Paul parks across the street.
“Probably best if you guys stay here,” I tell them. “I'll be back in ten minutes.”
I walk across the street. A few people turn to watch me as I approach, but nobody bothers to talk to me. Not much of a surprise, considering I haven't socialized with any of them in over a year.
I walk up the front steps to the school and into the entry hallway. The doors to the gymnasium sit directly in front of me. Through them, I can see lights spinning across the floor and hear the music pounding at full blast.
Jenny Dervette is standing by herself at the entrance to the gym, staring at her phone, because apparently there aren't enough people here for her to interact with.
“Hey,” I say. “Do you know if Sean is here tonight?”
“Yeah,” she says, barely glancing up at me. “I've seen him around. I think he's probably dancing.”
I walk into the gym and stand on the edge of the dance floor. I see him right away, busting a move with a group of adoring girls. Sean has always been an awesome dancer.
The dance song ends, and as some cheesy ballad starts, the floor more or less empties. It must be too early in the evening for people to start sucking face, although I notice that a few couples are making exceptions. Sean moves toward the other side of the gym, and I push through the crowd, trying to follow him.
Someone steps out of my way, and all of a sudden I'm standing face to face with Vanessa.
She looks as surprised as I am. Her eyes widen, and I can tell that she's struggling to come up with something to say. I'm not, since I don't have anything to say to her at all. I don't move though. I just stand there as we look at each other. It's been months since we've said a word to each other. She's with Evan Wong, who stands to the side and looks back and forth between us, as if he's trying to figure out what to do. Vanessa's always thought Evan is pretty cute. I've seen her in the hallways with him lately and had assumed they're an item now. I guess this proves it.
“I'm going to hit up the bathroom,” he tells her before he walks away, leaving us.
“Hey,” she says finally.
I feel frozen in place. “You look good,” I manage to tell her. It's true. She's got a cool vintage dress on, and she's wearing new glasses, red-framed cat-eyes. Right up her alley.
“Thanks,” she says. “I got the dress online. I was pretty excited when I found it.”
“Yeah, you look good,” I say again. I feel incredibly stupid and begin to walk away, but she reaches out and grabs my arm.
“Candace,” she says. “What is going on?”
“I'm trying to do a favor for a friend,” I tell her.
“No, I mean, what's going on with us? What happened?”
“Oh give me a break,” I say, feeling my face getting hot. “You know what happened. You ratted me out.” I realize my voice is raised and people are looking at us, so I lean in and lower it. “You called my
mother
, Vanessa. How could you do that?”
“Candace, I was worried about you! You changed so much, so quick. It freaked me out, and then when you and Rick⦔
“You were jealous of him,” I say. “You were jealous that I'd found something special in my life, and you didn't understand it, so you had to ruin it.”
She snorts. “Special? You mean breaking into buildings just to impress some guy who treated you like shit?”
“He didn't treat me like shit,” I tell her.
“Oh yeah? So where is awesome Rick now?” she asks. “How come he's not here with you tonight?”
I laugh at her. “I should have known you'd bring that up. You're just thrilled to have that to fall back on, aren't you?”
“Jesus, Candace,” she says. “Do you even understand why you're so angry at everyone? Do you even think about it?”
“There's nothing to think about,” I tell her. “It's all pretty straightforward.”
“You really see things that way, don't you?” she asks. “It's just you against the world.”
“That sure is how things turned out,” I say.
She stares at me. “I don't know what happened, Candace,” she says finally. “I miss you.”
“Shit,” I say. I put my hand up to cover my face and squeeze my temples. “Vanessa, I miss you too. We're just too different now.”
“Too different for what?” she asks me. “To be friends? Do you really think that?”
“I don't know,” I say. “I don't know what I think anymore.” To my horror, I feel my eyes start to well up.
“Oh, Candace,” she says, reaching out to put a hand on my shoulder. “I'm still here, if you ever decide you want me around.”
She turns and walks away. For a split second I want to follow her, grab her and tell her that I'm sorry, but the moment passes. I watch her move away through the crowd.
