I seriously considered skipping school that Monday. There was just no way I could face Darcy, not after all this. It was only the fact that my mom was still home that made me leave the house, but even then, I wasn’t sure I could bear going to first hour and having to sit next to her for forty-five whole minutes.
I tried to come up with reasons to avoid class all the way up until the moment I got there, but I couldn’t come up with anything plausible that Darcy wouldn’t see through. I could only imagine what she thought of me right now; there was no need to add “coward” to that list.
I was sitting at my table like a prisoner awaiting his sentence when Darcy came in. My whole body tensed. My stomach tightened. And my heart jumped in my chest.
She didn’t look at me. She didn’t say a word to me. She just took her seat and stared straight ahead until the bell rang and Mr. Williams began his lecture.
I thought of something the artist and writer Kahlil Gibran said. “Ever has it been that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.”
Even though we were sitting right next to each other, Darcy and I were separated by a chasm I wasn’t sure could ever be crossed or closed. When class let out she gathered her things and walked right past me like I wasn’t even there. It made me wish I wasn’t
Darcy ignored me through Theater Arts, too. The irony of it all wasn’t lost on me. When we’d first met, I’d spent all my time trying to ignore her, and now that she was the one doing it to me, I couldn’t take it. What was worse was that I had no idea where we stood with one another. Other than that we obviously weren’t on speaking terms, of course. Did she hate me? Did she think I was the biggest jerk ever to walk the earth? Had I hurt her feelings? Would she accept an apology? It was impossible to tell. Darcy, as always, was a mystery to me, more so now than she had ever been.
* * *
With the formal less than a week away, the scramble for dates became desperate. It was like what happens when a school of fish gets worked up by the sudden appearance of a predatory animal. All anyone could seem to talk about was who was going with who, and even though I tried not to listen or care, I kept my ear open for any news that Darcy had accepted any of the myriad offers she was no doubt inundated with. But as the days dragged on, I didn’t hear anything, and I had to admit I was relieved. Imagining her on the arm of some bozo was enough to make my stomach twist into painful knots. I knew I was just making things worse for myself. Whether or not she went to the formal with anyone didn’t matter, because either way, she wouldn’t be going with me.
“You guys are lucky to be going,” Liam said at lunch.
“You can go, too,” said Mark, “You are a junior. And you’d already have a date.”
“Yeah, well I’m a broke junior,” Liam muttered as he adjusted his pompadour for the third time in fifteen minutes.
“Why are you always broke?” Kyle demanded. “You literally have no money, like, ever. You owe me a hundred bucks already.”
“I have a relationship to maintain,” Liam snapped back at him. “I wouldn’t expect you to understand.”
“Lucas isn’t always broke, and he’s got a girlfriend too,” Kyle retorted.
Liam shot out of his seat and snatched up his tray. “Lucas also has a better job than I do, jerk.”
He stomped away, and Kyle laughed until he was gone. Then he nudged me with his elbow. “So, who’s your date?” he asked.
“I don’t have one.”
Kyle raised a doubtful brow, but then he shrugged. “That’s a smart tactic. You can do what you want with who you want without worrying about pissing your date off. Smart man. I think I’ll do that too.”
I didn’t bother pointing out that that was not, in actuality, the reason I was going alone, just like I didn’t point out that technically I wasn’t going alone at all. Jake and I were going together. It had been his idea, and it had taken him a long time to convince me to agree with it. “The ratio of upperclassmen girls to guys is two to one,” was his favorite argument, “and it’s bad enough neither of us have dates. It would be unfair of us not to show up, at least to dance.”
In the end I’d agreed, if only to end his nagging. And I planned on being a wallflower anyway. I glanced over my shoulder at Darcy’s table. She was there, as always, with Calvin and the others. Please don’t let her go with that clown, I thought to myself. I’d rather see her with anyone else in this building than Calvin. She deserved much better than him.
Christian was in rare form, having kicked his propaganda campaign into high gear. It was so bad that Lucas started keeping a running tally of how many times he mentioned the dance at our meetings. So far the weekly total was a hundred and eighty-six. Just when I’d been sure he couldn’t be any more annoying. “I want this year’s winter formal to be an evening to remember,” he said at the close of our meeting that week.
“That’s a hundred and eighty-seven,” whispered Lucas.
“You photographers must capture each and every glittering moment. Same goes for you video bloggers. As for my journalists, I expect a five-hundred word article to me the day after from each of you. Any questions?”
I raised my hand. “Why do we call it a winter formal? We don’t have real winters in Phoenix. Why not call it the Monsoon Season Formal instead?”
Rather than understanding that I was only trying to rain on his parade, Christian launched into a ten minute explanation of the history of the formal. By the end of his tirade, the count was at two hundred and three.
But even Christian was little more than a blip on my stress-meter. I had much more significant things to worry about.
Like the play. The debut was tonight, and even though I wasn’t a member of the cast or a part of the crew, I felt the anticipation as much as they did. I decided that for the sake of everyone who had put so much time and effort into this, I had to put aside my feelings and concentrate on doing the best I could to make sure that as many people came to the show tonight as possible, and maybe, just maybe, I could find a way to stop thinking about Darcy.