Then there was prom.
I watched a movie once where the lead actor said prom was an important rite of passage for teenagers. That it shouldn’t be missed. And I guess that’s a pretty true statement because I’ve heard of ladies who missed going to theirs and it scarred them for life. Like, they ended up being crazy and losing their minds, writing their memoirs from behind bars and linking it all back to the night they missed their prom.
Seriously. Watch an episode of Snapped.
Anyway, with as much as it was supposedly this big deal, I wasn’t quite sure I agreed. It was just another dance with people from school. Except, the dresses were more expensive and it was being held in a hotel instead of in the gym.
I think we put a lot of pressure on ourselves to be excited about these things. That they’re defining moments we cannot miss out on because they’re once in a lifetime. While I think memories are good to have, the buildup is usually better than the actual event.
Maybe if we stopped trying to achieve movie standards of greatness, we’d be happy with what we have.
I wish I’d had that mindset for prom when it came around. I should have expected it wouldn’t turn out the way I’d hoped.
* * *
My dress was white, much to my dad’s annoyance. He kept eyeing me like I had chosen a damn wedding dress and I had to roll my eyes an infinite number of times before he finally stopped gawking. I’d gone all out and had actually worn my hair up . . . I guess I really wanted to feel like I looked pretty that night.
Sue. Me. I’m still a girl.
Anyway, I’d been getting ready up in my room with Harper when the first phone call came in. It was Mrs. Neely and she sounded really apologetic, but Colton was still at work doing something for one of the exhibits, so he was staying late to try and get it finished.
And, as I knew, Colton usually completed any project he was given.
“When do you think he’ll be done?” I was holding the phone against my ear while trying to do my blush and failing miserably.
She didn’t know but promised to call me as soon as she did because she was going to try to tell him one more time how important his promise was to me. And that work could wait.
Mrs. Neely had a tone.
Disappointment set in as soon as I disconnected and my best friend tried her hardest to make me feel better by just being . . . well . . . Harper. She was cracking jokes and making stupid faces and voices to get my mind off it, but there was no denying it would be Valentine’s Day all over again and I would be in the limo by myself that night. Alone at dinner.
By myself at the dance.
I took pictures with the group, not as a couple.
I had no corsage.
The hardest thing was watching everyone else with their dates; matchy-matchy and all goo-goo eyed at one another. It just drove the point in even more I was alone that night.
Quinn and Sawyer with her pink dress and his pink vest.
Harper in her yellow dress . . . with two dates.
I suppose it was lucky for me that she had two: Blake and Derek. Laugh all you want, but neither of the guys cared they were both taking her to the dance. I’m pretty sure she’d promised them something I didn’t want to know about.
After all of the progress she had made . . .
They were nice. Attractive. Pleasant. She was happy. I couldn’t say anything to her about it. Tigers don’t change their stripes, as my mom would say. Or is that zebras?
The theme of the dance was James Bond or something equivalent. Pictures were being taken as soon as you went through the door, and I was super bummed with the thought of having to walk in alone, having a picture taken by myself when I actually, truly, did have a boyfriend. He just wasn’t there.
But before I could step foot into the massive ballroom, Harper stopped me and pulled me aside to tell me Blake would walk me in, if I wanted him to. It didn’t really matter. It wasn’t like I was going to buy one of the photos. I just didn’t want that pity look people were so quick to give. And the photographer was stopping everyone from taking group pictures at the door, so, really, what choice did I have?
Blake was tall and tan, with kind of a little faux-hawk on top of his head. I wondered if he had a tattoo . . . a piercing or something equally as exotic as his Hawaiian roots. I wondered exactly how old he was, because he had a baby face but this really sick looking manly body. He probably worked out five times a week. There was a seventy - thirty chance that he was in his mid-twenties.
He had an easy smile and reminded me of one of those guys who winks after they say something they think you will think is cute. I thanked him for taking pity on me and linked my arm through his, stopping in front of the photographer to give a half-hearted smile before we stepped through the door and into the frenzy of bouncing bodies who just the day before had resembled people I went to school with.
Now half of the girls looked like pageant queens and the other half looked like hookers.
I wondered which one I resembled.
