Senior Week Fling

by Maggie Dallen

  He just shook his head. “Unbelievable,” he muttered under his breath.

  Mark and Victoria appeared beside us just as bickering was about to turn into outright fighting.

  “Hey guys,” Victoria said.

  She looked even more stunning than usual in a pale pink dress with a scoop neck and a skirt that swirled around her lithe legs. With her hair up in a loose bun, she looked like a prima ballerina.

  Mark looked remarkably comfortable in a suit, given that it was a far cry from the ratty tees and holey jeans he normally sported. If there was still any lingering awkwardness between the two of them it wasn’t obvious.

  Adam and I on the other hand...

  Mark looked back and forth between the two of us.

  “Eve, you want to dance?” A slow number had come on and a number of girls were pulling their dates onto the dance floor.

  As I may have mentioned before, Mark didn’t dance. Clearly something was up.

  “Um, yeah sure,” I said.

  We went out to the dance floor and I saw Victoria grab Adam by the hand and lead him out as well.

  Mark and I sort of swayed in time with the music.

  “So what’s up?” I asked.

  He raised an eyebrow but didn’t answer.

  “Oh come on, don’t tell me you suddenly felt the need to get your groove on for the first time in your life and it just had to be with me. What did you want to talk to me about?”

  Mark laughed. “All right, fine. I did want to talk to you.”

  There was silence and I had to bite my lip from filling it. Patience was key with Mark.

  “I’m worried about you and Adam,” he said.

  I took a deep breath. Join the club.

  “I know it may be none of my business but...”

  “You’re a good friend to Adam and you’re a good friend to me,” I said. “Of course it’s your business.”

  Mark flashed a lopsided grin and I suddenly saw why Victoria was so flustered around him.

  “So what’s going on?” he asked.

  I looked away and saw Adam and Victoria laughing and talking as they danced. For a second I actually felt a stab of jealousy of him and Victoria.

  What was wrong with me? Of course he wasn’t interested in Victoria. They were just friends. Just like he and I were good friends. And that was it.

  Still, I couldn’t deny that I wanted it to be me in his arms at that moment. I wanted him to be smiling down at me, to be laughing and cracking jokes with me, to have his arms wrapped around me.

  Mark was waiting for me to talk. I knew he would wait all night if need be. He had zero problem with silence.

  I peered up at him. “Did you know he hooked up with Ashley last night?”

  He raised his eyebrows in surprise. “I knew Ashley stayed over last night...” he paused and I leapt to intervene. I didn’t want to hear anymore about Adam’s little tryst with the skanky beach babe, thank you very much.

  “Can you believe he did that?” I asked.

  Mark’s face was unreadable. “Is that why you’re so angry with him? Because you’re jealous?”

  “I am not jealous,” I said, even as that now familiar ugly feeling churned in my stomach. “I just can’t believe he would risk humiliating us both like that.”

  “And that kiss between you and Ryan...” he started, with an annoyingly knowing look.

  I was going to kill Victoria.

  “Meant nothing,” I finished the sentence for him. “I ended it. And I told him it was really over. I didn’t expect him to kiss me and I ended it right away.”

  I sounded guilty even to myself.

  “Did you tell Adam that?” Mark said.

  “He didn’t give me a chance,” I whined. “He just leapt to conclusions and took Lindsay at her word without even giving me a chance to explain.”

  Mark opened his mouth to speak but before he could I kept going. I was on a roll.

  “And so... what? He figures one kiss between me and Ryan and he’s off the hook? He can just hook up with whomever he please and risk totally humiliating me?”

  “So you’re upset because you’re worried people will find out about Adam and Ashley and they’ll think he cheated on you?” Mark said.

  “Or they’ll figure out that we were never really together,” I said. “Either way, you’ve gotta admit it would be pretty embarrassing.”

  Mark nodded slowly and looked like he was choosing his words carefully. “I just think you should hear Adam’s side before you leap to conclusions of your own,” Mark said.

  I opened my mouth to protest but he held up a hand to stop me.

  “Adam needs you,” Mark said.

  As a friend, I finished for him.

  “You two need each other,” he added.

  “I know things have gotten kind of screwed up with this whole game you two are playing but you guys really need to talk. You need to work things out. Because once we get home, the game will be over and your friendship will be all that’s left.”

  I swallowed down a wave of sadness.

  “That’s what you want right?”

  I nodded. “Of course. I just want things to go back to normal. I hate fighting with Adam.”

  “Then you really need to work this out with him,” Mark said.

  “I know, I will,” I said.

  The song was coming to an end and I saw Adam and Victoria heading in our direction.

  Mark was right, as usual. I couldn’t let petty jealousy and a fake relationship ruin my relationship with Adam. He was my best friend and always would be. I had to make things right.

  “Thanks Mark,” I said.

  “No problem.”

  “Who’s ready for dinner?” Victoria asked.

  “I’m starving,” Adam said. He grabbed me by the hand and started to lead me toward the line for the buffet.

  I glanced over at Mark. What did he expect, for me to have a cozy little tete-a-tete with Adam in front of half the senior class? No thanks. We would talk, I promised myself, but it didn’t have to be right this second.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  With that rationale, the big talk almost never happened.

