First & Then(55)

I didn’t. Did I? I can’t say I had any grand feelings about Homecoming in previous years. The shoes were generally uncomfortable and the music too loud, but it was an opportunity to slow dance with Cas and make fun of everyone else’s idea of formal wear.

Suddenly I was flooded with desire to be there. Why should I be cheated out of a dance just because I didn’t have a date? Why shouldn’t I go, just because Ezra and I weren’t going together? I could have a good time alone.

Foster left to change, I donned the dress, and we left together to pick up Gwin.




The gym was decked out in its usual Homecoming garb; this consisted of twinkly lights, folding chairs, and a big plastic tarp they put over the hardwood to keep it from getting scratched. Inevitably the tarp would get twisted up during an overzealous conga line, and more than a few people would trip over it.

The place was packed. Foster and Gwin departed in the direction of some underclassmen, and I was left to scan the crowd for a familiar face.

Rachel Woodson appeared as if out of nowhere with a giant camera in her hands. She was impeccably dressed—not a hair out of place—and she shoved the camera in my face.

“Picture for the yearbook?”

“Uh…” I’d rather not.

“Come on.” She poised the camera to shoot. “Smile.”

I forced a smile. The flashbulb lit up the place and left stars in my eyes.

“Thanks, you’re the best!” And Rachel Woodson was gone.

I swear I didn’t regain my vision for the next two cloned pop ballads, and it was only when I took a seat in one of the folding chairs lining the room that I could finally blink them clear and enjoy a full view of the place.

I hadn’t been sitting long when the crowd parted slightly and revealed them.

Lindsay Renshaw was wearing a cream-colored dress made of this soft, liquid-like fabric that danced around her legs. I don’t know where it was from, but it definitely wasn’t found on the half-off rack at a department store. She stood perfectly still on high-heeled shoes, hair shining in curls that cascaded down her back. She was beautiful, and everyone knew it. I knew it. There are lots of pretty people, but you meet so few truly beautiful ones in your lifetime. It was almost as if some glow radiated off her that was absent in the rest of us, some sparkle that couldn’t be bought or imitated.

They weren’t dancing, but she was standing close so as to be heard over the music. He was wearing a black suit with the jacket open, a crisp white shirt, thin black tie. His head was bent, her lips were right by his ear. My stomach spasmed.

It was Ezra Lynley.

He was … gorgeous. They were gorgeous together.

Mechanically, I left my seat, went into the bathroom, and closed myself in the corner stall. I pulled out my phone and thought about calling someone, but who was there to call? And what would I even say? It was just the kind of unpleasant surprise you had to share with someone, but I didn’t have anybody to share it with.

Eventually I left the bathroom and headed outside. I had stuck a book in my purse, so I sat down on the steps to the gym and opened the book and stared at the words without absorbing them at all.

It was a crappy surprise, and I had too much pride to admit that it hurt. I had assumed that Ezra wouldn’t go to Homecoming, nursing the foolish but nonetheless consolatory hope that he wouldn’t want to show up with anyone but me.

And yet here was Lindsay. Swooping in. Interfering with my prospects yet again.

But had Ezra ever even been a prospect? Jane would point out that there was never an agreement between us. He never said out loud that he liked me. But there was something in his eyes at times that I would almost swear said something more. Some deeper sort of regard.

“Dev?”

Wherever I was, Foster had a way of finding me.

I closed my book as he sank down onto the step next to me. “Loud in there, huh?” he said. “And hot.”

“That’s how these things usually are.”

I glanced over at Foster as I spoke. He looked like a different person. It wasn’t so much the clothes or the hair or the new physique, but his face. The Foster I met at the beginning of summer looked … hollow. This Foster was filled up inside.

“Gwin seems nice,” I added after a moment.

“Gwin needs to get a f*cking e in her name.”

I looked out across the parking lot. “Don’t talk like them.”

“Who?”

“The football guys.”

“You want me to talk like the Future Science Revolutionaries?” He twisted his voice. “Gwin is a positively arcane name, inadequately defying convention with its unusual choice of vowel.”

I actually laughed. “Just talk like Foster.”

He shrugged. “I miss Marabelle.”

“Why didn’t you ask her?”

“She wouldn’t have come. She would’ve said that she can’t be my date without Baby being my date, too, and Baby’s not old enough to go to school dances.”

“How do you know that’s what she’d say?”

“Because that’s what she said.” Foster gave a sheepish smile.

“I’m sorry.”

He gave another halfhearted shrug. “At least I’ve got Gwin. She’s … nice.”

I smiled. Foster was so transparent.