My mom knocks on the bathroom door while I’m brushing my teeth the next morning.
“Webster’s here,” she calls. “He’s waiting out front.”
I check the time on my phone. He’s way earlier than usual. I fling the door open, my toothbrush still in my mouth. “What?”
Mom smiles softly and runs a lock of my hair through her fingers. She’s been getting a bit sentimental lately, probably because she still isn’t used to boys coming around. I’m not entirely used to it yet, either. And I have to admit, I’ve felt sort of awkward since yesterday. It’s weird to be this happy about something when my mom is so sad.
She takes a big breath and raises her eyebrows, her smile becoming more mischievous—like she’s in on a secret. “Better hurry up.”
“Okay...” I race through the rest of my routine and grab my backpack from where I left it in the living room. I sweep my hair—which, as of this week, has finally reached shoulder length again—out from under the straps, then dart out through the garage door, barely registering Mom calling after me when I realize Webster’s car isn’t in the driveway.
“Aubrey!” My mom is leaning out the door to the kitchen.
“What?”
“I said, Webster is around front.” She waves for me to come back inside, but from here, it’s faster to just cut through the front lawn.
I round the corner and spot Webster standing on our porch. “Hey!”
He spins around. “Why are you coming from that way?”
“Because...that’s the door I always use?” I shoot him a confused look and raise my hand like, What’s your deal?
Webster tugs his hand through his hair and glances at the porch behind him, and when I follow his gaze, I find out what the issue actually is. Behind him, at least two dozen cupcakes are arranged on the ground. I tilt my head and realize they spell out PROM? Of course, from here, the word is upside down. Because I was supposed to come out the front door.
We’re standing next to each other at this point. I curl my lips in and turn to Webster. “Do you want me to go back inside and come out this way?”
He sighs. I can see my mother peeking out at us through the front window. Webster’s ears are a violent shade of red.
“Okay, I know prom is still a few weeks away,” he says, turning to me. “But...I spent all night thinking about you. I spend most nights thinking about you, actually. I really like spending time with you, Aubrey. And the more I thought about what happened junior year...I just really wanted a do-over.” He glances down at the cupcakes, then back to me. “I think we owe it to our past selves to go to a dance together.” He smiles nervously at his own joke. “So...what do you say?”
My throat swells and I have to swallow hard to relieve the pressure. I bend down to pick up one of the cupcakes. Swipe my finger in the frosting and lick it off. Webster watches with a pained look on his face. “German chocolate, huh?”
“I made sure not to eat any of the coconut this time.”
I grin. “Webster, I would love to go to prom with you.”
He breaks into a huge smile, one that even makes his eyes crinkle. He leans in and gives me a chaste kiss on the cheek that tells me he’s well aware my mom is still watching us. We start gathering the cupcakes to take them inside and he says, “I’m really glad you said yes. For all the obvious reasons, but also because my car battery is dead and I need a ride to school.”
“I see. Well, it’s a good thing I like you. ’Cause that would’ve been an awkward drive.”
Webster laughs and carefully steps toward the front door.
My mom helps us carry the cupcakes into the kitchen. “I’ll get all of these put away,” she says. “You two get to school.”
She waves us off, and Webster carries my backpack for me out to the car. I feel like we’re in a movie set in the 1950s, and he’s going to offer me his letter jacket next.
When we get to school, he walks with me all the way to my locker. The warning bell rings, and he grabs the strap of my backpack and tugs me closer. He leans in like he’s going to kiss me goodbye, but just as I start to tip my face up to meet him, he changes course and kisses my neck instead.
When he straightens again, he’s wearing a wide grin. “You had a little bit of frosting there.”
I try and fail to suppress my smile. “Oh really?”
“Yeah, but don’t worry. I took care of it.” Then he lets go of my backpack and walks away, looking over his shoulder just once, with a gleam in his eye like he knows kissing him is literally all I will be thinking about for the next two to three hours.
Across the hall, I lock eyes with Veronica, who witnessed the whole thing from her locker. And from the way she cocks one eyebrow, I’m guessing it’s completely obvious how flustered I am right now. All she says is, “Girl.”
I let out a long sigh. “I know.”
My mom comes home from work early again that day. I’ve just gotten home from an after-school detour to Gilbert Lake with Webster a few minutes before she walks in the door and sets her purse down on the kitchen table. Her hands clasp together, and her voice takes on an excited pitch as she says, “Prom!”
“Yeah,” I say, trying and failing to muster the same level of excitement. “It’ll be fun.”
“We need to get you a dress.”
I wave the pen I was using to mark up my planner. “I’ll probably just borrow something from Reese.”
Her shoulders visibly sink. “Oh. All right, then.”
As much as I was worried my new relationship would be salt in the wound, my mother actually seems more upset about me not wanting to shop. And I realize that, even though the dress isn’t something I care about that much, it’s still a nice thing she wants to do for me. It’s something that would make her happy, and it’ll take very little effort on my part.
“On second thought, a new dress could make it a little more special.”
She practically lunges for her keys. We go to the mall and head straight for the food court, because my mother says there’s nothing worse than shopping on an empty stomach.
Well. What she actually says is that she doesn’t want to shop with me when I’m hangry. But...same thing.
