I had it in my head. Me, coming downstairs on prom night, my parents and my adoring boyfriend gazing up at me, thinking they’d never seen anyone so beautiful.
That didn’t exactly happen.
After painting my toenails, I’d accidentally lost my balance while hobbling to the bathroom and twisted my ankle in the hallway. I collapsed like a house of cards, the pain shooting its way up my calf. I also smudged the heck out of my pedicure; there were rug fibers stuck to my red toenails. The zipper on the side of my dress got stuck and wouldn’t go up no matter how much I pulled, so with one final yank, I ended up ripping it from hip to underarm. And I hadn’t gotten any better at applying eye makeup.
So there I was, raccoon girl, hobbling down the staircase with a safety-pin-closed dress, a flubbed pedicure, feeling all hot and sweaty and like the night I’d dreamed of was ruined.
Then I saw Declan in his tuxedo. He was always a hottie, but that night, he looked debonair, the bow tie accentuating his warm brown eyes and luscious full lips. Even though it was a rental, he owned that tux. James Bond couldn’t have worn it better.
And you know what he said?
He leaned into my ear as my mother snapped a photo and murmured, “I’ve never seen anyone so beautiful.”
After that, all my stress and worry melted away. He offered me his arm and walked me down the driveway to the most immaculate old truck I’ve ever seen. It was gleaming red and seemingly had appeared out of nowhere to be parked in front of his house. My mouth dropped as I realized that was the vehicle that had been under the tarp all this time. I said, “Is this what you’ve been working on with Mr. Weeks?”
He nodded. “Yeah. It’s my grandfather’s ’51 Chevy. I figure this is a special occasion, so we ride in style. Do you like it?”
He asked as if he didn’t know the answer, as if it wasn’t already written all over my face. “Oh my God. Yeah.”
He tossed the keys in the air and caught them. “Technically, it’s my mom’s car until I turn eighteen. She’s letting me drive it tonight.” Then he jogged over to the passenger side, pulled open the door, and bowed with great flourish. “My lady.”
Still shaking my head in wonder, I stepped into the pristine cab. It smelled like pine needles, and the leather was shiny white. “What about Kane?” I asked.
Kane had complained like a girl that we were going to have fun without him at Declan’s junior prom. So he managed to get Ella Butler, a cheerleader from the junior class, to ask him. He’d casually said that it was a “friend thing,” that he was using her for the junior prom ticket, but that didn’t mean there weren’t rumors swirling around school about him doing Ella too. Kane never could escape that kind of rumor.
Knowing Kane, they were probably true.
Up until then, he’d been flirting hard-core with Luisa, so needless to say, Luisa was crushed by those rumors. But Kane went along as if he was doing nothing wrong, as if he was above the controversy. That’s Kane.
“Ella and her girls rented a limo,” Declan said as I reached over my shoulder for the seat belt. Before I could, he pulled it across my dress, careful not to destroy the corsage, and clicked it for me. Then he gave me a kiss that made my insides tingle, that made me feel precious, safe.
After he slammed my door, I pulled open the glove compartment and found nothing other than the registration papers and a Bible. This one was filled with sticky notes. He slid into the driver’s seat and took it from my hands.
“Sorry if I’ve been out of it lately,” he said, thumbing through the pages.
I hadn’t noticed. Declan was Declan. He was always happy. “Oh, it’s—”
“Things get jumbled in my head sometimes. At the moment, my feminist beliefs are at odds with my religious ones,” he said, tapping the worn leather cover. “Like, I think women shouldn’t be equal. I think they should be on pedestals. But sometimes the Bible talks about honoring your husband and I’m like, eff that, it works both ways.” He picked up the Bible and showed me a few of the sticky notes. “So I mark the passages I want to talk to Father Brady about. For further clarification.”
“You…read the Bible?” I blubbered. I’d never read the Bible. To me, the whole thing needed major clarification because it might as well have been written in another language. “And talk to Father? Voluntarily?”
