Promised by Prom

by Jessica Bucher

  “Ouch,” I grimaced.

  “I’ll take it out.”

  “No, leave it in. Let her see how good she had it.”

  Nora let out a long, exaggerated cackle.

  “Hey, laugh about it now, but I’ll have you know...she’s asked me to the prom.”

  Nora’s laughter died like she hit it with her truck. She stared at me for a moment, clearly trying to figure out if I was being serious.

  “You’re joking,” she said through a forced laugh.

  “Nope. She called me yesterday and tried to talk me into being her date, acting like we had so much history and memories to commemorate.” I screwed up my face just thinking about it.

  “What did you say?”

  I watched Nora swallow, and call it an ego boost, but I think she might have actually been bothered by this news.

  “What do you think I said?”

  “Well, considering we watched High Fidelity twelve times to get you over that breakup, I hope you said no.”

  I made a sneer that told her she wasn’t going to like my answer. She slapped me hard against the arm.

  “Max, you did not!”

  “Ow,” I howled, rubbing my arm. “What did you expect? You went and got a boyfriend and left me dateless.”

  “Yeah, but…”

  She watched me, suddenly speechless and trying to search for her words. Of course, I told Nikki to take a hike after her little prom suggestion, but I wasn’t going to tell Nora that, not yet. It was too fun to tease her and see the reaction.

  I let out an evil laugh. “Nora Henry, if I didn’t know any better, I’d think you’re jealous.”

  Then I watched with delight as she turned fifty shades of mortified.

  Nora

  Flipping Nikki? Not cool. Nikki broke up with Max the first week of school. Suddenly she needed a prom date and he was good enough to talk to again? I was not going to let that happen.

  “I am not jealous,” I replied, making a conscious effort not to stomp my foot as I said it. “I just feel it is my duty, as your friend to counsel you not to take her up on her offer.”

  “And I feel that as my friend, it is none of your business.”

  I was seething. That girl did not deserve Max Altman. “I know you are pretending to be mad at me for bailing on our handshake prom deal, but you’ll regret it if you go to prom with Nikki.”

  Max gave me half a smile. “I’m not sure I am the one who will regret it.”

  Ugh, this whole pretending I didn’t know exactly what he meant thing was exhausting.

  “Look, you aren’t supposed to go with a girl like her. You’re supposed to go with…” I trailed off, unsure how to finish the sentence without getting myself in trouble.

  “I’m supposed to go with who?” asked Max, looking up at me through thick dark lashes.

  Me, was the first thing that came to mind. But I wasn’t allowed to say that. I stopped shuffling the papers in my hand and looked Max in the eye.

  “You are supposed to go with a girl who appreciates you. Someone who won’t be embarrassed when you roll up in a T-shirt tux with a cheeto dust print near your pockets.”

  He smiled, so I continued.

  “Someone who laughs at your jokes, but only the funny ones because they like you enough not to let you go around thinking something’s funny when it’s not.”

  Max frowned. “I resent the implication that…”

  “Someone who knows all your favorite movies,” I interrupted, aware that my volume was getting a little louder with each declaration, “and the ones you watch just to make your friends feel better.”

  Max was silent now. I should have stopped, but I couldn’t. I was sitting on a mountain of qualities Max deserved in a girl, and it felt like if I didn’t say them right then and there, he would spend the rest of his life settling for the Nikkis of the world. Or if I was being really honest, the Noras, because I wasn’t the girl I was describing. I was the one who hurt him.

  I could feel tears brimming behind my eyelids, and I knew that if I spent a moment longer in that yearbook room with just the two of us, I was going to spill my guts and make an already bad situation worse.

  “Nora?” said Max, closing the gap between us. “Maybe we—”

  “I’ve got to go,” I rushed, the words spewing out of me like air in a balloon you forgot to tie.

  “We should talk,” tried Max, but I was already slinging my backpack over my shoulder and hightailing it out of the room. I was nearly free and clear when I collided with Addy and Gray.

