by Laura Tims
“Those stunning Herring genes!” she cries. She glances at our reflections and double takes, like she’s still not used to her new eyes or hair.
“I would rather have stunning Herring jeans. As in pants.”
“Samantha, I do not accept a world where you don’t wear this dress.”
“It’s too short,” I mutter.
“It’s low thigh! The concept of sluttiness is a patriarchal construct. You shouldn’t be afraid to express your sexuality.”
“No, I mean . . .” My face heats up. “You can see my leg.”
I look anywhere but at her while she looks anywhere but at my exposed scars. BMD, I didn’t know the ways skin could twist and pucker.
Lena opens her mouth.
I interrupt again. “I know what you’re going to say about body positivity—”
“No, no, no,” she says sheepishly. “I was just going to tell you I have tights.”
The tights in question are just thick enough, and even though it’s probably not a dress you’re supposed to wear with tights, they match the dark-green ribbon.
Lena does my makeup while I pointedly squirm and make comments such as “Is face powder made of face?” and “Did you know they test this on baby mice?” But when she starts with the eye shadow, I’m glad, because I can close my eyes to enjoy it without looking like that’s what I’m doing.
When she’s finished, I say, “You’ll make a good mom someday.”
She turns red and spills face powder on her shirt.
I ask Lena not to tell Dad and Rex, so of course by the time Eliot comes, they’re all lurking by the door with their phones out.
“I don’t think we’ve met. I’m Samantha’s sister.” Lena lunges for Eliot’s hand like there’s a race for it. I guess she hasn’t seen the video of the fight, probably due to her complex network of site blockers for content she doesn’t consider “edifying.”
Rex throws an arm around Eliot, who is staring straight ahead with an expression like a robot. “You haven’t met my buddy Eliot? Sam introduced us ages ago.”
“Hello, Eliot,” says Dad cautiously.
I still haven’t technically apologized to him, and the air between us is heavy, but he’s following Rex’s and Lena’s leads.
“Reginald, doesn’t Samantha look nice in my dress? She’s like a mini-me!”
“Not in the tit section,” says Rex under his breath.
I was worried about them judging Eliot, but it should have been the other way around.
Eliot nods stiffly. “It’s nice to meet you. I have no intentions of impregnating Sam.”
Rex and I choke. Lena’s eyebrows shoot up into outer space.
“Well, that’s good, isn’t it?” says Dad politely. “Stand together so I can take your picture.”
We frame ourselves in the doorway. Eliot looks like a katana in his slim gray suit. He doesn’t comment on my dress, which I’m grateful for, but Lena gives a vaguely offended sniff, so I whisk him outside before any actual conversation happens.
In the driver’s seat, Eliot stares dead ahead without starting the car. “Are these clothes okay? Does prom-themed mean fancy clothes or clothes that have literally been worn to a prom?”
His voice is slightly high.
“I don’t know,” I say, stifling a giggle. “My sister wore this to hers.”
For a moment he looks stressed, and then he says, “Well, there’s no way they can check.”
He still hasn’t turned on the car.
“You know what we could do instead?” he asks me suddenly. “We could go get some teeth pulled. Or watch a romantic comedy. Or see if any local raccoons want to give us rabies. I’m just brainstorming things that would be more pleasant than a party.”
If I don’t calm him down, he’s going to bail on me, and I’ll have to walk into Kendra’s house, in a dress, by myself.
A stroke of genius hits me. “Let’s bring Tito.”
He lifts an eyebrow. “Girls would kill to see him in a tux, but reportedly you’re not supposed to bring animals to parties.”
“We’ll leave him in the car. I only want to stay for a little while anyway. Afterward we can take him for a walk in our prom clothes and confuse the neighbors.”
He glances uncertainly out the window, toward the doghouse.
“I want him to be my prom date,” I insist.
It turns out that Tito is an effective social anxiety therapy dog. Once he’s in the backseat, Eliot remembers how to drive.
