Puddle Jumping(30)

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My dress was white, much to my dad’s annoyance. He kept eyeing me like I had chosen a damn wedding dress and I had to roll my eyes an infinite number of times before he finally stopped gawking. I’d gone all out and had actually worn my hair up . . . I guess I really wanted to feel like I looked pretty that night.

Sue. Me. I’m still a girl.

Anyway, I’d been getting ready up in my room with Harper when the first phone call came in. It was Mrs. Neely and she sounded really apologetic, but Colton was still at work doing something for one of the exhibits, so he was staying late to try and get it finished.

And, as I knew, Colton usually completed any project he was given.

“When do you think he’ll be done?” I was holding the phone against my ear while trying to do my blush and failing miserably.

She didn’t know but promised to call me as soon as she did because she was going to try to tell him one more time how important his promise was to me. And that work could wait.

Mrs. Neely had a tone.

Disappointment set in as soon as I disconnected and my best friend tried her hardest to make me feel better by just being . . . well . . . Harper. She was cracking jokes and making stupid faces and voices to get my mind off it, but there was no denying it would be Valentine’s Day all over again and I would be in the limo by myself that night. Alone at dinner.

By myself at the dance.

I took pictures with the group, not as a couple.

I had no corsage.

The hardest thing was watching everyone else with their dates; matchy-matchy and all goo-goo eyed at one another. It just drove the point in even more I was alone that night.

Quinn and Sawyer with her pink dress and his pink vest.

Harper in her yellow dress . . . with two dates.

I suppose it was lucky for me that she had two: Blake and Derek. Laugh all you want, but neither of the guys cared they were both taking her to the dance. I’m pretty sure she’d promised them something I didn’t want to know about.

After all of the progress she had made . . .

They were nice. Attractive. Pleasant. She was happy. I couldn’t say anything to her about it. Tigers don’t change their stripes, as my mom would say. Or is that zebras?

The theme of the dance was James Bond or something equivalent. Pictures were being taken as soon as you went through the door, and I was super bummed with the thought of having to walk in alone, having a picture taken by myself when I actually, truly, did have a boyfriend. He just wasn’t there.

But before I could step foot into the massive ballroom, Harper stopped me and pulled me aside to tell me Blake would walk me in, if I wanted him to. It didn’t really matter. It wasn’t like I was going to buy one of the photos. I just didn’t want that pity look people were so quick to give. And the photographer was stopping everyone from taking group pictures at the door, so, really, what choice did I have?

Blake was tall and tan, with kind of a little faux-hawk on top of his head. I wondered if he had a tattoo . . . a piercing or something equally as exotic as his Hawaiian roots. I wondered exactly how old he was, because he had a baby face but this really sick looking manly body. He probably worked out five times a week. There was a seventy - thirty chance that he was in his mid-twenties.

He had an easy smile and reminded me of one of those guys who winks after they say something they think you will think is cute. I thanked him for taking pity on me and linked my arm through his, stopping in front of the photographer to give a half-hearted smile before we stepped through the door and into the frenzy of bouncing bodies who just the day before had resembled people I went to school with.

Now half of the girls looked like pageant queens and the other half looked like hookers.

I wondered which one I resembled.

Blake had no problem offering me pity dances and getting me a drink here and there. As it was, I was trying to have fun, no matter how hollow my chest felt.

Prom King and Queen were announced and I got choked up when Quinn and Sawyer won, taking their crowns and kissing each other in front of the entire student body. It meant something. It just . . . did. Regardless of who they were in a classroom, they were Quinn and Sawyer. Everyone knew them. They were equal opportunity in every last way.

After they had their dance, Harper pulled me to the side to tell me she was headed out front for a smoke with Blake. Derek had made a friend or two at the table where we’d stashed all our stuff and I had to laugh that he was chatting up a snobby cheerleader named Claire. The Claire of Chlam-Face fame.

I went outside with Harper because I had nothing better to do and I figured it could help clear my head a little. I’ll be honest, I was straight up moping.

She and Blake stood off to the side of the hotel, down an alley, smoking cigarettes and kissing and I felt like a third wheel, but it looked like that was the theme of the evening anyway. It was colder than I expected and I hadn’t brought a jacket, so I was doing that weird self-hug, watching the way the wind was making my dress whip around my feet. That’s why I didn’t notice Blake approaching me and hanging his jacket over my arms. I didn’t notice until I looked up and he was squinting away from the smoke coming out of the cigarette hanging from his lips as he put it on my shoulders.

I told him thanks and he smiled, taking the cig in his fingers and tapping it. I remember watching the way the ashes dipped and lifted in the wind. It was a little poetic, in a way. If you’re into that kind of stuff.