by Ana Sparks
Then, with my hand on her back, I said, “So come on, Kristin, let’s go inside so that you can have the time of your life. Ignore me if you must; never speak to me again if you think it’s right. But just know this: that a thousand words can never express how sorry I am, and that I will never stop loving you.”
Her blue eyes were bluer with tears, but I wasn’t going to make my move now that she was so vulnerable. No, she deserved better than that. For once, I was going to the right thing.
So, giving her a light kiss on the cheek, I strode away from her side and into the old high school without looking back.
Chapter Seventeen
Kristin
Why on earth did he do that?
I stared at Clark’s back as he walked into our old high school without me. Everything he had just said, everything he had done up until now, none of it added up.
“Kristin, you came?”
At the sound of my sister’s incredulous voice, my shoulders sagged. Once again, it wasn’t even her year and yet here she was, in all her ruby-dressed, fuchsia-nailed glory.
“Hello, Veronica,” I said. She looked me up and down, her thick eyebrows arcing, a malevolent smile making its way onto her deep red lips.
“Now, that isn’t the same dress…”
I lifted my chin to look her in the eye.
“It is.”
She warbled a laugh, and then tilted her head at me like I was the most pitiable thing she’d ever seen.
“Well, let’s hope tonight goes just a bit better.” As her friends joined her, Veronica took a theatrical look around. Her charcoal lined gaze stopping on me, she said, “At any rate, history seems to be repeating itself; Clark is nowhere to be seen!”
As she and her friends swapped snide smiles, I strode past them. Heading for the high school’s rotating doors, I tossed my answer over my shoulder: “Actually, he’s in there now.”
And then I was through the doors and hurrying to my favorite hideout, the single stall girls’ bathroom that was tucked in the corner.
I shut the stall door and sat down on the toilet. Huh, its old gray door even had the same graffiti as it had ten years ago: the same fat purple heart swooped around Nicole and Anatoli, whoever they were. In thick pink scrawl, someone was telling me God was here, while someone else, in a thin black angry slash, was telling them to go fuck themselves. Yes, being in old Grass Valley High like this, sitting here now, it was like being in a time warp. The only problem was that the last thing I wanted to do was go back in time to my high school, where my greatest memory was prom—the night my whole world had come crashing down around me.
I stared dully at the stall door. Really, I had just hurried inside the school to escape Veronica; I still hadn’t made up my mind whether I was actually going to go through with attending this thing. It had been bad enough with the possibility of everyone knowing about the infamy of my virginity auction and remembering my prom humiliation. But now that Veronica was here, with her posse of snobs, did I really want to torture myself by being anywhere near them? And Clark, regardless of what he had said, did I really want to be around him now—the man who perpetually disappointed me?
I opened the stall door. The woman in the mirror was all dressed-up and ready to go, but in reality she was more afraid than the girl who had worn the same dress had been, because she knew better. She had watched the girl get beaten down time and again, she’d watched her be humiliated, betrayed; she’d watched disappointment became the girl’s sad sort of creed. So now, the smart thing was obvious: learn the lesson, leave, save yourself.
I took a deep breath, in then out. Yes, leaving would be easy, it would probably be the smart thing to do. The only problem was that the woman in the mirror, the woman I was, wasn’t only smarter than the girl she’d been—she was braver, too. All the hardships hadn’t just ground her into the ground, no—they had chiseled her, like a fine marble statue, into someone that could withstand pain, that could take risks and live with the consequences, into someone that could do this.
So, I did. I walked out of the bathroom, down the hallway and followed the scrawled signs to the gym. There, I stepped back down memory lane. The gym was decorated with the exact same decorations as it had been for our prom in 2007, transformed into the same silver wonderland. The floor and walls were reflective metallic silver, while the ceiling fluttered with silver streamers. There were even the same mini brownies on the banquet tables.
It looked as though even the same crowd was there too; none of my old friends could be seen, while Veronica and hers were eyeing me with thinly veiled glee. Clark was nowhere to be seen, he had probably left already.
“Well if it isn’t Kristin Blair.”
I turned around to see another one of the last people I wanted to see at the reunion. Gary Vanderchuck looked much the same as he had in high school, with the exception of having more of a beard on his chin, and less hair on his head. He was eyeing me with the same condescension he had at prom.
Yes, history was repeating itself. My instincts had been correct. This had been a terrible, horrible mistake.
I forced a smile, “Hi, Gary,” and then I fled towards the banquet tables in the far corner of the gym. The mini brownies. This time I took five; I had less than high hopes at this point, I had none. So, I flopped onto a wobbly classroom chair with my pathetic bounty and started to dig in. The soundtrack to my latest humiliation was, appropriately, the same music they’d played at prom, the same mockingly upbeat poppy hits.
It was hardly surprisingly when I caught Claude’s lanky still shaggy-haired form making his way to me. However, he didn’t quite make it. He was intercepted by a broader-shouldered form, one wearing a crisp, expensive suit and an easy smile.
“May I have this dance?” Clark asked me, holding out his hand while I gaped at him. His face fell. “You’re still mad aren’t you?”
I glanced to the empty dance floor, the disco ball rotating sadly, and the spotlight flickering on no one. “There’s no one dancing.”
Clark followed my gaze, and then shrugged. His hand still stuck out, he said “Looks like we’ll have to start it.”
I nodded, but didn’t move. Really, Clark wasn’t asking me just for a dance. He was asking me to forgive him, for another chance— another chance for him to let me down. Hadn’t I learned enough?
“Hey, Kristin?” Clark asked.