“You’re lucky I’m a genius, or I wouldn’t have escaped the house,” he says on the way. “Gabriel is threatening anybody in our driveway with a lawsuit, so I called every news source nearby and offered them an exclusive interview at my address. I slipped out the back in the pandemonium.”
“Has he said anything about transferring you?”
He shakes his head, staring silently at the road.
He probably doesn’t want to talk about his brother when he’s been dealing with him all afternoon.
“You look nice,” I say instead, keeping my voice light. “I bet someone makes out with you.”
“I’m not interested,” he says, his lip curling, “in that.”
I’m relieved at first, until I’m not.
“Bet you feel different when someone goes for it,” I probe.
He laughs. Which is completely unsatisfying.
We park on the side of the street from Kendra’s house, her windows thick with silhouettes. Even though the lacrosse team is small, her parties end up overcrowded because Kendra invites everybody she’s ever met.
I crack the window and kiss Tito’s nose for luck. Eliot shakes his paw.
When we go inside, a Spotify ad for Walgreens is playing between songs. People in gowns and tuxedos are laughing, talking, not noticing us. Eliot draws closer to me, and I almost don’t notice, but then I do and it makes me feel warm and stupid.
“Sam!” Kendra nearly bowls over three girls in heels on her way to us. She grabs at my arm to steady herself, her face as pink as her dress, but falters at my crutches and seizes Eliot instead.
“Hi!” she yips at him. “I’m Sam’s best friend!”
He slides back into robot mode. “It’s nice to meet you. I have no intentions of impregnating Sam.”
I’m realizing Eliot genuinely doesn’t know how to interact with strangers when he can’t be cruel or condescending. No wonder he’s so nervous. This is a brand-new experiment.
“Ever?” She’s so distressed. “But you guys would have the cutest babies!”
“Happy birthday, Kendra,” I cut in. She squeezes my wrist like she’s afraid I’m going to disappear, then swipes two Bud Lights from a nearby table.
“You both need drinks! I stole them from my brother because it’s my birthday.”
Eliot holds the can like he’s not sure what to do with it. Kendra helpfully tips it toward his mouth.
I have to be not-nervous for both of us, so I down my beer and dunk a cup into the bowl of red stuff on the counter. It’s sweet. I hand some to Eliot while he taps his foot irritably to Ariana Grande.
Eventually, predictably, everyone descends on him.
A girl from JV lacrosse in a bright-orange dress pinches his arm. “Did you feel that?”
Then a guy I’ve never met pretends to whack Eliot’s head but doesn’t touch him. “Did you feel that?” he jokes.
Eliot tenses, but I catch his eye and smile reassuringly, and the corner of his mouth quirks up.
The girl who pinched him does it again, giggling, and the guy gives Eliot a Guy Nudge. I am forgotten.
But then Eliot flashes me a this-is-your-fault look, and I return one that says You’re doing well. Then I leave him alone so he can make friends and force myself to start talking to the three girls in heels by the counter. Their circle naturally widens to absorb me.
For the first time in months, I don’t feel like the girl with the dead mom—just a normal girl with normal problems, like her best guy frie
nd getting repeatedly pinched by another normal girl.
Now he’s asking her questions, leaning forward intensely—trying to get to know her, for the experiment. She’s laughing because it’s weird but cute.
This is what I wanted, even if it means I won’t be his only person anymore.
To stop myself from interrupting them, I go outside and take Tito to pee in the backyard. A circle of girls I’ve never met is smoking by the porch, and they crowd around me, cooing over Tito.
He drools in delight for ten minutes without peeing. I can’t let Eliot get pinched to death, so I tie Tito’s leash to the fence. He’ll be okay out here for a little while, and he’ll be happier than in the car.
“We’ll look after him!” exclaims one of his new prom dates.
The instant I’m inside, Eliot materializes back next to me.
“Where were you? You were gone for ages,” he grumbles, and I feel warm and stupid again.
The pinching girl appears out of nowhere and bops him on the shoulder. “We were just talking about that video, and I wanted to say that Anthony is such an asshole, honestly. I can’t believe he did that to you.”
