Shuffle, Repeat(77)

Although nothing else has made me tear up, this does. “Don’t!” says Mom. “Your mascara will run!”

“Thank you,” I tell Cash, and hug him. Then I touch my on-screen image, sending it speeding through the galaxy toward my father. It’s accompanied by a message.


Don’t just scratch the surface.



He won’t get it. He won’t understand that because of his choices, he has a daughter in name only, a series of images and messages translating to a relationship that doesn’t really exist. He can’t begin to comprehend it, and that’s why I am able to forgive him. Because he really, truly doesn’t understand.

I forgive him, but that doesn’t mean I need to keep pretending he’s going to show up. I’ve pretended for way too long.

Mom pulls me away from everyone else. “Hey, Marley said you might have some questions for me.”

“Just one,” I tell her. “Will you teach me how to drive?”

A big smile breaks over her face. “Of course, honey.”

? ? ?

My ride arrives later than I hoped, but I don’t care. After all, it took quite a bit of convincing for us to reach an agreement at all.

“Are you sure about this?” my ride asks.

“Very sure,” I answer. “You and I have really, really good reasons to go to prom tonight.”

We pose for photos, I thank everyone who was involved in the Xtreme Cinderella-ing, and then we’re off.

? ? ?

The car jams to the curb and I hop out before the valet can reach my door. I’m in the biggest hurry of my life and I don’t care who knows it.

I’m alone when I run up the front stairs, and I’m alone when I cross the vast empty lobby of the hotel and step into the glittering ballroom. Hung with twinkling strands of light and dotted with white-draped tables, it is crowded with people I have known for years. My ears are flooded with indie punk music, and that’s the moment I feel the most alone of all: when I enter my senior prom.

It’s my own fault, of course. Sure, it was a boy who broke my heart, but I am the one to blame. I am the one who broke a promise.

Still, I hold my head high, because I have a reason to be here. I have a grand romantic gesture to make, an epic speech to give, a heart full of regret to bleed out over the scuffed vinyl.

My ride catches up to me as I’m scanning the dance floor. I know everyone here, or even if I don’t know them, I know their face, or their name, or some small fact about them. Despite all my attempts to deny it and to pretend I am different, now that I’m here, I have to admit the truth: these are my people.

Maybe I’m not alone after all.

Maybe I never have been.

And then I see Itch. He’s standing on the edge, swaying back and forth in that way guys do when they don’t want (or know how) to dance. He isn’t looking for me, but that makes sense, since he’s here with Akemi. She’s right beside him and their fingers are twined together.

Nothing about tonight is going to be easy.

I turn to say that I need to speak with someone, but my ride is frozen, staring into the distance. “Go,” I say, and then I also go. I make a beeline toward my ex-boyfriend.

Itch and Akemi stare at me when I barrel up to them. “I’m sorry,” I tell them. “But I need to talk to Itch.”

“No way,” Itch says.

“I get it. I’m not exactly the first person you want to hang out with tonight.”

“You’re actually the last,” he says. “The dead last.”

“Be nice.” Akemi elbows him in the ribs. I shoot her a grateful look and she shrugs. “I’m secure,” she tells me. “Besides, I have to pee.” She rises on her tiptoes and gives Itch a peck on the lips. “Remember. Give to the world what you want it to give back to you.”

It’s the kind of statement Itch and I would have mocked just a few months ago, but it no longer sounds mockable to me. In fact, it sounds sort of deep and real. Who am I?

As Akemi sails off, the current music fades and an old Elton John song swells up in its place. I grab Itch by the wrist. “This one time, you are going to dance with me like a cheesy high school joiner,” I tell him, and yank him onto the floor.

Shockingly, Itch allows it. I place his hands on my hips and set my hands on his familiar, narrow shoulders. We sway together, arm’s length apart, his eyes hard and angry on my own. “What, June?”

“I’m going to say out loud why you’re so mad. Okay?”

Itch doesn’t answer, exactly, but he does tilt his chin down a tiny bit. An almost imperceptible acknowledgment.

I take a deep breath. “At first, you were probably mad because of a bunch of things, because that’s how breakups work. People get mad when relationships end. But in most cases, people then get over it.” Itch’s stony gaze doesn’t falter. “But you couldn’t get over it, because I never let you, because I made you feel like our breakup wasn’t important. Like it didn’t matter, like maybe our entire relationship didn’t matter, because it wasn’t even worthy of a mention.”

Itch’s fingers tighten on my waist, just a little, and for the briefest of moments, we’re back in time, back in the stairwell, and we belong to each other all over again. I don’t want to be back there with him now, but I couldn’t be more thankful that it happened.