Blake had no problem offering me pity dances and getting me a drink here and there. As it was, I was trying to have fun, no matter how hollow my chest felt.
Prom King and Queen were announced and I got choked up when Quinn and Sawyer won, taking their crowns and kissing each other in front of the entire student body. It meant something. It just . . . did. Regardless of who they were in a classroom, they were Quinn and Sawyer. Everyone knew them. They were equal opportunity in every last way.
After they had their dance, Harper pulled me to the side to tell me she was headed out front for a smoke with Blake. Derek had made a friend or two at the table where we’d stashed all our stuff and I had to laugh that he was chatting up a snobby cheerleader named Claire. The Claire of Chlam-Face fame.
I went outside with Harper because I had nothing better to do and I figured it could help clear my head a little. I’ll be honest, I was straight up moping.
She and Blake stood off to the side of the hotel, down an alley, smoking cigarettes and kissing and I felt like a third wheel, but it looked like that was the theme of the evening anyway. It was colder than I expected and I hadn’t brought a jacket, so I was doing that weird self-hug, watching the way the wind was making my dress whip around my feet. That’s why I didn’t notice Blake approaching me and hanging his jacket over my arms. I didn’t notice until I looked up and he was squinting away from the smoke coming out of the cigarette hanging from his lips as he put it on my shoulders.
I told him thanks and he smiled, taking the cig in his fingers and tapping it. I remember watching the way the ashes dipped and lifted in the wind. It was a little poetic, in a way. If you’re into that kind of stuff.
Harper was on the cell with her mom, so he and I were chatting, listening as the music from the dance bled through every crack in the building. It was so loud. So damn loud.
And maybe that was why I wasn’t paying attention to my phone in my little clutch.
Or maybe it was how loud the wind was in my ears and that’s why I didn’t hear anyone calling my name from the street.
Why I didn’t hear footsteps.
Perhaps it was why I didn’t give any thought to how close I was to Blake or how his hands were rubbing my arms up and down in an attempt to warm me as we waited for his date to get off the phone.
Nope.
I didn’t hear any of that.
But I did see Colton’s fist before it collided with Blake’s jaw.
In retrospect, I should have known that Colton seeing me with another guy would set him off. But I hadn’t heard Sheila call. I didn’t know Colton had changed clothes at work and his intern friend Keith was walking him to meet me. I didn’t know any of that. All I knew was I was at my prom with my limited amount of friends, waiting for my boyfriend who appeared out of nowhere to defend me for no reason whatsoever.
The fallout was quick, with Colton jumping on Blake and throwing him to the ground, while Blake tried to push him off, shouting profanities and me yelling for them both to stop and trying to explain Colton was different . . . something I never wanted to say before in my entire life, but Blake had no idea and I hadn’t said anything to him about my boyfriend.
Plus, I didn’t even know if he was going to show!
They rolled around on the concrete until Blake got the dominant position, pinning Colton beneath him and folding his arms against his chest while my boyfriend struggled and yelled out words that I’d never heard him use before.
With as embarrassed as I should have been . . . with as angry as it should have made me . . . as much as I know I should have yelled at him and walked away from it all . . . I couldn’t
He was my Colton.
The pressure on his chest seemed to give him the squeeze he needed to focus and calm down while I got on my knees, cold concrete and even colder wind chilling me to the bone, to speak into his ear. I explained as factually as I could that Blake was Harper’s date and he had lent me his jacket because I was cold.
I wanted to say, ‘because you weren’t here’.
‘Because I couldn’t have your coat’.
‘Because you may not have offered it to me . . .’
Instead, I placed my hand firmly on his forehead and whispered for him to look at my face and listen to me.
Blake got carefully off him, stepping back and rubbing his jaw a little. And Harper just looked on like she was partially impressed and partially terrified.
When Colton finally pulled himself to his feet, his suit rumpled and dirty . . . my corsage crushed and falling apart on the ground . . . my dress stained from the sidewalk . . . he had an appropriate look of remorse on his face.
“We walked.” He pointed to someone standing off to the side of the scene.
“I brought him over from the museum to make sure he got here.” The stranger took a moment before extending his hand to mine. “I’m Keith. I take it you must be Lilly?”