“Fuck him,” I agree. The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
She smiles at me, then whispers, “My mom knows his mom. She had to come back early from abroad to post his bail, and then she raided his room and found all his pills. She’s sending him to rehab until he goes to trial for assault.”
I search for Eliot to celebrate with. He’s standing by the fridge, obediently opening his mouth as two girls aim M&M’S at it. Chocolate pings off his chest. I careen into him, the one who made Anthony not exist anymore.
“Oh, my God, this is my make-out song!” Kendra pelts toward us. “Somebody better make out with somebody else right now!”
I’m noticing how pieces of Eliot’s hair curl over his ears, how his face is both sharp and soft, and I’m happy, I’m ecstatic, because neither of us is on the wrong side of normal anymore. We didn’t fit in by ourselves, but we fit together; and somehow the circle was completed, and now we fit in everywhere else, too. We found each other and made our way back.
I say, “I’m somebody,” and drag him forward by his tie so I can kiss him.
And he’s not made of ice, or crystal, or glass. He’s so human that it startles me. Warm, smooth, soft . . .
Candy explodes off my forehead as a bowl of M&M’S is joyfully dumped on us. Kendra’s leaping up and down like a psycho. Panting, I let Eliot go. I had to do it then or it wouldn’t ever have happened. Everything’s okay right now, so this has to be okay, too, right?
But his expression is blank, and it’s bad blank, everythingness.
Without a word, he stumbles away from me.
A few people stare. I give this exaggerated shrug, what’s his problem, and immediately hate myself for it.
I search for what feels like hours. He’s not in the basement, the kitchen, or the living room. Finally I pass the long line for the bathroom and figure it out.
I cut to the front and knock. “Eliot, let me in.”
“Can you guys use the bedroom?” a girl in a sequined gown whines behind me. “I have to pee.”
I whack the door with my crutches until it opens slightly. Before Eliot can reconsider, I wedge myself inside, closing out the chorus of groans from the hallway.
Eliot’s at the mirror, fixing his tie, even though it’s already straight.
I want to drown myself in the toilet. “I’m so sorry.”
He doesn’t turn around. “You don’t need to apologize.”
“You’re supposed to be trusting my intel on friendship, especially when we need to apologize.”
“It’s just that you don’t have to make fun of me,” he says a little coolly, but I see him swallow. “Everyone else has that covered.”
“I wasn’t making fun of you! That’s not why I kissed—” Kissed. I kissed Eliot. Jesus. “It wasn’t. That.”
“It was a good joke, I’ll admit. Humor is based on the unexpected. Nobody would expect someone like you to kiss someone like me.”
He accidentally undoes his tie and swears.
I collapse onto the toilet. “Someone like me?”
A long pause. He determinedly avoids eye contact. “Someone beautiful.”
“Eliot, you’re beautiful,” I yell at him.
“I have scars,” he says.
“I have scars.” I yank at my tights, but they end in socks because girl clothes are ridiculous. I’m not stripping in front of Eliot, so like the Hulk, I rip them open. “Look.”
He looks.
“Let. Me. Peeee,” the girl moans through the door.
I bash it with a crutch, my leg still stuck out. “My dog pees outside, so can you!”
Eliot bends down and runs his thumb over the big scar, the worst one. The warm-stupid feeling shouldn’t be able to exist alongside this anxiety; they should cancel out each other, but they don’t.
I’m sick of feelings. I either have none or all of them at once.
Gently he pulls the torn edges of my tights together and opens the door. Sequins-girl nearly mows us down.
The house is full of people, and I need to be alone with Eliot. I flag down Kendra and inform her of this in a whisper that strikes me as not entirely sober sounding.
She spends the next twenty minutes flying in and out of her bedroom, and it’s not until she shuts us inside that I realize she probably thinks we’re going to have sex.
Eliot sits on the bed, gazing around at all the lit candles. “Was she preparing a séance?”
