You Should See Me in a Crown(73)
“What was that about?” Amanda pushes close to me when I catch up to her by the table she’s claimed as ours. There are a couple of folks from concert band sitting down already who wave as I approach.
“I—” I stop myself and shake my head with a grin. It can wait until Monday morning. Right now, all I want to focus on is this. “I’ll tell you about it later. You want to dance?”
And of course she wants to dance. My date is nothing if not unafraid of letting go, of being unabashedly excited about something. And when she pulls me to the dance floor, I feel that same energy. I start off with a simple sway, but as Amanda throws her hands into the air and spins and smiles at the Beyoncé and Jay-Z song they’re currently playing, I can’t help but join in.
I’m out of breath when Jordan taps me on the shoulder.
“Mind if I cut in?” he asks Amanda with that little crinkle-nose smile of his. I throw my arms around his middle, so happy to see him I can barely contain myself. “Whoa, Lighty! If I had known you were already this in tune with your emotions I wouldn’t have used up all my best relationship advice on you.”
He hugs me back just as tightly as I angle my face up to look at him.
“You look different,” I say, stepping back to examine his face. He looks great, of course. His tuxedo is perfectly tailored, and his gray bow tie is serving me definite Met Gala vibes. “What’s different about you?”
He doesn’t say anything, just sort of smiles shyly, and then Emme Chandler peeks out from behind him and extends a hand to me, and I get it.
“I think I might be to blame.” Her voice is soft like I remember.
I bypass her hand altogether and hug her too. Because I guess prom has just turned me into the type of person who hugs people all willy-nilly.
Emme looks amazing. Her white-blond hair is half up, half down and falling in loose waves down her back. Her silver dress is simple and sophisticated, like a young Grace Kelly.
“Emme”—I look from her to Jordan and back—“you’re here! I can’t believe you’re here.”
I’m genuinely excited to see her. Not because I’ve ever known Emme all that well, but because I know what she means to Jordan. I know what it must mean to him to have her here on this night.
“Can I talk to you for a second?” Emme leans in and whisper-shouts in my ear.
I glance back at my friends, who are all in their own world. Gabi is shaking her hips like there’s no tomorrow, Stone has her eyes closed and is swaying to no real rhythm in particular, while Britt just sort of aggressively fist pumps.
Amanda is still dancing but smiles at me, like, Go ahead, I’ll be waiting for you when you get back! And I realize that she always looks like that, like she’ll always be there when I come back.
I follow Emme off to the side of the room, and we stand at the edge of the snack table. They wouldn’t dare leave a bowl of punch out like they do in all those movies, because—let’s be honest with ourselves here—who trusts a room full of teenagers with too much privilege and not enough supervision not to do something reckless? But there is a water dispenser, and some finger foods catered by Guy Fieri in a seriously decadent spread.
Two senior PromBotsPomBots, the worst kind, whisper near the water and keep looking in our direction. I sigh. I can’t wait to be past all this.
“Sorry about that,” I say with a sigh. I know it must be hard enough to come back after being away, and the whispers can’t be helping.
“No apologies needed from you.” She smiles at me gently and places a hand on my arm. She lowers her voice like she’s telling a secret. “Did you hear I got arrested for being part of an illicit capuchin monkey smuggling ring in Arizona?”
I laugh thinking of all the ridiculous rumors that spread about where Emme went after she first left. They’ve slowed down a bit, become less extreme over the past few weeks, but they’re still pretty pervasive.
“What?” I feign surprise. “I heard it was tropical birds in Nebraska!”
“Campbell is good at blowing things out of proportion,” she adds with a laugh of her own.
“Jordan’s missed you,” I offer. It feels appropriate in this moment. “This whole place just about shut down after you left.”
“It was hard to be away from him.” She lowers her voice. “He’s probably told you some of what’s been going on with me. And I just wanted to say thank you for being there for him when I needed to take some time away to get my head on straight. It’s hard to … grow here sometimes.”
I don’t ask her where she’s been, or if she’s back for good, because it’s none of my business. I just nod, because I do understand the most important part of what she’s saying. This town has never been good at allowing people to be their full, imperfect-but-still-worthy selves.
“You know, Jordan hasn’t said anything about where you’ve been—not even to me.” I look over to the dance floor, where he’s currently having a twerk-off with Jaxon, and roll my eyes. “You are the one thing he never takes lightly.”
“Well, well, well. Look who’s graced us with her presence!” Rachel cuts in, quick and stumbling, and points between the two of us.
I think briefly that she might have pregamed a little too hard before getting here, but I realize she’s not stumbling because she’s drunk, she’s stumbling because she broke away from a flustered-looking Claire, who was very clearly trying to keep her from doing exactly what she’s doing now.