry. I . . . I need to get home.”

“Oh, r-right,” Kenny stuttered with a frown. “I guess when you know what color dress you gonna get, you can just text me.”

“I, uh, don’t have a cell phone,” she admitted, face flushing red.

“What? Why?”

She gave him a trepid shrug. “I don’t go anywhere to need one.”

Conscious of her shortcomings, she began to panic. He’s going to change his mind about prom. I know it. He won’t want to be seen with me!

“Uh, alright. How about this.” He ripped a piece of paper out of his bag and scratched down his details. “Just call or email me.”

A smile wiggled its way onto her lips. “Thank you.”

MADDY DID IT

EPISODE 7

“A Mind of Its Own”

Michael: In a 2020 episode of Unsolved Mysteries: Springville Massacre, producers interviewed Kendrick Scott’s sister and president of Springville High’s Black Student Union, Kali Scott. I’m going to play a clip for you that didn’t make the episode but really gives us a broader scope of the racial tension happening around prom:

“Was Springville High racist? Not loudly, but silently. That’s how microaggression works. A year before prom, one of the history teachers had an assignment, asking students if they believed slavery should still exist. Almost fifty percent of the students debated yes, because of course cotton wasn’t going to pick itself. Black students were angry and tried to get parents involved, but most of them waved it off. ‘That’s just Springville for you.’ Ridiculous.

“We were tired of the blatant disrespect, so we started the Black Student Union. We needed a collective, unified front to battle some of the issues we were facing. We respectfully presented several actionable items, along with context, to the school board. Even had representatives from BLBP endorse the plan. They said they would take it into consideration. Next day, I found a banana in my locker.