by Doty, M.
“Now it’s your turn,” said Kimi. “I’ve got a few ideas already!”
As they walked through the store, Emily pushed a cart that Kimi proceeded to drape with dresses as she updated Emily on her latest dating news.
“Okay, so, to recap. I broke the bad news to Phil on Wednesday. He took it well and said he still wanted to be friends, which, ironically, made him seem pretty sweet. I put it into his spreadsheet, and it gave him a nice little score boost—but not enough to make me regret dumping him.”
“You do realize how crazy you sound, right?” asked Emily.
“Oh, definitely,” said Kimi. “But I’m also the only girl at school guaranteed to have an amazing homecoming date. Present company excluded, of course.”
“Thanks.”
Kimi reached into a sale rack full of random dresses, pulled out a short burgundy one, and threw it onto the cart.
“How did you even see that?” asked Emily.
“I’m a shopping veteran,” said Kimi. “Plus, my mom taught me everything she knows. I’ve got a sixth sense, a sales sense—kind of like Spidey sense. But for shopping. Swimming is your superpower. This is mine.”
“So wait,” said Emily. “If you and Phil broke up—”
“Right! I didn’t finish telling you yet,” said Kimi. “On Thursday, I caught Marcus at his locker and asked him if he’d like to go to homecoming. I talked about how sad I was about the breakup, and how he’d always seemed like a really sweet guy. He said he’d think about it, which basically means yes. Now I’m just waiting for him to call.”
She pulled another dress off the rack and threw it in the cart.
“Okay,” she said. “I think that’s enough to get you started.”
Half an hour later, Emily stood in the dressing room, checking out a long, black sequined gown that Kimi had tossed over the door to her. It sparkled in the overhead lights, even more so when she moved. She turned her body to check herself out in profile. She had to admit, she looked hot. After six hideous, over-the-top dresses that Kimi had gushed over but Emily had loathed, maybe this was the one.
“Okay, Kimi,” she called. “I’m coming out!”
She opened the door, walked outside, and raised her arms.
“Ta-da!” she said. She had to admit, she was actually starting to have fun.
“Oooh,” said Kimi. “Very femme fatale. I could totally picture you slipping some poison into James Bond’s drink.”
“Is that a good thing?”
“It’s definitely hot,” said Kimi, who had gotten up from the bench and was circling Emily to check her out from multiple angles. “I’m just not sure if it’s you.”
“Please don’t tell me I have to try on another dress.” Emily’s patience was nearly exhausted.
“Just one more!” insisted Kimi. “Please, please, please! I think I saw a really good one over on a thirty percent off rack! Go start changing, and I’ll get it for you.”
As Emily sadly walked back into the dressing room and stripped off the black dress, she thought about all of the other things she could be doing with this time: homework, laps, sleeping. That last one sounded pretty nice. She sat on the small seat in the corner of the dressing room and closed her eyes, feeling on the edge of dozing off.
So it was no coincidence that the blue dress’s appearance felt like something out of a dream. Emily opened her eyes to see the shimmering blue fabric sailing over the fitting-room door. It looked almost like a splash of water flying through the air, as if Kimi had tossed a bucketful of it at Emily. But the dress that landed in her arms was indeed real and dry. Seeing it, she felt as she had when she first saw Ben Kale: that it was made for her.
Even before she tried it on, even before she walked out and saw Kimi’s eyes go wide, Emily knew: She had found her dress.
At ten twenty-five that night, Emily stood in front of her closet mirror, holding the dress up to her body and examining it in the light. She imagined Ben looking at her, a big, surprised smile on his face. “You look so beautiful,” said the fantasy Ben. “I’d give anything to kiss a girl as pretty as you.”
She pursed her lips and half contemplated wearing it tonight, before she opened the window and felt the harsh autumn cold blow across her skin. She laid the dress out across her bed and put on her thickest coat. Better to surprise Ben at the dance anyway. A text appeared on her phone: Rdy when u r.
