Thirty-Seven
SENIOR YEAR
“Macy. Pssst. Macy!”
Ben and I break apart, and I squint into the distance. “Joel?” A hesitant form creeps away from the outer wall of the school and steps into the light from the streetlamp. “Joel!” I say, taking in his khaki pants and button-down shirt. “You’re here! Did you—”
“I told them. And it wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t great, either.” He rubs at the back of his neck. “At any rate, I don’t think I’m ready to go inside or anything.” He nods toward Ben. “I was kind of hoping I could take a cue from Collins, actually, and ask Noah to come dance with me out here.”
“Noah?” Ben blurts. I squeeze his hand, hoping he’ll get the hint. “Oh,” he says, and then he’s cool.
“He’s not answering his texts, though,” Joel continues. “So I’m sorry to interrupt, but do you think you can go get him for me?”
“Of course!” I tug Ben’s hand, and he grabs the box of decorations off the car with his free one. We start toward the school, and I call over my shoulder that we’ll be right back. A slow song starts up as we’re entering the gym foyer, and I’m so consumed with getting to Noah that I almost forget that Ben didn’t come here with me tonight and we’re on borrowed time. Until I hear Principal Fielding say, “Please give a round of applause to your homecoming king and queen, Tyrell Davis and Meredith Kopala!”
“Shit,” I say, coming to a stop. “This is the homecoming court dance.” In the next instant, I’ve already dismissed it. “Whatever. They won’t miss me.” Ben sets the box of decorations on top of the desk I’d left beneath the bulletin board. I take his hands. “Listen. I know you have to get back to your real date at some point tonight. But since she’s occupied for at least the next few minutes . . . can you save this dance for me?”
“A real dance? Inside the actual building?” An adorable grin lights his face. “I’ll wait right here.”
“Too bad we can’t stay at Ridgedale another year,” I tease. “Next time we might’ve made it inside the actual gym.”
I give him a quick peck, but when I start to walk away, he pulls me back. “Just so you know, Mace, Meredith and I have talked about this. About us. Maybe not as soon as we should’ve, but it’s not like you said. I didn’t string her along.”
I nod as his grasp drops. When I return a few minutes later leading Noah with one hand, Ben is exactly where he said he’d be.
“Collins,” Noah says, slowing down despite my best efforts to haul him toward the door. “I’m really sorry for everyth—”
“No time for talking,” I scold him, pulling his arm with all my might. “Your prince awaits.”
Noah scans the darkness through the glass pane of the door, and the corners of his lips curl upward. “Wish me luck, Mace.”
I do, landing a smack to his backside as he heads out the door. “Sorry,” I say. “I guess I get handsy when I’m happy.”
He’s still laughing as the door shuts behind him.
“Hey,” Ben teases, pulling me into the foyer in front of the bulletin board. “Just because he’s gay doesn’t mean I like watching you smack his ass.”
I place my clutch on the desk chair and wrap my arms around his waist. “He’s bi. And relax, it’s not like I did this.” I let both my hands wander down to Ben’s rear end and give it a gentle squeeze. And all I can think is, I just grabbed Ben’s butt, and this is weird.
Except it wasn’t weird, and I liked it. A lot.
He must be thinking the same thing, because he says, “Wow. If someone had told me yesterday that Macy Atwood would be groping my derriere today, I would’ve laughed in their face.”
I do laugh, because only Ben could use a word like “derriere” non-ironically, and be so damn cute while doing it.
Then I smile up at him, remembering the words he once said to me when things weren’t quite this amazing. Only now they are.
“Yesterday’s not today.” I brush a gentle kiss across his lips. “Thank God.”
“Wait. What happened to our picture?”
I tap my chest. “Right next to my heart, where it belongs.”
He pulls my cell phone from my open clutch on the chair. “What do you think? Should we go two for two?”
“I think we can pull it off.”
Ben holds the phone out, and we press our faces together. Only this time, it’s him who turns and presses his lips to my cheek as the camera clicks. When I look at the photo, I’m beaming.
It’s perfect. And I’d probably spend the rest of the night staring at it, if not for the text message that comes through at that exact moment.
When I click on it, a new picture pops up. It’s Joel’s face, grinning back at me as Noah plants a kiss on his cheek. A reenactment of Ben and me from last year. The caption reads: TAKING A PAGE FROM YOUR BOOK. THANKS.
I text back about fifty hearts before clicking over to the new picture of Ben and me.
“Should I post it?” Ben asks.
“No.” I press my nose against his. “Let’s keep this one for ourselves.”
I smile again at the screen of my phone. Then I take out the old photo and hold them side by side.
Pictures don’t always tell the whole story. Sometimes they are worth a thousand words, and other times they tell a thousand lies. But then there are the times when photographs capture perfectly the things we failed to see, things we didn’t even know about ourselves.
And sometimes they’re a perfect spotlight, like a halo of light from a streetlamp, on the moments that become memories all too quickly. And if we’re lucky enough to capture those moments, we can hold them in our hands long after they’re gone. We can share them with the world, or we can keep them like beautiful secrets, only for ourselves.
But in each one, there’s a story to discover. And I couldn’t be happier with the ending to mine.