I only nodded.
He looked me over from head to toe and gave a small smile. “I can see why he’d fight for you.”
That was the first time I lost patience with our relationship. Not because Colton was who he was . . . is who he is . . . but because it occurred to me if anyone on the outside was looking in and didn’t know about us, it looked like Colton was just a bad boyfriend. All of the gentle and sweet things between us were in private. The screw-ups were public. And, maybe I was worn out from being the understanding one, but it really felt like we’d been together long enough to be able to sit down and have a talk about how his actions that night made me feel.
I silently took us to our hotel room, not even bothering to say anything to any of the rest of our friends. Harper knew where we were going and she could relay the message if it needed to be repeated. Colton was quiet, too, and just followed me into the room. No questions asked. It was that type of trust in him that made my heart hurt so badly.
I knew I needed a moment to gather myself, so I went into the bathroom to change into some pajamas, not remembering I had packed yet another stupid little nightie thing instead of regular shorts and a t-shirt. It hardly seemed appropriate, so I opted for the underwear I had packed for the following day and an undershirt, pulling my stupid hair down and practically screaming at the irritating amounts of bobby pins used to keep it in place. My overly hair-sprayed locks went up into a sloppy poof on top of my head and I washed my face of all of the useless make-up I didn’t need to face the guy I loved.
When I walked out of the bathroom, he was sitting on the bed. Shoes off. Jacket discarded. Staring at the wall.
He took a deep breath and continued to focus there. “Lilly. Sometimes I don’t think I have the capacity to be what you need in a significant other.”
“Okay. Well, I feel that way about me sometimes.” I was being honest as I crawled across the comforter to sit next to him and stare at the same spot he was.
He shifted on the bed and touched my leg with his fingertips, roaming gently across my kneecap. “I certainly don’t feel that way about you. You’ve always been patient.”
I nodded. “Yeah. But it’s hard.”
His silence let me know he wanted me to explain further.
“Look,” I started, guarding my heart as best I could to not burst into tears, “tonight was special to me. And you weren’t here.”
“I was asked to stay late at work.”
I finally chanced a look into his eyes. “But you promised me first. Do you remember that? I specifically asked you if you wanted to go to prom with me and you said yes. You said yes, Colton.”
If ‘realization’ actually had a look, it would be the one that flashed across his face at that moment. “I see.”
“Do you see?” I shifted to sit and face him. “It was important to me because we haven’t seen each other very much lately because of your new job. It was important because we’re graduating soon. I wanted us to spend time together with our friends. Because friendship is important.”
“Friendship is important to me. You’re important to me.”
“And you’re important to me. So very important. I want to spend any little bit of time I can with you. I subjected myself to dressing up and doing my hair and, just, all of this damn effort . . .” Tears really were stinging my eyes by that point. Until his hand cupped my chin.
“It was unnecessary.”
“To you.” I looked at his eyes this time. “It was unnecessary to you. Not to me. This was important to me. And I need you . . . to make me important. To you.”
“You’ve always been important.”
“I’ve always been important here,” finger to his heart, “and here,” finger to his head. “But I need to be important all over. Not just when we’re alone. Not just when you feel like you have time. I am just as important as your job. And you made a promise to me you would be here at prom. I’ve overlooked other things, but tonight, I need you to understand that my feelings are hurt and I want your promises to me to be just as important as your promises to other people. If you say you’re going to do something with me, then do it.”
My chest felt tight.
“I understand.”
Just like that. It was said, so it must be done. I wasn’t forcing him to do anything other than keep his word.
And that’s when it happened.
“I love you, Colton. I do. And I want us to be together.”
His silence was piercing and my heartbeat in my ears was threatening to make me go deaf. But I had to give him the benefit.
“Don’t say it back, okay? I just want you to know that I . . . love you.”
Colton’s mouth started to open and then closed slowly, his hand taking mine in his as he stared down at it. I closed my eyes and willed my anxiety away, feeling his fingers trace over my skin. A pattern. Soft lines of his fingers playing over the top of my hand.
Like a paint brush stroking my skin.
I didn’t need him to say it out loud. He’d told me with his touch. His actions, over his words, solidified what I needed in my heart.