He nodded as he put the Bible back into the glove compartment and the key in the ignition. “Come on, Hail. He puts his pants on one leg at a time, just like anyone else.”
We’d been sort of “together” for a couple months, hanging out in the backyard, looking at stars or swinging on the swings. But this was the first event that could qualify as an actual date. He talked about his faith as if I was his equal, and I usually nodded along, not knowing what to say. I’d been born Catholic and had gone through the sacraments, but it didn’t mean I wanted to have a stirring discussion about Jesus. Hell, no. So I told him once that religion wasn’t a big deal to me. He smiled and said, “That’s okay. As long as you don’t mind that it is a big deal to me.”
“I know.” I’d pieced the story together. He’d been kind of like me for years. His father was the religious one. And then his dad died. He and his mom went though some rough months. Then they started going to church more. He hadn’t said as much, but it was clear that whatever support he’d gotten from Jesus had saved them. How could I dis anything that had such a positive influence on him?
It wasn’t bad. He didn’t talk about religion unless somehow it was brought up, and he never pushed me. But he managed to get me to church a lot more. I’d go with him and his mother, and gradually I learned all the prayers and hymns so I wouldn’t look like a fool around him. And whatever his beliefs were, no one could deny that he was a fine product. Where Kane was always a little sneaky and devious, Declan would go out of his way to help people, just because.
When we got to the Renaissance Hyatt, where the prom was, he cut the engine and looked at me. “You look like you’d rather die than go in there.”
I nodded. It wasn’t only those safety pins that were keeping my dress from puddling on the ground, or that my ankle felt like a sausage wrapped in an Ace bandage. I liked hanging out in the playhouse. I liked doing homework on his bed. I liked huddling on the curb next to him as we watched Kane shoot hoops. Somewhere along the line, I’d stopped being social. It was so much easier, the two of us.
Declan leaned over and kissed me on the cheek, then said, “I told you there’d be a surprise, right?” He motioned to the front of the hotel, which was ablaze with lights. Extravagantly dressed bodies were hurrying to the revolving doors, disappearing inside. “It’s in there.”
I nodded nervously. I knew what it was. It was tradition for couples to rent hotel rooms for the night. They’d tell their parents it was a “group thing,” but it wasn’t really. All the girls were talking about it. Many of them were holding out to be stripped of their virginity tonight, because nothing says romance like losing it on the same night as ten dozen other girls. A guy would always get the room on the sly, then present his date with the key card as a “surprise.” I don’t know when it became a tradition, but despite being one of the more suck-tastic Deer Hills High traditions out there, it had nearly overshadowed the whole prom event.
“Okay.” I pulled open the door and tottered out, but before my injured foot could find the pavement, he was there. He scooped me up into his arms, bumped the door closed with his elbow, and carried me across the parking lot. I forced a smile. “My hero.”
Embarrassingly enough, everyone turned as we approached. People cheered at our grand entrance. When we were inside the lush lobby, Declan set me down and bowed shyly. “Are you all right to walk?” he asked me.
I nodded. These were not my people—they were all a year older, so I barely knew them. No way was I causing any more of a scene. I looked around for Kane. “Where do you think he is?”
Declan read my mind. “Hanging from the chandelier, probably.”
Right. We headed down to the ballroom, Declan stopping every so often to chat with one of his friends. I hardly knew anyone. I settled down into one of the chairs, Declan next to me. He propped my foot on his knee for a moment. He looked a little nervous. He kept looking up at the stage, where the DJ was spinning loud dance music. Then he leaned in and said, “You’ll be okay if I leave for a while?”
I nodded, and he zoomed off in the direction of the lobby. I knew he’d be back in a few minutes with that key card.
Except then the lights dimmed, leaving one bright spotlight on the stage. Suddenly, Declan stepped into the center of it and started strumming his guitar.