I spot Sean sitting on the stage, talking to a couple of girls. All I want to do is get out of here as quickly as possible, so I walk over to them and interrupt one of the girls in mid-sentence.
“Hey, Sean,” I say. “Do you have a second?”
“Candace,” he says, surprised. “What's up?”
“Do you have a date tonight?” I ask him.
When Candace comes back to the car, she's with some guy. He's totally cute, average height but nicely built, with cropped ginger hair and a killer smile. He's also super well dressed, in a tailored gray suit jacket over a white shirt with the top couple of buttons undone, dark pants and electric-blue Chuck Taylors.
They climb into the backseat, and the new dude smiles at us.
“Everyone,” says Candace, “this is Sean. Sean, this is everyone.”
I wonder if he's her not-quite boyfriend or what, but then he leans into the front seat and holds his hand out to me. “Hey,” he says. “You must be Roemi.”
“Yes,” I say. “I must be.”
There's an awkward moment in which it dawns on me that Sean is some kind of blind date. I twist my head around to look at Candace.
“Hey, man,” she says. “You're the one who wanted to be the first gay prom couple in Granite Ridge.”
“So you grabbed the first gay person you could find and just assumed that would work?” I ask her.
“Hey,” she says. “Sean's a friend of mine, and I happen to think you guys might hit it off.”
I turn to Sean. “You're sure you're cool with this?” I ask him. “You don't mind leaving your own prom to come with us?”
“No way,” he says. “It's pretty dead in there.”
“I wouldn't get my hopes up,” I tell him, looking out the window at the crowd outside the school. “This is probably like an all-night rave on Ibiza compared to ours.”
“No worries,” he says. “At least I have a date now.”
He smiles at me, and I feel like I'm going to melt into the upholstery.
“Okay, Paul,” I say. “We have less than an hour of prom left. Let's gun it.”
“If you insist,” says Paul, revving the engine and pulling away from the curb.
We make it back to Granite Ridge in record time. Paul parks on the far side of the sports field behind the school. We get out of the car and stand, facing the building. From across the field, we can hear the faint thump of heavy bass coming from the gymnasium.
“I guess this is it,” says Andrea.
“You sure you don't want to come with us?” I ask Paul. “There's still time to salvage Lannie's prom.”
“I don't think I'll be salvaging anything if I show up at the end of the night in jeans and a ballcap,” he says. “You guys go ahead. I'll stick around and drive everyone home after the dance.”
“You'll be here?” I ask Candace.
“Where else would I go?” she asks.
“All right then.” I turn to Andrea and Sean. “What are we waiting for?”
The three of us step onto the field and start walking toward the school.
“How do you know Candace?” Andrea asks Sean.
“We have some of the same friends,” he says. “Or used to anyway. Nobody's seen much of Candace over the last year or so. I was surprised when she came looking for me tonight, actually.”
“I'm glad she did,” I say, feeling embarrassed the minute the words are out of my mouth. It takes a lot to make me blush, but I can feel color rising in my cheeks.
Sean doesn't seem to notice. “Me too,” he says. “Totally glad.”
From the corner of my eye, I see Andrea grin.
When we reach the far side of the field, we stand on the edge of the parking lot and look at the school. The music is a lot louder now, and I can make out a Beyoncé song through the heavy walls of the gym.
“Maybe this isn't such a great idea,” says Andrea. “We'll never get in.”
“Leave it to me,” I say. She and Sean follow me to the side of the school, and we creep up to the corner and peek around it. Through the glass walls of the school foyer, we can see a bunch of teachers milling around inside, up past their bedtimes.
“We aren't going to make it in that way,” I tell them.
Andrea opens her mouth to say something, but I hold my finger up. “Hush,” I say. “Just follow me.”
We walk around to the back of the building, trying doors as we go. Everything is locked.
Then I look up and see an open window that's hinged inward. The only problem is that it's five feet off the ground.
“I think that's the bio lab,” Andrea says. “I don't knowâthat opening is really small.”