A few minutes later, Emily walked toward Ben’s car. Her head felt like it was full of helium, and as she floated across the sidewalk, she stumbled from time to time. Had she ever been this tired in her life? She had passed the point of mere exhaustion and entered a state of blissful sleep deprivation where everything seemed hilarious. She hoped she wasn’t going crazy.
As she approached Ben, he took her in his arms and spun her around, and a warm spark of happiness filled her chest. In these moments, when she was wrapped up in his arms, she knew that the lack of sleep and constant fear of getting caught were worth it. Because nothing else in her life made her feel like this, not swimming, not even winning races.
“What’s gotten into you?” asked Ben. “You’re, uh, holding me kind of tight.”
“Just don’t let go of me,” she said. “I’m worried I’ll float away.”
And he held her tight until she felt gravity return to normal.
After their usual coffee, he took her to the beach that night. The tide was low and, flashlight in hand, he led her down to look at starfish and sea urchins clinging to rocks in tide pools.
“Here,” he said. “Run your fingers along that one’s back. It feels like sandpaper. Oh, don’t touch that one, though. That one’s poisonous.”
She drew back her hand and looked at him suspiciously.
“How many girlfriends have you gotten killed on dates like this?”
Ben started counting on his fingers, as if trying to add them all up.
“Come on,” she said, drying her hand off on his T-shirt. “What else have you got to show me?”
“Believe me,” he said. “I’m just getting started.”
They followed the rocky coastline down toward a barren cliff face, and Ben shone his flashlight’s beam into a cave’s black mouth.
“There it is,” he said. “No one outside of my family seems to know about this place.”
“Is it safe?” asked Emily.
Ben shrugged.
“Seriously,” she said. “I’m not kidding.”
“I won’t let anything happen to you. You trust me?”
“I trust you.” She took his hand and followed him into the dark. After they’d walked a few steps in, Ben turned off his flashlight.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Just walk where I walk. You’ll understand in a minute.”
As they went deeper into the cave, Emily’s pulse quickened. How well did she even know Ben? What if he was just leading her toward some bottomless pit that he’d push her into? She imagined falling forever, knowing the boy she’d loved had betrayed her. Or what if he’d decided he couldn’t wait for that kiss any longer and was planning to do it here in the dark. Or what if—
“Okay,” he said. “We’re here. Count to three.”
“Three?” she asked.
“Two,” he said. “One.”
He flicked on his flashlight, and the beam shot straight up, illuminating a glittering ceiling of pure amethyst. The purple crystals shot refracted light around the chamber, revealing still more of their glittering cousins.
“It’s—amazing,” said Emily.
Ben held her hands in his. Then he leaned in and kissed her softly on the cheek.
“I’ve never brought a girl here.”
“Ben—I don’t know what to say.”
“You like it?”
She leaned in, kissed him back on the cheek, and smiled.
“I love it.”
She had no idea how long they stood there, under the purple light of the amethysts. She knew only that after a while he
r knees felt stiff and her face grew cold. By the time they got back out, and Emily thought to check the time on her phone, she realized it was 3 AM.
“I’m never going to catch up on sleep,” she said.
“Oh,” said Ben. “I’m sorry. I really am. I forget about your schedule sometimes. Well, maybe I forget on purpose.”
“Don’t apologize,” said Emily. “This was amazing. You’re amazing. I wouldn’t have traded this for a week’s worth of sleep.”
As it turned out, the amethyst cave wasn’t Ben’s final surprise of the night. When they reached Emily’s block and Ben put the car in park, he told Emily he had a present for her.
“Open the glove compartment,” he said.
When she did, Emily found a long box wrapped in silver paper, the kind that might house a necklace or a watch. As she carefully unstuck the tape at one end and slipped a wooden box out of the wrapping paper, she wondered what it could be. It felt too light to be jewelry.