I don’t know what the song was. Definitely old-time, something from the fifties, maybe, but he added his own little rockabilly spin on it and sang without his eyes leaving mine. Pretty soon, everyone was staring at me, clapping along and smiling.
When it ended, he jumped from the stage, slid over to me on his knees, grabbed my hands, and gave me a kiss. Everyone cheered.
My jaw was resting on the floor. My first attempts at speaking failed. Finally, as people started to peel their eyes away from us and the applause subsided, I whispered, “That was your surprise?”
After that, I relaxed. My ankle felt better too, so we managed to dance. The food was good, and his friends were silly. Kane never showed up, but I managed to talk to a bunch of girls who didn’t make me feel like the outsider. When the party started to wind down, Declan took me to the revolving doors, and I wavered on my feet. “Um…” I started.
But it was midnight. The party was over, and we were going home. Like any good boy and girl were supposed to do.
Maybe I’d been caught up in the moment. Maybe it was the way he sang to me. But I didn’t want to leave. I watched the others, maybe a little wistfully, hitting the up button for the elevator.
Declan was oblivious. When we got to the truck, he opened the passenger side door and I climbed in. When he kissed me and fastened my seat belt, he asked, “Something wrong?”
“No, I…” I couldn’t tell him. “Nothing.”
“You look like it’s something,” he said as he climbed in next to me.
“Are we going home?” I asked.
He rested his hands on his thighs. “Why? Do you want to go somewhere else?”
I shrugged.
He started up the truck and pulled out, then turned onto the road leading us toward home. I said, “Weird we didn’t see Kane there.”
He laughed. “You mean, not weird, knowing Kane.”
I tittered along with him. “Did you see that? A lot of people were doing that. Getting rooms, I mean.”
He nodded. Then he strained to see out the window. “What way you think is fastest? Route 1 or the turnpike?”
“Oh.” I had no idea. I tried to look like I was helping. “I don’t know. Go Route 1. No tolls.”
He pulled onto Route 1. “Yeah. There won’t be traffic this time of night anyway.”
I decided to try again. “My parents aren’t expecting me home until later. I told them people stay out all night. So we could do something. I mean, I told them I would be with you, so they said all I’d have to do is text.”
He looked at me. “Well, what’s open now? You want to go to the diner?”
I was perfectly sated by the dry chicken française and stringy green beans with almonds. I shook my head but shrugged, as I hadn’t an idea in my mind that didn’t involve the hotel.
We ended up at this dead-end road some kids go to that overlooks the reservoir. It’s all trees, and the living sounds of the forest come up close to you so that they’re nearly inside your head. You can watch the lights of the airplanes landing at the airport across the way, the control tower in the distance. In the moonlight, the water looked like a knife of fine silver.
He said, “I know what you were thinking.”
I looked at him.
“I figured you probably already knew,” he said, wrapping his long fingers around the steering wheel. “I’m waiting for marriage. I want to find the person I want to spend the rest of my life with. So you don’t have to worry.”
I blinked. “Oh. I…”
“It feels like you could be that person.” He reached over and took my hand. “I’ve never felt this way about anyone, Hail.”
I leaned back in the leather seat, making it rip out an unladylike squeak. I cringed.
“I want our first time to be really special. Not something we do because Deer High tradition says so.” He smiled. “That’s stupid.”
My stomach dropped. Our first time.
Maybe he meant the first time for him and me together.
But I didn’t think that.
All I saw was me. The sinner. A sin that grew and spread with every second that ticked by without me setting the record straight.
I nodded. “Yeah. Of course. Right,” I said shortly.
He looked up at the dark sky for a moment, at a streak of red making its way to the runway. My hand had gone cold in his. I pulled it away and pointed my eyes to the passenger’s side window, pretending to be interested in something in the darkness. I hated that I could see his reflection in the glass.
I waited a few minutes, trying to make it seem like I was fine and dandy, never better. But fifteen minutes later, when he asked me what I wanted to do next, I told him I was tired and ready to go home.