  The festive mood on the party boat was contagious and the next few hours were a blur of dancing, laughing, and eating.

  “Where do you suppose they found this guy?” Mark asked. He was staring at the DJ in horrified amazement.

  “I’m pretty sure this is the same guy who DJ’d at my bar mitzvah,” Adam said.

  The middle-aged man at the front of the room was making corny jokes into the mic and playing every cheesy 80’s and 90’s song known to man.

  “Oh come on, you guys, he’s kinda fun,” Victoria chimed in.

  It was true. Most of the partiers had inhaled some food and then took to the dance floor with gusto. I mean who could resist the Safety Dance?

  Guys and girls alike were having a field day rocking out to the ridiculously cheesy music. The DJ, God bless him, seemed to think the crowd was actually enjoying his picks and didn’t pick up on the fact that the joke was on him.

  I hoped he never figured it out.

  “All right, ladies and gents,” he called out after an old-school Madonna tune. “Now it’s time to get down—low down!”

  Mark and Adam groaned in unison as the DJ whipped out a stick for a limbo competition.

  “Are we in grade school? I swear to God, this guys thinks we’re in grade school,” Adam laughed.

  Victoria grabbed me by the hand and dragged me toward the crowd as Mark and Adam hooted and whistled behind me.

  I know it sounds ridiculous but it was actually a lot of fun. I even came close to winning and probably would have if our class didn’t have an honest to God gymnast. Who could compete with a four-foot-two Gumby?

  Adam threw an arm across my shoulders and led me outside along with Mark and Victoria. Packs of classmates crowded the deck and more guys than I could count took a turn standing on the bow with arms outstretche
d.

  “I’m the king of the world!” they shouted.

  No matter how many times it occurred, there were still people who laughed like it was the first time anyone had made that joke all night.

  Everyone was in an incredibly giving mood—more than likely this rare show of charity was brought on by the fact that once we left that boat we would most likely never see each other again.

  At least not without graduation caps on our heads or at some reunion ten years down the road. That fact was making even the least school-spirited among us get a little nostalgic.

  Melody Vanguard, a student council member and one of the people who organized Senior Week, walked toward the four of us armed with a camera.

  “Okay you guys, gather round for a picture,” she said.

  One picture turned into twenty as Victoria and I went into full-blown model mode, laughing as we blew air kisses and struck ridiculously staged poses.

  Adam joined in the act and after a bit of coercing we even got Mark to join in a group pose, the four of use with our arms linked around each other.

  “Can I see?” I asked.

  Melody turned the camera around so I could see the picture. I had to swallow a lump in my throat. We all looked so happy, so young, so carefree. We looked like we’d be friends forever. I thought of similar pictures I’d found in the attic from my parent’s scrapbooks. They looked the same exact way—smiling with their arms around friends who I’d never met, never even heard of.

  I wondered if they had thought back then that they would ever lose touch or if they thought like I had that nothing could ever tear good friends apart.

  Oh Lord. The nostalgia was contagious.

  “Are you all right?” Adam asked.

  I nodded quickly and smiled up at my best friend.

  There was no way I would let anything ruin this friendship. I would not mess up our special bond with some stupid petty jealousy or confusing feelings, I promised myself.

  Maybe Adam was thinking the same thing because at that moment he smiled back down at me—

  a genuine smile filled with warmth that I could feel in my toes.

  Maybe everything would be all right after all.

  Melody caught our little moment. “Aww, I need a picture of the happy couple,” she said.

  “Say cheese!”

  Adam pulled me in front of himself and wrapped his arms around me. His face was nestled next to mine and I could feel his breath against my cheek.

  “Eve, you’re not smiling!” Melody scolded.

  “Yeah, Eve,” Adam murmured in my ear. His voice was low and sent a shiver down my spine.

  “We haven’t broken up yet,” he continued. “Let’s show this crowd what a happy couple we are.”

  The warm glow I’d been feeling was replaced by a cold, hard knot in my gut. This was all part of the show and that show was coming to an end in a matter of hours.

  Melody was looking at me expectantly so I plastered a smile across my face.

  From that point on, Adam gave an Academy Award winning performance of Boyfriend Of The Year. He saw me shiver when we were out on the deck chatting with friends and draped his suit jacket over my shoulders. When I mentioned that I was thirsty he offered to fetch me a drink. When we found ourselves amongst a group of classmates getting all weepy and nostalgic about the fact that we were all parting ways, Adam wrapped an arm around my waist and planted a kiss on the top of my head and made a show of telling everyone how happy he was that he and I wouldn’t have to part ways after graduation.

  He was picture perfect. Literally. Nearly every girl in our class now had multiple photos of the two of us cuddled up to each other.

  It was almost too easy to go along with it. The romantic setting, the beautiful sunset, the sappy music... for a few hours that night I lived in a dream world. But unlike the girls who were sighing around me and telling me how lucky I was to have such an amazing boyfriend, I knew that the fairytale was about to come to an end and I was going to wake up single and alone—I just hoped that at the end of it all I still had my best friend.

