The Prom Kiss

by Maggie Dallen

  “You do a lot of comforting, do you?”

  He nodded. “I have a younger sister, and let’s just say she’s…emotional.”

  The way he said it told me everything. “Dramatic?”

  “Just thirteen.”

  “Got it.” And I did. God, thirteen was the worst, especially for girls. “Does she have any older sisters?”

  “No. Just me.”

  “Is your mom around?”

  He shifted again and I knew he was trying to see my face so I ducked my head. “Yeah, of course.” He sounded surprised, like that was a weird question or something. That right there told me that he had a good home life. People with normal, happy families were always shocked that the rest of us weren’t so lucky.

  After a brief, awkward pause, he continued. “But I don’t think my mom gets it. Maybe she just doesn’t remember what it was like to be in junior high or…” He shrugged. “Maybe she just didn’t have a tough time.”

  “Everyone has a tough time.” I didn’t mean to sound sad. I blamed it on the former bout of weeping. Sadness in my tone was just an after effect. I cleared my throat. “So I guess that explains why you’re so good at this whole girls crying thing.”

  “I’m an expert these days.” His flat tone made me grin despite the lingering ache in my chest.

  “Is she having issues fitting in?” I asked. It wasn’t like I was really worried about his sister but talking about her problems meant we weren’t talking about mine.

  I felt his shrug. “There’s a clique of popular girls who she wants to be friends with,” he started.

  He didn’t have to go any further. “Ugh. That’s her first problem. They know she wants them to like her.”

  I felt him pull back to look at me.

  “She probably hasn’t learned how to play it cool.”

  “No,” he agreed. “Clara is honest to a fault.”

  I nodded. If she were anything like her brother, it was easy to understand how this Clara girl wouldn’t fit in. She was probably way too nice for her own good. “Mean girls are the worst, especially when they sense weakness.”

  He was still staring at me, I could feel it. “What?”

  “Nothing,” he said quickly. “It’s just…it’s weird to hear you talk about mean girls.” He paused for a second. “You do know you’re one of them, right?”

  I shrugged. “Yeah. So?”

  He was quiet for a moment. “This is a bizarre conversation.”

  I let out a little snort of laughter at the understatement. “So,” I said. “Are you ever going to tell me what you’re really doing here?”

  I felt him stiffen. “Excuse me?”

  I forced myself out of the warm comfort of his arms and crossed my arms over my chest as I turned slightly to face him. “I don’t buy it. You didn’t just want to be alone for no good reason. I don’t think you make a habit of skipping class or hiding out in the closet. You’re not the type.”

  He arched one brow. “I’m a type?” His voice was laced with amusement.

  “Of course you’re a type. Everyone’s a type.”

  “And what type are you?” he asked.

  I tilted my head to the side and narrowed my eyes. “I don’t know, Julian. What do people call me?”

  It was a challenge. Head on. Direct confrontation.

  His gaze met mine and I saw the amusement there but also the intelligence. He wouldn’t back down from a fight. Despite his geeky look, this guy was a fighter.

  Interesting.

  “Is that how we know what type we are? By what people call us?” His voice filled with laughter. “Because if that’s the case, I’d say you’re the Satan’s-Spawn type.”

  My little gasp of shock threatened to turn into a laugh. Not just because he was clearly teasing but because of the truth behind it. It’s not like I didn’t know what people said about me. I knew my reputation better than anyone—I should, I created it.

  But the fact that this dweeb had the balls to say it to my face made me want to laugh. It wasn’t often that people shocked me, but when they did it was usually to disappoint me.

  “But,” Julian continued, his eyes dancing with laughter. “Now I know that’s not really your type, because everyone knows that the devil incarnate doesn’t cry in a closet.”

  I stared at him openmouthed for a second before bursting out with a laugh. “Okay, you caught me,” I said, shaking my head in disbelief. “I am not, in fact, the devil.”

  “Whew, that’s a relief.” He grinned down at me before pulling me in close again.

