It was getting hotter. Spring was coming but I felt summer close by. I felt our time coming to an end. I felt my fate staring me down. Prom. Alone. Because I had gambled on a boy who wanted nothing more than to keep me in the shadows. The side girl. The afterthought.

My friends had dates. They had dresses. They matched. The photos would be beautiful.

My dress was hanging on my closet door. Pale yellow, tulle. My hair was going to be down, long waves along my back.

I remembered Bryan’s hands there. The way he spoke. I want to kiss you. I really want to kiss you. I didn’t let him.

I wished for it, too. At night, I prayed for it.

“So, are you still holding out? You need a date. You can’t not go to prom. We have been waiting for this our entire lives,” Britt said, pouting.

“I thought the thing we had been waiting our entire lives for was graduation, so we could leave this town,” I said, pushing that night Bryan and I ended away. Pushing away the image of myself crying into my pillow.

“That, too.” Christina laughed. She wanted out more than any of us. She was an only child, living with her grandparents. She had few ties. We were her family, more than anything.

I leaned against my locker, slid down. The halls were thinning and we were lingering. We did that now. Now that we didn’t have to ride the bus. “Remind me of my options. Again. I’d love to be more depressed than I already am. God.”

Britt took a seat next to me, pulled a notebook from her backpack. “I made a list. Remember!”

I smacked my hand on my forehead and she laughed in return. Britt and her lists. I grabbed the notebook and stared at the top name. Blinking. “Has this name always been on the top of the list?” I thought of Bryan and his suggestion. Was this a joke? I had no intention of showing up at the Winthrop’s house when I knew Ben would be alone. I had no intentions with him at all.

“No.” Britt was smiling.

I looked around my group of friends. They were all smiling. Some secret had been passed between them. While I was wallowing, they were plotting. Always plotting. “I can’t ask Ben Winthrop to prom.” It felt like a betrayal, even though Bryan put it in my head. It would look like I was trying to get at him, to everyone else. They wouldn’t know the reasoning behind it.

Ben Winthrop, the junior. The wild Winthrop. The one you never would have guessed was the preacher’s son. The one girls should run from, even though they never had a chance with him.

He played baseball, never going past middle school with the sport his older brother excelled at. He had been dating the junior class prom queen candidate, Stacey Combs, since the beginning of his sophomore year. They had broken up last week, after rumors of Stacey cheating. Stacey had a prom date. Her rumored other man. Ben, did not have a date. I knew that because of his brother.

“Why can’t you ask him? He doesn’t have a date,” Christina argued.

She had a point but that didn’t matter. He wasn’t on a pedestal. He wasn’t as beautiful as Bryan, but I felt an advantage, due to my age, and the knowledge that he was dateless, but that’s all I had. My confidence was shit when it came to Winthrop boys. “I don’t think I can take any more rejection at this point. Especially from one family. That’s a bit much.” My friends exchanged looks, smiles playing against my doubt. “What?”

“What if we knew something you don’t?”

Did they know Bryan told me to take him? I never told them, but my friends had ways of finding things. Uncovering secrets. “What?” My body tensed. I sat straight, my spine a vertical line. Akia dropped to her knees in front of me, threw her backpack in my lap, and made a pillow of it. I played with her hair, it was a habit, and pulled a strand of my own into my mouth. Another habit.

“I heard him getting into a fight with his brother the other day. And I heard your name,” Akia threw out, casually.

“What were they saying?” I looked down into her amber eyes.

“I don’t know, honestly. Something about ‘fucking things up’ and ‘liar’ and then they started arguing about their parents so I walked away. Because that seemed like too much to listen in on. I don’t want to think the Winthrops have anything but the perfect marriage. It’s too weird.”

“So what exactly am I supposed to do with this info? This doesn’t seem like a good reason to ask him to go to prom with me.”

“We just think,” Britt said, pulling my eyes to her, “that they seem to be in disagreement when it comes to you, in some regard. So maybe he would go with you just to piss his brother off.”

“Wow. Romantic.” I moved my legs, motioning for Akia to get up so I could rise off the floor. I was ready to go home. Ready to end this shit week and this shit day and all of it.

“C’mon, Sev,” Britt’s voice trailed me as I walked down the hallway, to the door. “We all need to go to prom together.”

“I don’t actually need a date, you know,” I threw back.

“I know you don’t but you said, just last week, that you wouldn’t be caught dead walking into prom alone. That you would rather stay home.”

“Don’t trust the things that come out of my mouth when I’m high on Oreos and heartsick!” I pushed the double glass doors open, walked onto the green lawn of Burlingame High. We had planned to grab food after school, but I was too tired of keeping up appearances. I could see my little house, just across the street; inside was my little bed and my little fan. My little notebook and my little bowl that only I was allowed to eat cereal out of. I needed those little things.

“Just consider it,” Christina called. “Are you not going to the Falcon with us anymore?”

“Nah.” I whirled around, showing them my smile, letting them know I wasn’t mad or irrational. I was just drained and over the world.

When the world gets to you, you have to take time for yourself. My father said solitude and quiet reflection are needed to heal.

And I needed to heal.

Ben Winthrop didn’t have a car. He rode to school every day with his brother. Sometimes I saw them arrive. Two silent boys, the younger jettisoning from the vehicle before it barely made it to park. My observations of Bryan meant that I couldn’t avoid seeing Ben. He was just, there. A blurry figure in the background, white noise.

Two days later, he stood out to me. It was unavoidable. He stood in front of me after my last period, in the hallway, with a bouquet of roses, pale yellow, and cream, so I took notice. I couldn’t avoid it. I knew it was a setup, something my friends had organized, but I stopped caring. I stopped trying to avoid their latest plan.

“What’s this?” I asked, voice low, reaching for the roses.

“Can we talk outside?” Ben had a raspy voice, lower than his older brother’s.

His hands looked larger than Bryan’s and maybe he would be taller. I nodded my consent and trailed him. I was afraid to be seen with him. It hit me suddenly. The way I felt like I was doing something wrong. Betraying Bryan in some way, when he had no say-so in my actions. “What’s up?” I tried to sound casual when we made it to the front lawn of the school. There were a handful of students left lingering. I felt their eyes on the bouquet in my hands. On me.

“Do you have a date for prom?” Straight to it. No build up.

“No. And I think you knew that already.”

“Yeah.” He smiled, almost shy, and maybe the braces had something to do with it, but his act, the ‘I’m a shy guy’ thing was not convincing enough. He had a hard jawline and it was incredibly attractive.

“So is this you asking me to prom?” I didn’t want to mince words. This was a setup and I wanted to complete the transaction. I wanted the deal to be done, to move forward. Always forward.

“Yes.”

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Yes. I’ll go to prom with you. I already have a dress. It’s cream.” I looked at the roses, curious about what else my friends told him.

“I’ll make sure I match.”