As the date of the prom approached, Mom and Dad were actually wondering if Sarah wanted to attend, since she had missed hers, but she laughed off the idea. “That’s okay,” she admitted. “I don’t feel like I need prom pictures to round out my teenage experience.” On one of our Friday nights, we had just watched an old ’90s movie about a prom gone wrong, and I think Sarah was happy to have nothing to do with that nonsense.
There were all kinds of prom after parties, and Tessa managed to somehow get us invited to the one at Liam’s house—her long-held fantasy of being together with him had not faded. “He’s going to be a senior next year, and I’ll be a junior—it’s perfect,” she explained to me and Sarah while we were getting ready.
Sarah nodded, standing behind her in the mirror and braiding Tessa’s curly hair into a halo around her head. “A woman with a plan, I like it,” she said. “And what about that guy you were into, Nico? Is he going to be there tonight?”
“Daniel.” I shrugged, trying to act very nonchalant. Inside, I was nervous he would come to Liam’s party, but this time with his date. I had to look perfect, just in case he noticed me. Maybe there was still a chance to make him wonder why he hadn’t paid better attention. To show him he’d made a big mistake, he had asked the wrong sophomore to the prom.
“He’s super hot, but kind of skeezy,” Tessa added, pushing a stray curl off to the side of her face. “Nico can for sure do better than Daniel Simpson.”
Sarah glanced over at me, trying to read my face. “I’ve always loved the name Daniel, and that story with the lion’s den.” She smiled.
“What lion’s den?” Tessa asked.
Sarah was searching through her makeup bag absentmindedly. “You know, in the Bible story, Daniel, the lion’s den—they put him in there, but the lions don’t eat him because God protects . . .” She looked up suddenly at me and saw no sign of recognition on my face.
“Oh, I don’t know the Bible at all. My family isn’t very religious,” Tessa admitted.
It was on the tip of my tongue to say that our family wasn’t either, but I caught myself. Tessa leaned in to look at her hair in the mirror, turning to Sarah. “Will you do my eyes like you did at the mall?”
Sarah held up the tube of liquid liner.
“You should come to the party with us,” I suddenly said to her. “Come and meet Daniel and Liam for yourself.”
Sarah looked like she was actually considering it for a moment, then smiled and shook her head. “Too weird,” she said. “Besides, I’ve actually got to study.”
Tessa and I both groaned. She was taking her GED studies so seriously. Though I wouldn’t admit it, I was actually super proud of her. So were Mom and Dad, who remembered all too well the Sarah from before—the girl who wouldn’t crack a book unless she was threatened with all kinds of curfews and punishments.
When I got home from the party later and found Sarah sitting at the kitchen table with her GED book out, I slumped down next to her. “You didn’t miss anything,” I had to confess. “And my feet in these heels are killing me.”
“Daniel?” Sarah asked, raising her eyebrows.
I shrugged, getting up to grab a drink from the fridge. “He showed up,” I said. How much should I tell her? That he was drunk, that his date was a mess, with smeared lipstick staining both her mouth and his? The truth was, when he finally got there, I was already having fun talking to a guy in my grade from my tennis team, Kyle. And there was something else, something bigger and darker that loomed in my thoughts when I looked at Daniel now. A realization that made him repulsive to me.
“He’s a senior anyhow, he’s got a month left in this town and then he’s gone,” I reminded her. “I don’t want that—can you imagine Mom and Dad? It would be like . . .” I shook my head. At the party, I’d had a horrible epiphany when Daniel walked through the door, his arm draped over the curvy brunette.
He was a senior, she was a sophomore.
It was Sarah and Max all over again. I had craved it, dreamed about it, wanted to follow in her footsteps, without even realizing it. How could I have been so naive? When I looked into the mirror, I saw the same face, the same figure Sarah had when she was fifteen, but I wasn’t her, and I never would be.
“But I didn’t go to prom with Max,” Sarah said, and I watched her face as she figured it out on her own. “They wouldn’t let me,” she said, looking at me for confirmation.
“That was when you guys first ran away, to the cabin—you were so mad. It was like you had planned it for months, and then they didn’t let you get your prize, to show him off.”
Sarah nodded, as if remembering. “And the matching tattoos, they came after that, right?” She closed her book on the table. “There will be other Daniels, I promise you, Nico,” she finally said. “When you’re ready.”