  “I’m not nice either,” I felt compelled to point out, just in case there was any confusion. But my voice was muffled by his shirt and I wasn’t sure he heard.

  “Oh, I would never think that,” he said. But there was no animosity in his tone so I let it go.

  We sat in silence for a while and it started to feel ridiculous. I mean, I wasn’t in any hurry to leave my sanctuary, but if we were going to sit there we should at least be talking. And if I could get him to tell me something personal, I’d have leverage.

  He couldn’t go blabbing about my meltdown if I knew his deep dark secrets.

  “Seriously, why are you here?” I asked. “And don’t tell me you just needed alone time because that’s bull. You’ve been avoiding the question.”

  “Says the girl who’s avoided telling me what she’s crying about ever since I walked in.”

  He had a point. I weighed my options. I really had nothing to lose here, especially since the reason for my heartache would be all over the school soon enough. If I told Julian that would give him no reason to avoid telling me his own issue. And I needed something. Anything. If I didn’t get some sort of leverage, he’d be free to share my humiliation with anyone and everyone.

  “Alex and I broke up,” I said suddenly.

  “Again?”

  I took a long deep breath to keep from screaming. That was the response I should have expected. It was the one I’d hear from everyone over the coming days. Yes, again.

  It was true, Alex and I broke up regularly and got back together just as often. But it still sucked. It still hurt. Each time was just as painful as the last even though I knew it wouldn’t last. He’d come back. He’d apologize for making out with one of the girls on my squad at Melody’s latest kegger. And I’d take him back.

  That thought made my insides twist into a knot.

  I inhaled quickly and forced myself to think about something else. Anything else. Julian would do. “Your turn,” I said. “Spill. What are you really doing here?”

  I felt his chest rise and fall beneath my cheek. “Sometimes I come in here to work on my music.”

  I pulled back in surprise. “You’re a musician?”

  He shrugged. “Kind of. I write songs and I play the guitar…”

  “What you just described means you’re a musician,” I said. “No ‘kind of’ about it.”

  His lips twitched up in a lopsided smile that made breathing difficult again. I leaned back into his chest and focused once more on inhaling and exhaling.

  Not for the first time I found myself thinking that breathing shouldn’t be so hard. I didn’t know anyone else who found such a simple act so frustratingly difficult. Not all the time, obviously. Just on days like today when my body felt like it was possessed.

  Possessed by the devil. Ha! I found myself grinning against Julian’s shirt.

  “What’s so funny? Is it that hard to imagine me as a musician?”

  The insecurity in his voice was subtle but I caught it. Figuring out where people were weak was kind of my specialty. I took note of it but I didn’t mock him or call him out on it.

  Like I said, I might be a mean girl but I didn’t pick on underdogs. And Julian, despite his condescending attitude and smirks, was an underdog. A beta male in a high school run by alphas.

  “Are you kidding?” I said. “You definitely have the emo musician vibe going on. I can totally see it.”

  “So
then what’s so funny?”

  I shrugged. “I was just thinking how right you were to call me the devil.”

  It was the truth but I shouldn’t have said it because it would only lead to questions, so I turned the conversation back to him. “So what are your songs about?”

  “Whatever’s going on in my life, usually.”

  His voice sounded strained. Gone was that cocky amusement. He seemed wary of continuing.

  I was close.

  “And what’s going on that you so desperately needed to find a place to work on your music?” I kept my voice soft, not wanting to spook him with my curiosity.

  For a minute I thought he wouldn’t answer, but then he said one word that held all the heartache in the world. “A breakup.”

  My heart hurt on his behalf, which was stupid, I know. But no one knew how badly a breakup could suck better than me. I was incredibly familiar with the sucktitude that was breaking up. Nothing about my relationship with Alex was normal. Not the way we constantly hurt each other and definitely not the way I always took him back.

  We were messed up. But somehow we were always drawn back together, like we couldn’t exist without one another’s drama and pain.