  “Hey!” she cried when I tried to push past them without stopping to say hello. “Have you seen my brother? He was supposed to meet us at the car half an hour ago.”

  “He’s in the yearbook room,” I muttered, fixing my eyes on the sidewalk, the tree behind her, the air, anything and everything but her face.

  “Thanks?” said Addy. She grabbed Gray by the arm and turned down the hall toward the room I had left Max in. I could practically read their minds as I watched the two of them lock eyes, in an oh poor Nora expression that made me feel ten times worse about my little outburst in the yearbook room. Why couldn’t I have just shut my mouth and let Max go to prom with Nikki?

  I had picked Andrew. I needed to suck it up and deal with the fact that Max got to choose someone too. The problem was the idea of Max dating anyone now felt like a punishment. Who was I kidding, pretending I was telling him not to go with Nikki to protect him?

  It wasn’t his heart that needed protecting.

  Chapter Twenty

  Max

  The girls decided to get ready at our house because they just loved our house. Maybe because it was the biggest or because our parents were the most laid-back, or it was possible they chose our house because it was the perfect place for optimal Max torture.

  Laughter and Taylor Swift reverberated down the hallway and into my room. I wasn’t coming out until they were gone. I refused to see her in her dress, and I didn’t know if my heart could handle another one of those cryptic looks in her eyes when she stared at me. The only thing worse than being heartbroken was holding onto hope, so I not-so-gracefully resolved to accept that Nora and I would always be Strawberry Shakes and nothing more. We could watch movies, riff on each other, and share all the glorious adolescent memories in the world, but we would never be the kind of Nora and Max that kissed.

  “Where’s your tux?” a voice from my doorway pulled me out of my distracted video game playing. Gotta love my parents’ no-locks-on-the-doors rule. It’s made being a teenage boy in this house oh so wonderful. On top of the fact that Nora never hesitated to barge right in.

  “Uhhh…” I stared at her like a deer in headlights. She was in a silver dress that hugged curves I didn’t even know she had. Instead of her usual pigtail braids, she had one long braid draped over her shoulder, and I could barely make out strands of shiny silver ribbon weaved in.

  “You’re not going, are you?” she asked with her hand on her hip.

  I let out a sneaky smile. “I’d rather sit through another Hashtag Pound Sign concert.”

  She giggled. This was the first time Nora and I truly spoke since that awkward yearbook room encounter a few days ago. I still couldn’t quite wrap my head around her bizarre reaction to the possibility of me going out with Nikki again.

  “Did you just make up the whole Nikki thing?” She stepped into my room and sat quietly on the bed next to me.

  “Actually, no. She did ask me, but I said no. Correction: I said hell-to-the-no.”

  She laughed again. “Good.” The tips of her ears turned a scarlet shade of red as she fiddled with her bright green painted nails. If she was going for hot extraterrestrial, she was nailing it.

  “You really don’t give me enough credit if you think I’d go back out with that girl again. She literally sucked all the fun out of my summer!”

  “Why do you think I got so upset?” she laughed, poking me in the ribs with her elbow.

  “You
did get really upset,” I responded, feeling suddenly uncomfortable. Were we really going to go on with our lives and pretend that crazy jealous Nora didn’t totally rear her head in the yearbook room?

  Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted my sister standing in the doorway. She looked nice in her teal dress. I was glad to see that since she started dating Gray, she had started to fill out a little more and was no longer that sunken cheeked girl she was when trying to impress that douchey ex of hers.

  “Nora,” Addy chimed in gently. “The boys are here.”

  As she stood from my bed, Nora sent me a tight-lipped smile.

  “Have fun,” I beamed, trying fake all the happiness I coud. “You look beautiful,” my mouth uttered without having been filtered through my brain.

  “Thanks,” she stammered.

  As she walked out the door, unspoken words lingered on my lips. Something I just had to say, like I could not let her leave this house unless she knew that I was still the same friend for her.