“I just want you to know,” said Ben, “that I wouldn’t have gotten this for anyone but you.”
She opened the box to find…
“A piece of paper!” she said. “Just what I’ve always wanted.”
“Unfold it.”
The paper was a progress report from that day at 3 PM. It listed each of Ben’s classes, along with his current grades.
AP Calculus A
AP English Literature A-
Health A
AP Physics A
Gym B+
AP Government A
“Wait a second,” she said. “Did you hack the school computer system or something?”
He smiled.
“Not this time. I actually studied. These grades are for real.”
Now it was Emily’s turn to smile.
“You’re only getting a B-plus in gym?” she asked.
“I know, I know. I promised I’d get my grades up. But I don’t do laps, Em. I just don’t.”
“So this means—” she started.
“That I’m allowed to participate in school activities again,” he said. “You’ve got yourself a homecoming date.”
As Ben pulled away and Emily walked home, she danced a few steps, pirouetted, and bowed to the street. She was officially going to homecoming with Ben Kale. No matter how tired she was, no matter what happened now, nothing could take that away.
The huge smile on her face quickly fell, though, as she approached her house to find the lights on, including the one in her bedroom. A sick feeling entered her stomach. No, she thought. No. No. No.
She opened her window from the outside, like usual, then climbed up onto the sill and hefted her body over the ledge. Inside, though, she didn’t find her bedroom’s usual welcoming darkness. Instead, she found her parents. She fell in a heap inside at the foot of the window and looked up at her father. He shook with anger.
“Welcome back,” he said. “We’ve got a lot to talk about.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“What are you doing in here?” asked Emily as she got to her feet. She rubbed her tailbone, hoping she hadn’t bruised it.
“What were you doing not in here is the better question,” her dad shouted. “Not that you have to answer. I received an anonymous e-mail earlier today informing me that you’ve been sneaking out at night to see a boy. I didn’t want to believe it. Now I have no choice.”
Emily didn’t have to think too hard to guess the e-mail’s writer. Dominique.
“I was just, uh, training.”
“Training?” her father asked. “Training?! Do you have any idea how much you’ve probably damaged your swimming career? Who even knows how many hours of sleep debt you’ve accumulated. It could take months to undo the physical strain you’ve put on your body—and Quals are coming up on Thursday!”
Meanwhile, Emily’s mother said nothing and looked worriedly back and forth between Emily and her husband. In a way, Emily wished she would say something—the guilty knowledge that she’d made her mom stay up worrying was already starting to gnaw at her. She must have been waiting for hours.
“Well?!” Emily’s dad shouted. “What have you got to say for yourself?”
“Dad, don’t—”
“Call me Coach!”
“But we’re at home.” Emily was shocked. She’d rarely seen her father get this angry.
“I don’t care where we are!”
“Paul,” said Emily’s mom, “you need to calm down.”
“This is between me and my athlete,” said Emily’s dad, turning to her.
“This is between us and our daughter.”
“No,” said Emily, sniffling. “He’s right. This is between us, Mom. Give us a minute.” Her dad’s anger she could deal with, but Emily just couldn’t handle the worried look on her mom’s face right now.
“Fine,” said Emily’s mom as she turned and left. “Fine.”
As soon as she was gone, Emily’s father returned to his tirade.
“The idea that you’d throw away everything I’ve worked for, all for some idiotic, schoolgirl crush—”
Emily wanted to scream at the unfairness of it all. Ben was more than just a crush, and what did her father mean by “everything I’ve worked for”? But what was the point in speaking up? It wasn’t like he would listen.
“Starting tomorrow,” he said, “you’re telling that boy it’s over. I’ll be up all night, figuring out a new schedule for you, and maybe, just maybe, I can get you in good enough shape to make it through Thursday’s Quals.”