I blow out all the candles, and then I lie down next to him in the dark. It’s the closest I’ve felt to being ready to be naked with someone. Instead of making me want to have sex, it makes me want to talk.
“Do you remember when you told me you took pills because you couldn’t feel?” I say. “I was there, too. But not feeling anything is a feeling, I think. It’s feeling everything at once, but in the background. Like how white is all the colors. Most of the time depression is really something specific, or a lot of specific things . . . but that’s good—it means it’s not actually nothingness; it’s stuff you can work on.”
He’s silent. For a while he just watches me in the light of the one candle I missed, and then, shivering, he extends his hand until he’s cupping my cheek.
I close my eyes. He trails his fingers down my neck and strokes my shoulder. “You are a person,” he whispers. “A whole person.”
“Are you going to kiss me?” I whisper back, terrified.
He takes his hand away, and for a while, he’s just quiet in the dark. “I don’t . . . I’m not . . . I’ve never felt . . . like other guys do, Sam. I’ve never been . . . interested in the end result of kissing.”
“That’s okay! Eliot, that’s fine.” I like him for his brain. “But just so you know, kissing doesn’t have an end result. Doing it doesn’t mean you’re signing a contract to have sex or something. And liking kissing doesn’t mean you have to like sex.”
Another silence. “Then maybe I’ll try it. Eventually. As an experiment.”
“But not right now,” I finish for him.
“But not right now.”
I lean into his shoulder, and both of us stop talking.
I don’t realize I’ve fallen asleep until I’m waking back up. Beside me, Eliot rolls over and mumbles something inaudible. The sole candle has burned out.
I stumble out of the room, letting Eliot sleep. I have the nagging feeling that something’s off, that I forgot something important. Probably just the disorienting aftereffect of waking up in someone else’s house.
Almost everyone has gone home. Empty cups litter the countertops, black and white streamers stripe the floor. The few people left are playing Magic: The Gathering in the living room.
Kendra materializes and lunges at me. “Well? Did you sleep together?”
“Yes,” I say, because we did. But then she screams and I wave my hands frantically. �
�No, not like that.”
Her brow furrows. “Maybe he didn’t want to do it drunk. He did say he was worried about getting you pregnant.”
I’m turning to go back to Kendra’s room and wake up Eliot when I slam into eye contact with Trez.
She’s picking her way over the streamers. When she sees me, her face contorts and she whips toward the door, the lace edges of her dark dress floating out. It plunges me into an ice lake.
I leave Kendra confused and chase Trez outside. I catch her leaning against the fence, clutching a broken heel.
“I’m sorry I came,” she stammers, like I had her under house arrest. “I heard about Anthony, and it felt like a sign that today was the day, that you’d finally call the police and they’d show up at my door. I-I’m ready, but . . . I wanted to see people again, one last time, before they looked at me differently.”
“Are you the one who’s been bringing us all those lasagnas?” I have no idea why I say this, but the moment I do, I realize I’m right.
A breeze makes her shiver. “It’s just lasagna.”
We stand there in absolute silence like the last two people in the world.
“So are you going to?” she asks after a minute. “Call the police?”
“I . . . don’t know,” I say honestly.
“I’ll still call them for you if you want. Tell them what I did.” Her chin is delicate, but the way she sticks it out makes her whole face look braver.
I don’t answer for a long time, so eventually she takes a shuffling step toward the road. But then she stops.
“What was your mom like?” she asks quietly.
I’ve spent so much time worrying I’d never know enough to answer that question. Maybe I don’t know every little thing, but I do know the important stuff.
“She was sentimental, and smart, and creative, and somehow an optimist and a worrier at the same time; and she never tried to make anyone be someone they weren’t.”
“She sounds like a nice lady,” Trez whispers, hugging herself in a way that makes her seem incredibly small. “I was just wondering. My mom’s not a nice lady.”
Something about the sight of her looks fundamentally wrong there, but she’s only standing in the moonlight, her fingers brushing the edge of the fence. My skin prickles, not from the breeze. I stare at her until she backs away.