  “Hey Nora.” I held up my phone as she glanced back. “Strawberry shakes are still on the menu.”

  I expected her to grimace out of secondhand embarrassment. That was by far the cheesiest thing I’d ever said, but when she smiled at me, the real kind of smile that dimpled her cheeks, I knew it was worth it.

  “Thanks, Max,” she answered, tucking a stray hair behind her ear just before she left my room and headed out with the rest of the group for prom.

  Nora

  I was shooting for Shakesperian, a long and loose braid that draped over one shoulder and whispered, still a little bit Nora. But I ended up looking more like Elsa from Frozen, and quite frankly, I felt just about as cold at the center.

  We were parked outside of Giovanni’s Italian Restaurant posing for our four zillionth group photo. It was nice of the driver to humor us, seeing as how photographer wasn’t on the list of services we got to choose from when booking Luxury Limos, but there was no convincing Lucy otherwise. She had Simon in a three piece suit and she fully intended to document every moment of the evening.

  I should have been happier. Andrew looked beyond dapper in his white tux with silver tie and matching vest, but the more photos we took the more obvious it became that everyone was in love but me.

  I had been feeling this way a lot lately, but it was particularly evident tonight with all of the lovey dovey prom glamor amplifying things. Addy and Gray were practically sewn together. If their hands weren’t clasped, then his arm was around her waist, and Lucy and Simon weren’t much better. They kept looking at each with warm, glowing smiles that made me want to gag and pinch their cute little cheeks all at once.

  I knew I couldn’t expect to feel the way those four did. Andrew and I had just started dating. We still had to get to know one another. The thing was, I hadn’t been trying very hard. I smiled when he told stories and texted him back when he messaged me. I even bought him a nerdy boutonniere, with a LEGO Star Wars character as the rose holder, but I didn’t know him. Right now with his hand on the small of my back, and my lips forced into a permanent smile for the camera, I was doing everything I could to not think about how different this night would look if Max were by my side.

  “Alright, enough!” declared Addy. “If I have to stand sideways and suck it in for another photo I am gonna lose it!”

  “We have to feed the beast, guys,” said Gray, leaning in to kiss her cheek. “She’s scary without food.”

  “Just one more,” said Lucy.

  Our driver rolled his eyes.

  “Simon, Gray, and M—” She caught herself, but I felt Andrew stiffen beside me.

  “Boys are excused,” she recovered. “Stooges assemble.”

  Andrew stood to the side looking beyond confused as the three of us got into position.

  Of course our squad couldn’t do the typical Charlie’s Angel pose. We had begun our high school career as The Three Stooges, and we would end it that way.

  Lucy stood in the center, her face twisted into an exaggerated cranky expression as I pretended to give Addy a two fingered eye poke across her chest.

  We were in maximum dork mode. All three of our dates should have been mortified, but Simon’s eyes never strayed from Lucy. I wondered if he was remembering the school assembly last winter, when Lucy made a fool of herself in front of the whole school to show him she cared more about what was going on between the two of them, than she did her perfect image.

  A waiter in a crisp white shirt and black slacks pulled open the front door to the restaurant. “Gray, party of six?” Gray waved at the waiter to let him know we were coming.

  Half of Delinki High School was dining at Giovanni’s. That’s what happened when you lived in a town with only two restaurants that didn’t serve burgers or pizza. I had to restrain myself from smirking when we passed Nikki and her friends all dining stag in the front booth.

  Addy wasn’t as reserved. I watched out of the corner of my eye as she paused at Nikki’s table. “I’m so glad you decided to come anyway,” she said, her voice full of artificial sweetener. “Who needs a date when you’ve got a squad, right?”

  Nikki smiled curtly as Lucy pulled Addy away by the crook of her elbow. “Aren’t you feeling saucy tonight.”

  Addy grinned, “I am the only one who is allowed to treat Max poorly. There are consequences to breaking my baby brother’s heart.”