  I scrubbed at my eyes like he had done before, as if that physical act could somehow erase the ceaseless chatter in my brain. We weren’t talking about me and Alex. We were talking about Julian. “I’m sorry.”

  “Yeah.” He let out a long exhale that I totally felt, literally and metaphorically. After another heartbeat he said, “Sorry about you and Alex.”

  His tone was kind of grudging, and I got it. You only got to use the pity card so many times when you were as on-again-off-again as me and Alex.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  Honestly I was kind of shocked by the question. First of all, I didn’t think he’d care since our breakups were the norm these days. But also because I thought everyone knew. Everyone always knew.

  “He hooked up with some skank,” I said, my tone flat. “Again.”

  Julian muttered a curse under his breath. “That sucks. I’m sorry.”

  His I’m sorry sounded more genuine this time and that had me wriggling to get out of his arms. “Whatever,” I said. “It’s not like it’s unusual, right? Guys cheat, it’s what they do.”

  He let me go, but he turned to me with a frown. “Not all guys cheat,” he said. “That’s a lie perpetuated by cheaters to make themselves feel better. They try to normalize it, but it’s not what every guy does.”

  I blinked at him a few times. I don’t think I’d ever heard him say so much all at once or with such earnestness. He was an ironic kind of guy. A guy who wore T-shirts with bands no one has ever heard of. He sat in the back of every class and rolled his eyes when talk turned to pep rallies and homecoming.

  He was that guy. So to hear him speak earnestly about anything other than poetry and art, or whatever it was he talked to Alice about, was startling. And then it dawned on me and my heart plummeted to the pit of my stomach on his behalf. “She cheated on you.”

  Now it was his turn to blink at me in surprise but then he sighed for the zillionth time and ran a hand through his messy brown hair. “That obvious, huh?”

  I shrugged. “No one is so passionate in their hatred of cheaters unless they’ve been cheated on.”

  He nodded but his gaze was elsewhere. He was looking over my shoulder but I was sure he wasn’t actually studying the stack of cymbals with that level of intensity. “Why do they do it?”

  His voice was so quiet and he was still staring at the cymbals. For a second I wasn’t sure if he was even talking to me, but I still gave him the only response I could. “I wish I knew.”

  He nodded again, as if I’d actually given him an answer. His gaze met mine and suddenly he was paying attention to me. I had his full attention and I had to resist the urge to squirm.

  Even if my eyes weren’t puffy and my nose red from crying, I wouldn’t have felt comfortable as the object of his scrutiny. It was like all the sudden a spotlight was shining on me and I had the distinctly awful sensation that there was no flaw he couldn’t see. And not just physically. Those dark eyes of his were too all-seeing, and way too knowing.

  “Are you going to take him back?” he asked.

  I stiffened and pulled away from him, irritated by the question and with myself for letting him take the offensive in this conversation. “I don’t know,” I lied.

  The truth was…yes. I would take him back. I didn’t necessarily want to, and there was a big part of me that screamed No! Don’t do it! He’ll only hurt you again.

  But I’ll ignore that voice, like I always do.

  Why?

  God only knows. There was probably some good reason deep down in my psyche somewhere. All I knew was…I needed him. I needed Alex, and I hated that.

  “What about you?” I asked. “Is she already trying to win you back?”

  His brows pulled together in confusion. He looked cute when he was confused. I could imagine the sweet little boy he must have been at some point before he turned to a life of angst and indie bands.

  “No,” he said, as if it was obvious. “She cheated on me, and when I found out and called her on it, she gave me this whole speech about how we’ve been growing apart for a while and…” He shook his head. “It doesn’t make sense. Any of it.”

  Oh Julian. Sweet, naïve Julian. “She’ll be trying to get you back soon enough.”

  He made a scoffing sound. “You sound so sure.”

  I shrugged. “I am. I know her type.”

  He inhaled loudly as he rolled his eyes and shifted so he was facing me more. “Here we go. Tell me again about these types, oh wise one.”

