A Prom to Remember(50)

“I honestly have no idea, but hopefully with both of us working together we can talk her out of this one,” Richard said.

Cameron put his bowl in the dishwasher and was halfway out the door before turning around. “Have a good day at work, um, Richard,” Cameron said.

“You, too, Cam,” Richard said.

Between the good interaction with Richard and his conversation with Henry over the weekend, Cameron decided to take a chance sitting with the baseball guys at lunch that day.

After some gentle ribbing along the lines of, “Cam? What the hell? I thought you moved or something,” the guys all settled in and acted like it wasn’t even a little weird that Cameron was there.

Henry smiled as he took the seat next to Cameron.

“Are you lost?” he asked Cameron.

“Maybe. I feel like I time traveled back to last year,” Cameron said honestly.

And that’s really how he felt. Like he had gone back in time. Or maybe like he was finally stepping out of a fog; all those terrible, sad feelings that he didn’t know what to do with were starting to fade away.

In English class, he was relieved to see the laptop cart. There was a time when not having a new message waiting from Laptop Girl would have made him worry she didn’t like him anymore. But not today, not for new and improved Cameron. New and improved Cameron was logical and figured they probably just hadn’t used the laptops in her class.

And he was grateful to get one more shot with laptop 19 this year. Ms. Huang hadn’t been bringing the cart in much, and Cameron really wanted a copy of the document preserved for him. He put it on a flash drive and shoved it deep in his backpack.

He didn’t want to sit around reading the document every day for the rest of his life or anything, but he thought maybe if he found it in five or ten years, it might be something fun to read.

Or he might want to delete his awkwardness.

He’d let future Cameron work that out.

After that, the week kept getting better.

He didn’t have to work Thursday after school because Eddie felt so bad about making him come in on Friday. The good news was that Eddie didn’t know all the seniors got out of school at twelve thirty the day of the prom or Cameron was pretty sure his boss would have asked him to come in for the lunch shift, too.

But not having to work on Thursday meant he had time to go to his mom’s first ultrasound with her and Richard.

The whole experience was weird, but he was glad not to miss it.

And he might even take Richard up on his offer to pay to fly Cameron home from college for the baby’s birth.

Maybe.

The last thing he did Thursday afternoon before heading home after his mom’s doctor’s appointment was stop at the florist to pick up a matching boutonniere and corsage for him and Laptop Girl. They were both lime green.

He thought for sure he’d get a weird look when he ordered them, but apparently lime was a very popular color this year.

Cameron stood in his bedroom making a list of everything he needed to take with him to school the next morning to go from school to work to prom. It was going to be a crazy day, but twenty-four hours from that moment, he could be with Laptop Girl.

He couldn’t wait.

Otis

Otis sucked in a deep breath as he walked into school the morning of the prom. It was time to confront reality and actually talk to Luke face-to-face. He’d been dodging him for the majority of the week, even faked sick on Wednesday just to avoid the awkwardness between them.

He had halfheartedly tried to talk to his parents one last time that morning, but Otis knew when to quit. The irony was not lost on him that after not wanting to go, now that he wasn’t allowed to go, he sort of wanted to go. Especially now that he’d heard their private hotel room had turned into a slumber party with Lizzie and Madison. Why couldn’t that have always been the plan?

“Oh, hey there,” Luke said, grimacing when he saw Otis. “I was starting to wonder if your parents had locked you in the basement and I was never going to see you again.”

“I’m so sorry about the prom!” Otis blurted out before he could lose the nerve. “I thought I could talk my parents into commuting my sentence or something, but I couldn’t. It’s over.”

Luke blinked at him and then frowned. “I guess I was hoping for a last-minute reprieve, too. Because it was literally one time. One mistake. You have a clean record otherwise! You’re a first-time offender!”

“I know that, and you know that, but apparently it’s about learning that actions have consequences.”

“But don’t you already know that?”

Otis shrugged. “I thought I did.” The guilt was likely to eat Otis alive. No wonder he’d been avoiding Luke.

“Well, this sucks so hard. I don’t want to go to the prom without you,” Luke said, taking Otis’s hand.

Somehow all of this was worse because Luke was so sad instead of angry. Otis was prepared to take on the wrath of Luke; he wasn’t prepared to take on sad, disappointed Luke.

“You’ll still have fun with Lizzie and Madison and them,” Otis said. “At least you get to go.”

Luke’s chin wobbled, making Otis feel a million times worse. “I know, but I’m going to be thinking about you all night long. Maybe I shouldn’t go, either. Would your parents let me come over and hang out with you?”