  I swallowed hard, wondering just how much Addy knew about Max and my feelings for each other.

  We were all smiles at dinner as we each shared stories of high school dances past. Gray told about his junior prom back in Encinitas, when his girlfriend at the time broke her shoe and had to have her mother bring her emergency sewing kit to repair the strap. Simon’s story was a little different. He hadn’t gone to any dances at all. Instead, he stayed home and watched Pretty in Pink with his sister Sam.

  “It was the good brotherly thing to do,” he declared. “When your sister doesn’t have a date to her senior prom, you can’t just leave her home alone to wallow.”

  Lucy sighed, all gross and smitten.

  “What about you, Andrew?” I asked, feeling a little like the worst date in the world. “Who did you take to your senior prom?”

  Andrew laughed “You’re going to find this difficult to believe, but this is my first prom.”

  “No way,” gasped Addy.

  “Yes, way,” said Andrew. “I always wanted to go, but it’s harder to get a girl to take you to a high school dance than you might think when you are homeschooled.”

  “You didn’t tell us he was homeschooled,” said Lucy, looking at me funny.

  I didn’t know what to say. We’d been talking about going to prom together since before the comic-con, but our conversations tended to center around me and not Andrew. I thought it was him being sweet and interested, but maybe it was me never opening the conversation enough for him to share about himself.

  “She didn’t know,” said Andrew, playing it off with a smile, but when our eyes met across the table, I could tell that he was starting to wonder if the two of us were merely puzzle pieces that looked alike, but didn’t fit.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Max

  You know what they say, a watched pot never boils, or in this case—a watched cell phone never rings.

  Why did I say that lame strawberry shakes line to Nora? Why?

  Now, here I sit, a pathetic, heartbroken loser who crushed too hard on his sister’s friend.

  But no more!

  I could not sit around my living room and wait for a text that was never going to come. I couldn’t even play Skyrim anymore; my heart just wasn't in it. I needed to get out of this house and stay as far away from Giovanni’s and Delinki High as possible.

  As luck would have it, I’d spent so much time around Nora and my sister’s little Stooge crew lately that I’d neglected any friends of my own. Besides, most of them were off enjoying our first year of Prom as juniors. Lame.

  I considered the movi
es, but spring releases always sucked.

  I could go buy another video game and drown my sorrows in retail therapy, but the other part of my life that I’d neglected since wasting my life away on Nora was my chores, so I was currently broke as a joke, whatever that meant.

  Let’s see...cheap, distracting, good for drowning sorrows? There was only one place for a poor schmuck like me. Somewhere I could cry into a whole cheesy pie and play a couple hundred rounds of skeeball for less than ten bucks.

  I grabbed my jacket and headed for the door—but not before checking my notifications again. Of course, there was nothing, and I stood in the doorway and stared down at my phone. For a moment, I considered leaving it. Nothing said ‘I’m so over it and not even checking my notifications’ like leaving it at home, but let’s be real. I wouldn’t make it down the driveway without it.

  Instead, I opted for setting it to Do Not Disturb because I had a hot date with empty calories and an old dude whose name was Not Joey.

  “Where you headed, kiddo?” My mom stepped into the hallway with a cozy blanket in one hand and a glass of red in the other.

  “Gonna go to Joey’s Pizzeria,” I answered. “As exciting as your evening looks, I think I’ll opt for arcade games and junk food.”

  She laughed. “Alone?”

  Ouch.

  I could see the concern on her face. My mom had tried to talk me into going to prom stag, but she clearly didn’t realize how much that would have sucked for me. We didn’t exactly talk about my relationships much, and I certainly wasn’t going around announcing that I was in love with my sister’s best friend.

  No, I corrected myself. My best friend.

  “You know,” Mom continued, leaning against the entryway table like she was about to drop some serious mom wisdom. “It’s just a dance. It’s one night, and if it didn’t work out with the person you really wanted to go with, it doesn’t mean you should give up.”