“Please,” she said, and she felt hot tears beginning to swell under her eyelids. “Please—”
“Give me your phone,” he said, and Emily, scanning the room, realized he’d already taken her computer. Once the phone was gone, her last link to the outside world would be gone. “Now.”
She dug her cell out of her jeans pocket and handed it to him. After he’d scanned her last few texts, Emily’s father shook his head disgustedly and slipped the phone into his pocket. She wondered if she’d ever see it again. Then he turned, slamming the door behind him. Emily sat on her bed and brought her knees to her chest. It wasn’t until then that she remembered the blue homecoming dress. She’d left it right there on the bed. Now it was gone.
She leaped up and frantically searched the far side of the bed, hoping against hope that it had fallen into the crack between the mattress and the wall. No luck. She pulled off the sheets and quilt. Still nothing. She riffled through her closet—maybe her mother had hung it up. She flipped through the clothes, hoping to toss aside her ugly T-shirts and come up with a handful of soft blue fabric.
No. No. No!
She reached the end of the closet, turned back, and searched the rest of the room one more time before she finally gave up and collapsed into a ball on her barren mattress. In her gut, she already knew it: Her father had taken the dress.
Ancient religions had predicted an apocalypse in 1000 AD. Scientists had warned of massive computer malfunctions in Y2K. Others predicted that the end of the world would come in 2012. For Emily Kessler, the world ended one cold November day.
At least, that’s what it felt like.
The apocalypse began before the first bell even rang. Emily opened her locker, found a bouquet of roses, and turned around to find Ben smiling at her.
“Don’t look so surprised,” he said. “Compared to hacking the school’s computers to switch that newspaper headline, figuring out your locker combination was easy. I was worried when I didn’t hear from you Sunday, so I decided to—”
“It’s very sweet,” she said. “But—”
“But you’re allergic to roses?”
“No.”
“But the color red fills you with inexplicable, boiling rage?”
Why did he have to make this so impossible?
“But I can’t go to the dance with you.”
Now it was Ben’s turn to be surprised.
“You can’t—what?”
“Saturday night when I got hom
e—my dad was waiting up for me.”
“He knows?”
“Everything.”
“Okay,” he said, still smiling. “This is okay. We’ll deal with this. Sneaking around is going to be a little tougher, but I’ve always managed before.”
“Ben,” she said. “No.”
“We’ll make it work. You’ll see. We’ll come up with something. I know we can figure out some ‘class assignment’ for you to do the night of homecoming. I can probably even get you a teacher’s note or something. And then for our weekday dates, we can just play it by ear.”
She shook her head. “You don’t get it. It’s too hard, Ben. I can’t go on like this. Look at me, I’m a wreck. I can’t be with you and still be the person I want to be.”
A small crowd of students was starting to gather as they talked. They watched Emily and Ben and whispered to one another.
“So that’s it?” asked Ben.
“I know I messed up. You worked so hard the last couple of weeks catching up on homework and studying for tests so you could take me to this stupid dance—”
“It’s not stupid,” he said. “I don’t know why I ever said that. The truth is, I really want to take you.”
“Ben, you don’t understand. I can’t.”
“You won’t even try to go with me?”
“I’m sorry,” said Emily, crying softly now. “I never meant to hurt you.”
“Forget it,” said Ben, looking sadder than she’d ever seen him. “I never thought you were the type of person to give up so easily. I guess I was wrong about you.”
As he turned and walked away, Emily stood there stupidly clutching the roses that only a few minutes ago he’d been so happy to give her. Now he’d never give her flowers again.
She looked around to see a dozen sets of eyes watching her.
“What?!” she shouted. “Show’s over! Go tell your friends!”
She shoved the bouquet into a nearby trash can, but it wouldn’t quite go down. She pushed harder and harder, grinding the flowers until a knot of stems and petals protruded from the lid. The roses were a mangled mess, and she looked at them, thinking, That, right there, is my life.
Then she walked to her locker, slammed it shut, and headed off to class.