Anyway, I happily accept my cinnamon-sugar soft pretzel and then we walk to the nearest department store.
“So, did you have any ideas of cut? Or color?”
“Um...long?” Lord knows how Mr. Davis is going to police prom dresses. Though he’d probably be writing literally every girl up if he stuck to the dress code on prom night.
My mom pinches her lips. “Okay. Okay, that’s a good place to start.”
Clearly she expected me to come more prepared than this. But I’m honestly just relieved that she’s prioritizing finding something I actually like. The main reason I’ve always dreaded shopping with my mother is that she has a tendency to take over and pick out all kinds of stuff for me to try on, regardless of how I feel about it.
“And maybe green...?” I add.
“Green is a lovely color on you.” She dives right in, pulling an armful of floor-length dresses off the nearest rack. She holds one of them up. “This one isn’t green, but if you’re open to purple, I think it could be a nice option.”
“Sure. I can try it.”
She unloads the dresses onto my bent arm, and I check out the price tag on one. It’s over two hundred dollars. It seems stupidly expensive for a dress I’m only going to wear for a few hours. To an event that wasn’t even on my radar until Webster asked me. And I know her job pays decently and that she probably hasn’t gotten this far in life without learning to budget, but I still feel like she shouldn’t be spending this kind of money on me. Especially with the divorce, and when I have college coming up, and will need her help much more then.
“Maybe we should look at the sales rack,” I offer.
“Sure, just try these on first.”
She hands me a few more and leads me to the dressing rooms. They’re pretty much empty, except for one woman with a stroller who is occupying the largest room. We pick one near the front, where there’s an armchair for my mom to sit in while she waits.
“Before you know it we’ll be shopping for your wedding dress,” she says as she settles in.
I freeze with one hanger clutched in my fist. “I don’t know about that...”
“Well, I don’t mean tomorrow. But you’re reaching so many milestones lately...graduating, first boyfriend—”
“Webster isn’t really my boyfriend. I mean...we haven’t really talked about it yet.”
My mom gives me a funny look. “Honey, I meant Holland.”
“Oh. Right.” ...Awkward. I close the door to the changing room and make a face in the mirror. How did I forget about Holland this quickly?
“How are things with Webster, by the way?”
“They’re good. We have a lot of fun together.”
“You two were joined at the hip the summer they moved in across the street. Carol and I could never figure out why you two stopped hanging out after homecoming. Anyway, I’m glad there hasn’t been any tension between you, after the breakup with Holland.”
“No tension about that. Not for me, anyway. I’m not totally sure how things have been between the two of them...”
“Well, it’s all pretty recent. Give it some time, and I’m sure they’ll smooth things out.” Mom sighs again, her mention of time seemingly enough to set off her nostalgia once more. “Soon you’ll be at college. You’re just growing up so fast.”
I start to undress. “To be fair, you said the same thing when I left elementary school, so.”
“It’s all been fast.”
I pull the purple dress overhead—it’s tight enough that I have to wiggle it down over my shoulders, and suddenly I’m super glad I didn’t wear makeup today because it would be smeared all over the lining by now. I zip it into place and run a hand over my hair to get rid of some of the static.
“Well, you can relax, because I’m not even sure I want to get married.” I open the door and hold my arms out, ready for my mother’s inspection. But she barely seems to register the dress. Her eyebrows are knit together, her expression still caught in processing the last thing I said.
“What makes you say that?”
I shrug. “I just think people grow up with this expectation that it’s what they’re supposed to do. Get married, buy a house, have kids. But that’s not the right choice for everyone. It doesn’t always work out.”
My whole deep dive into Bayes’ theorem did at least get me to move past my original theory on the subject. I don’t really believe love always fails anymore, or that marriage can’t work. Reese’s parents are proof happy marriages do exist. Just, sometimes you can care about someone, and be good together for a while, but not forever. And a million things can happen in life to complicate even loving relationships—especially the ones that span years.
Her lips purse. “Honey, I know everything that’s happening between your father and me is confusing, and it’s not easy...but I hope you realize I don’t regret the choices I made.”
I know she’s not thinking about David from work right now, but I am. I’m thinking about how I’ve put so much blame on Mom for that incident, even though I knew it was a side effect of my parents’ problems, not the root cause. And while I still think she should have told my dad back when it happened, after my close call with Webster when I was still with Holland, it’s not so difficult anymore to understand why she tried to bury it in the past.
I cross my arms. They’re blasting the AC in here—all the muscles in my shoulders have gone stiff from the chill. “So even knowing what you know now...you’d do it again?”
“Absolutely. Those choices led to you. And we had so many good years. I wouldn’t trade those for anything.” She stands up and puts her hands on my arms. “What I’m trying to say is, there’s a difference between giving up and knowing when it’s the right time to let go. You don’t have to decide if you want to get married or have a family right now. And whatever you do decide will be the right choice for you. But I don’t want you to hold back when you still have your whole life ahead of you.”
I relax my arms and smile at her so she knows the message got through. Then, because I can’t help myself, I add, “But didn’t you just say my life was going by fast?”
She steps back and lets out an exasperated sigh. Her gaze travels down the front of me and she makes a face. “Oh, no, that dress is all wrong. Go try on one of the green ones.”
I grin and step back inside the dressing room, ready to try again.