  I ignored the sarcasm. He was challenging me, and that temporarily gave me something else to focus on other than my misery or the fact that I’d just had a meltdown in front of him. “Let me guess her type, okay? If I’m wrong, you can tell me to go to hell because I have no idea what I’m talking about.”

  He arched his brows expectantly.

  I tilted my head to the side as I studied him, imagining the kind of girl he’d go for and the kind of heartless, cheating witch who’d want to make Mr. Sincere fall in love with her.

  It wasn’t hard to peg her in my mind’s eye. “She’s super chipper, right? Everyone likes her because she’s charming and nice.” I drew out the word nice in an immature sing-song voice that I just couldn’t help. I couldn’t help it. The word made me cringe otherwise.

  “What’s wrong with nice?” he asked, sounding offended on his ex-girlfriend’s behalf.

  I smirked. “So I was right.”

  He gave another huff of annoyance. “Yeah, Leila’s nice, but that’s not exactly a specific description. Lots of people are nice.” He tilted his head forward so he was looking up at me over the top of his glasses. “Lots of people other than you, I mean.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment,” I said with a toss of my hair.

  He arched a brow. “Again, what’s wrong with being nice?”

  “Nothing if what you really mean is kind, generous, thoughtful…” I trailed off with a shrug. “But what most people mean is, she’s sweet.” I batted my eyelashes with a simpering smile. “Which is rarely real and should never be trusted.”

  He stared at me for a second. “Man, you are seriously jaded.”

  I straightened, shifting to get more comfortable and to face him like he was facing me. “I’m a realist,” I said. “And I wasn’t done. She’s outgoing, sweet—” I gave him that simpering smile again and ignored his eye roll. “But after the first few weeks, nothing you did was ever good enough, nothing you wore was right, you weren’t as funny as you used to be, or as attractive.”

  His gaze was turning into a wide-eyed stare and honest to God, my mean girl heart hurt for him.

  “She started acting flakier and flakier,” I continued. “But if you called her out on it, it was somehow all your fault.”

  I
stopped when his eyes filled with rueful, bitter humor. “It was always my fault.”

  I nodded because I knew that feeling all too well and even though I was used to it, it made me feel ill to think about it. But for some reason I felt compelled to say something to make him feel better. Probably because he’d actually managed to make me feel better with the cuddling and the back rubbing. I hated to be in anyone’s debt. So I told him the truth that I learned the hard way. “Nothing you did could ever have been enough for someone like her.”

  I wished I could take it back when his gaze searched my face and something frighteningly close to pity flickered in his eyes. “How did you know all that about Leila?”

  I sighed, sounding old and weary. “How do you think?”

  He shook his head and I could see him trying to deny it all in his head. He didn’t want to think that we were alike. That he wasn’t special. That what happened between him and this Leila chick was just another cliché. “But she’s not like that,” he said, and I just knew he meant she’s not like Alex, but part of me wondered if he meant she’s not like me either.

  I’m sure she wasn’t like me. After all, she was nice.

  “She was so sweet when we first got together.” He gave me a look that was almost pleading. “She told me she loved me.”

  I flinched in response to the L word, but hopefully he didn’t notice. “She’s not sweet,” I said as gently as I could. “She’s outgoing, she’s pretty, she’s smiley…but she’s not sweet. She’s not kind.” I felt like the demon he jokingly called me before, sitting there like the big baddie as I told this legitimately nice guy the truth about his ex. “She was manipulative, Julian. Most cheaters are.”

  His gaze met mine. “How do you know?”

  I gave him a little smile that held no humor. “Because I’m kind of an expert on the topic. Or haven’t you heard?”

  He stared at me for so long that I couldn’t keep eye contact. I looked away, wondering what on earth was going on here. Obviously I knew how he and I came to be in this stupid closet and why we were both still sitting there. We were hiding, plain and simple. From our friends, from our lives. But still, I glanced back at him—what are we doing here?