  The evening was winding down and the lights from the pier were growing closer when the DJ announced the last song of the night. In a cheesy voice that you only hear from AM radio hosts, he invited the boys and girls to find that special someone and hold them close.

  The couples in the room split into pairs while the single partiers and those without dates gathered in groups on the outskirts and groaned in unison as the opening chords of I’ve Had the Time of My Life filled the room.

  The dance floor was crowded and hot and Adam tugged my hand to pull me outside where a few couples swayed in time to the music that could be heard pouring out of the cabin.

  Adam and I swayed in time along with the others, my head resting on his shoulder. His arms were wrapped securely around me and for a few seconds I let myself close my eyes and revel in his warmth.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  I shivered a bit in the cold ocean breeze.

  “Are you too cold?” Adam asked. “We can go back inside.”

  I shook my head and snuggled even closer against him. “I’m okay.”

  I’m not ashamed to admit that I love Dirty Dancing. And while I groaned and laughed along with everyone else when the song came on, I was also just a little bit ecstatic. I mean, who hasn’t dreamed of jumping off that stage and running into the arms of Patrick Swayze? So I was extremely content to listen to the music and close my eyes and pretend for just one moment that this was something real. That I was really dancing with someone who loved me and adored me and not my best friend who had taken pity on me.

  For a few moments there, I was doing an extraordinarily good job of playing pretend—until Adam spoke.

  “Eve, we need to talk,” he said.

  I felt a bucket of cold water wake me up from my daydream.

  I pulled back a little bit, not enough to look Adam in the eyes but just enough to break the intimate embrace.

  He was right, of course. I’d known this was coming. Hadn’t I told Mark I would be a grown up and have a conversation like the mature adult I was supposed to be?

  “There’s nothing to talk about,” I heard myself say.

  I hadn’t planned to say that. In fact, it was the exact opposite of what I’d intended to say.

  I felt him stiffen at my words and I rushed to take them back.

  “It’s just that... I mean... I really don’t think it’s necessary to make a big deal out of it,” I babbled.

  Adam’s arms dropped to his sides and I felt colder than I have ever felt in my life. I wrapped my arms around myself and tried to read Adam’s closed expression.

  “Make a big deal out of what?” he asked.

  “Umm...” My teeth were chattering and the song began to wind down. I could hear our classmates laughingly singing along in off-key voices inside.

  “Now I’ve had the time of my liiife...” they crooned. “And I owe it all to yoooouuuuuuuuu...”

  “Adam, I promise you the kiss with Ryan didn’t mean anything,” I said. “He took me by surprise but I swear I ended it right away.”

  Adam just stared at me, searching my face and my eyes. I wish I knew what he saw there because after a moment of searching he glanced away looking angry or hurt or sad... maybe a little of each.

  “Do you believe me?” I asked. I felt almost desperate to hear him say that he believed me. I couldn’t bear for him to think that I cared about Ryan anymore. At that moment I would have been more than happy to erase every memory I ever had with Ryan if it meant regaining Adam’s respect and trust.

  Adam just shrugged. Not exactly the response I was looking for.

  The boat was pulling into the dock and our peers were pouring out of the cabin and swarming the deck, already lining up to de-board.

  Adam and I were jostled and pushed aside, two rocks in the middle of a sea of people.

  Adam grabbed my arm and pulled me to the side of the boat where we had to pre
ss up against the railing and each other to get out of the way.

  Adam looked down at me.

  “So you’re not upset about Ashley then?” Adam asked.

  His words took me by surprise and now it was my turn to try and search his face for a hidden meaning.

  “You seemed kind of pissed this morning,” he added.

  My jaw clenched at the mere memory of seeing Ashley coming out of Adam’s bedroom.

  “I was just upset because I thought people would find out,” I said. “You know, about us.”

  Adam nodded. I would have said he looked amused if the amusement wasn’t so cold, so not like Adam. “You mean find out that there is no us,” he clarified.

  I hated hearing him say that.

  “Of course there’s an us,” I snapped. “There’s just not an us-us,” I said, feeling ridiculous even as the words came out of my mouth.

  “Right,” he drawled. “That makes everything much clearer.”

  I didn’t like seeing this side of Adam. Adam was joyful, Adam was kind, Adam was a joker and playful and sarcastic and a tease. Adam was not cold. He was anything but cold.

  But the guy standing in front of me was cold as ice. He looked distant and forbidding. I was losing him.

  “I-I didn’t mean to get so upset over Ashley,” I said, hoping to ease the tension—hoping to make things right.

  But that only seemed to make him angrier. His jaw clenched and he looked past me to the shore like I was invisible.

  “So you don’t care then... that she slept over last night?”

  “N-no,” I said, hating how much my voice shook.

  Adam’s lips were compressed into a thin line and his nostrils were flared in thinly veiled anger.

  I scrambled to come up with something to say, something that would make things right again. But everything I said seemed to make things worse.

  Did he think I was judging him for liking Ashley? Was he mad that this fake relationship was keeping them apart?

  “If you really want to be with Ashley, I don’t want to get in the way,” I said. The words tasted like bitter poison on my tongue but I forced myself to continue. “I’m really sorry if our... lie, or whatever... came between you guys...”