“Come on, Andrea,” I say. “We've made it this far. Just think about the great story this will make!”
“I wish we still had that stupid ladder,” she mutters.
It takes a bit of maneuvering, but Sean and I manage to hoist her up to the window.
“Can you see anything?” Sean asks.
“It's dark,” she says. “Give me a second.”
“Well, hurryâyou aren't as featherlight as you look!” I say.
“Okay,” she says. “There's a counter here, just below the window. I'm going to try to climb in.”
I give her one last shove, and then she's hanging half in and half out of the window. With a little yelp, she falls into the building. We hear a crash, then some cursing, and a moment later she sticks her head out the window. “I'm okay,” she says. “I just knocked a bunch of papers and stuff onto the floor. It's clear. There's nobody around.”
I turn to Sean, who has been taking everything in stride.
“Maybe you can help me up next,” I say.
“Sure thing,” he says. “This is super fun.”
“You mean it?” I ask him.
“Definitely,” he says.
Sean makes a step out of his hands, and I grab on to his shoulders. Our faces are suddenly very close, and we stay like that, staring at each other, for a split second. Then we both burst out laughing, and he boosts me up to the window. Once I'm inside, Andrea and I reach down and grab on to his arms to pull him up.
The room is dark. I hop off the counter and go over to the door; I peer through the window into the dimly lit hallway.
“The coast is clear,” I whisper to them. “Let's clean this mess up and get the hell out of here.”
We begin picking up papers from the floor and trying to rearrange them as neatly as possible. I'm about to climb back onto the counter and shut the window when the door is thrown open and the light snaps on.
It's Mr. Parrins, and he doesn't look happy.
“What the hell are you guys doing in here?” he asks. None of us answer, and he walks into the room. He looks at the window, which is open twice as wide as it should be, and then the counter, which is in total disarray despite our best efforts.
“All right,” says Mr. Parrins. “You kids are coming with me.”
“Mr. Parrins,” I say. “You can't do this to us!”
“Do what?” he asks, obviously impatient.
“You can't ruin tonight for us, and if you had any idea the trouble we went through to get here, you wouldn't try!”
“Roemi, there are rules,” he says. “One of the rules is that the doors to the dance are closed and locked at ten thirty. An even more important rule is not to break into the school. Or any building, for that matter.”
“Don't you see what's going on here?” I ask him. “This is my date, Sean. Do you get what I'm saying here? Do you realize that if you let us into the dance we'll be the first gay couple to ever attend prom at Granite Ridge High School?”
“Actually,” says Mr. Parrins, “you won't be. Allison Jackson and her girlfriend were the first. About five years ago. The paper did a really nice write-up about it.”
Five years ago?
“Excuse me?” I say. “You mean we aren't the first gay couple to come to the prom?”
“That's what I said,” he says. “Although technically, as far as I know, you'd be the first gay male couple to attend prom.”
“Technically,” I repeat.
“Anyway, it doesn't matter,” says Mr. Parrins. “Gay, straight, whatever. You've broken into the schoolâdon't you understand how serious that is? You guys need to come with me to the office now, so I can call your parents.”
“Mr. Parrins,” says Andrea. “What exactly have we done that's so serious? It's not like we broke windows, or showed up drunk. We just did what we needed to do to get here. To be with our friends.”
I feel her reach out and grab my hand. A second later, Sean grabs my other hand. We have become, potentially, the most pitiful human chain in history. At least we're well dressed.
“Please,” says Andrea. “Please give us a break. Just this once.”
Mr. Parrins glares at us but doesn't say anything. It's all I can do to not start singing “Born This Way.”
“Oh for crying out loud,” he says finally. “Fine. I'll pretend I didn't see anything. But you still shouldn't be back here. Come with me.”
“That was some Jedi mind shit, Andrea,” I whisper as we follow Mr. Parrins through a series of empty corridors. He stops at a set of double doors that lead into the gym and uses one of the keys hanging around his neck to unlock it.