“So I take it this is you two officially coming out as a couple?”
He smiles bashfully, running a hand over his close-cropped hair. “Yeah. Yeah, I guess it is.”
I recognize the look in his eyes, not quite hunger but something deeper. Longing, love, profound admiration. I’m sure he’d find the same things in my eyes when I look at Talia too, and instead of swallowing that sting of realization, I embrace it. Running from these feelings did me no good. I don’t cling to the idea that I have a romantic future with Talia anymore, a future I’m still mourning the loss of, but I shouldn’t have to pretend I never wanted one.
I didn’t ask her earlier about that night back in September in Linds’s basement. I know I could’ve, could’ve at least let Talia know where this all began for me, the way it maybe began for her all those years ago at orientation. But standing beside her no-longer-secret boyfriend, I feel confident that it doesn’t matter how my feelings for Talia bloomed, what matters is that they did. And even if—when—they fade away, I will still be a girl who liked a girl the same way Zaq is a boy who liked a girl. The same way we can also love boys or anyone else. I like Zaq a little more knowing that he gets it, my love for Talia. My sexuality.
“Think I’ll be seeing you around the center?” he says, springing me from my thoughts.
“You know, you just might.”
“I’d like that,” he says, brushing a hand against my elbow. “I’m sure she would too.”
He joins Talia and their parents. I watch him, not thinking of the lingering touch of a boy’s hand, nor the way he wraps that same hand around Talia’s waist. Instead, I think of how happy I am for them.
I think back to how I imagined prom for years and compare that image to the one unfolding before me. My eyes don’t settle on Talia too long, the memory of her lips beginning to fade, but she and Zaq are cheesing hard, their parents snapping photos wildly. Zaq’s mom is whistling, and Talia’s dad is wiping a tear from his eye.
Standing on the other side of the yard where the yellowy, almost white, Garden Party roses dangle over the garden gate, Wesley hesitantly places his hands high on Lindsay’s waist before she giggles and guides his hands lower. Lindsay’s mom rolls her eyes but snaps the shot regardless, and Mrs. Cho is too busy trying to wipe away her and Mr. Cho’s tears to catch the candid.
Suddenly, Ags and Sammie race over and grab my hands, pulling me to the Honor roses. We position ourselves so Sammie’s arms are around my waist and mine are around Agatha’s. Mrs. Nasar asks Sammie to stop slouching, and Mrs. Jones shouts that we look amazing. Once they get enough shots of us together, we split apart and take a few in pairs, some individual shots, and then selfies on our own phones, which all the parents badger us to send to them immediately.
Everyone gathers for a group shot, the parents screaming for us to look at their phone as if we can look at all of them at once, all of us laughing more than posing, knowing we’ll ruin the shots but not caring, not really. It’s good practice for the real thing: graduation.
When we split into height order and Talia cups her hands around my stomach, I feel my heartbeat spike, then settle. She’s just a girl, the girl, sure, but not my girl. So I take the moment for what it is, one moment, not the moment, even if it’s damn close to the one I pictured all those weeks ago.
As we split off into cars, Agatha and I with Sammie, and Zaq, Talia, and Linds with Wes, I realize the rest of the night doesn’t matter. What matters is that we’re here, we made it.
Agatha was right. Prom was never about the dresses or the dates or the ridiculous theme. It was about celebrating, through all those little details, the feeling that holy shit, we actually survived high school.
Well, almost survived it.
But tonight, we’ll forget about the fights and confusion and pressure of senior year, of the new countdown to graduation. For the next couple of hours, it’s not that I’ll forget about my sexuality, I’ll forget to worry about it. I’ll slow dance with Agatha, with Sammie, maybe even Wesley if Linds lets me borrow him for a song or two. We’ll all dance together, in a messy jumble of limbs and hair and fabric we paid way too much for. We will cheer when Linds wins prom queen, wipe away tears when she gets that silly plastic crown she always secretly wanted. We will pat Agatha on the shoulder as she lifts the end of a limp cellophane streamer with disgust, and stop her from flipping the punch bowl when she sees the plastic fish sunk at the bottom.
We will hide our shoes in the bushes outside the gym when our feet get tired and let our hair fall from curls and clips when the night is late enough that no one having a good time is expected to look as good as they did when they showed up anyway.
We will act like teenagers who have been told our entire lives that tonight means something. Because it doesn’t. Because it does.
But first, as we pull away from my house, waving goodbye to our misty-eyed parents, I turn around in Sammie’s front seat and nudge Agatha with my closed fist.
I open my hand, revealing a wad of crumbled one-dollar bills I stole from the envelope she gave me earlier. “I think I owe you five bucks.”
EPILOGUE
“Do you really think they’ll confiscate our phones during the ceremony if they catch us using them?” I ask Wes as I buckle my seat belt. “Or do you think it’s just a rumor they let spread so no one will try to take a selfie as they cross the stage?”
We stayed after school for a few hours to help the senior council move chairs onto the football field for graduation, which is now only two days away. Turns out they organize graduation as well as prom, and Ags decided to offer up her supreme planning skills, as well as our group as volunteers. Linds had a banquet for the track team, but Zaq, Talia, and Sammie are still helping Agatha with the sound system. Wes and I have to drop off some poster designs at the youth center before it closes, so we dipped early.
I figured other kids, ones just starting to work out their sexualities or ones who’ve always known who they are but never had a place where they felt like they could show it, could use the center. It worked for me at least, having someone like Wesley and the counselors I’ve spoken to alongside Mom and Dad for the past few weeks.
If the center and our school approve, the posters Wes and Zaq helped me design will decorate the halls next year, advertising the center so those kids will have a place to turn to. We’ll be long gone by then, but maybe this’ll be the legacy Wes and I can leave behind.
A PLACE WHERE YOU CAN BLOOM, the posters say, bordered in roses painted various pride-flag colors. I’m proud of them. I’m feeling more of that these days—pride.