“Yeah?”
“If you want to reject me, then reject me, but my arm is getting tired and I look pretty ridiculous.”
I glanced around to find many of the gym’s occupants looking our way. Giggling, I rose and took his hand.
“Okay, let’s dance.”
Clark led me to the middle of the dance floor, under the revolving disco ball and multicolored flickering lights. And he put both hands on my waist and I put my hands around his neck and the beat took over from there. It swayed us in a circle, tapped our feet in time, even our smiles were rhythmic.
Clark smelled really good, a musky scent I vaguely remembered, although I had never actively noticed it before. As we swayed there together, glancing in each other’s eyes, all I felt for this man was jumbled about—attraction, affection, resentment, love. Yes, as one song gave way into the next, as he gazed at me with adoring eyes, as his words back in the limo replayed in my head, I knew. There was no denying it anymore. I loved him.
At some point, I wrested my gaze from his to see that the dance floor was now full of rotating couples. Clark and I hadn’t only started the dance floor, we had made it.
Clark turned my head to face his. “What are you thinking?”
I gazed into his eyes, his insistent, eager, caring brown eyes and felt the words bubbling up my throat. The I love you that would ruin everything, that would throw me into pain once more, that couldn’t be said.
“I think I need a break,” I said, extricating myself from his embrace and walking off the dance floor. As I made my way back to my chair, I noticed a table with sheets of paper
on it.
“What’s this for?” I asked the woman behind the desk.
“The prom king and queen!” she trilled and I felt my heart drop.
Not this again.
As I turned away, Clark joined me.
“Kristin, what’s the matter?”
I looked up at him and shook my head.
“They’re voting for the prom kind and queen. They’re doing it again.”
Clark shot me a puzzled look.
“And that’s a bad thing?”
Tears pricked my eyes, but I would not let them escape. I turned away, addressed my frustration to my shaking hands.
“Are you kidding me? You think that I want to be reminded, that I want everyone to be reminded of my humiliation?”
Silence, then Clark took my arm.
“Damn, Kristin, I’m sorry.”
I paused there, feeling myself give in to his grasp, his sympathy, his affection. But then my gaze caught a girl at the edge of the gym, a girl on a wobbly classroom chair, eating some brownies to avoid the pain, a girl who looked like I had that night.
I wrenched my arm away. “I’m sorry, I can’t do this.”
As I walked away, he followed me. “Kristin, please, just—”
“No, Clark, I’m sorry. It’s just been too much. I can’t trust you anymore. Please leave me alone or I’m going to have to leave.”
As I walked away to the chairs in the corner, the most ridiculous thing was that some part of me wished that he had followed me.
It didn’t matter now, though. I was back at my old seat; in my haste I had even left a mini brownie on my plate. As I ate, the music died down and those on the dance floor dispersed. A minute or so later, our old principal, Mr. Hartery, hobbled to the stage.
Into the microphone, his wobbly voice said, “Okay folks, I hope you’re enjoying the reunion so far. I know I sure am. Now, our organizers thought it would be a nice idea for everyone to vote for the prom king and queen, just for old time’s sake. But first, a word from our organizer and sponsor, without whom none of this would have been possible. Let’s hear it for Grass Valley’s own Clark Denton!”
As the gym erupted in applause, I gaped at the far-off suited figure that strode proudly to the stage and up to the microphone. Under the spotlight, he was so handsome that it almost hurt to look at him.
“Thank you, everyone,” he said, “I never made it to prom, so for me, I have to admit the whole prom king and queen thing was pretty selfish. Even my own high school graduation—I never made it to that either. I guess I wanted to do this to make up for everything I missed—or at least try to. So, you shouldn’t really be clapping for me. You should be clapping for yourselves, that you weren’t stupid enough to miss out the things that mattered, so that you were years later forced to have a high school reunion to have them.”
There was a smattering of laughter, and then he continued, “In all seriousness, the other reason I organized this reunion was community. These days, no matter where you are, we’re getting busier and more loaded down than ever, with less time for our friends and family and just having some good old-fashioned fun. So, I thought this would be a nice way to combat that—not just for me, but for everyone.”
As more applause rumbled through the room, Clark paused, and then scanned the crowd. His eyes seemed to stop on me, but I was probably imagining it; he was probably searching out his next conquest.
“The main reason I held this reunion,” he was saying, “I will reveal in a few minutes. But first,” he held up a silver envelope, “let’s give it up for the prom king and queen nominees. Everyone whose name is called, please come to the stage.”
After the applause had died down, Clark began reading off names: “We have Veronica Blair and Gary Vanderchuck.”
I had to stifle a laugh as the two most conceited people in the room strode up to the stage, smiling and waving to nobody. Maybe Veronica had had something with Gary and that explained some of her resentment of me back then.
“We have Lisa Connery and Devin Davedos.” More applause, as a blonde girl from my grade 11 science class strode to the stage with a chubby man I didn’t recognize.
“Then we have Stella McCarr and Paul Prescott.” Another couple I remembered from high school, looking as in love as always, glided up to the stage. With their rosy happy faces and clasped hands, there was no doubt who would be the winners tonight.
But Clark wasn’t quite done yet; he was reading off the last nominated couple: “And then we have Kristin Blair and,” he chuckled, “me.”
A stunned silence followed his words, and then the gym burst into murmurs and broken applause. I was frozen to my seat, wishing I could sink into it or at least hide under it. But there was no escaping the roving spotlight, or Clark’s own insistent voice in the microphone:
“Now, we’re just waiting on Kristin Blair. Kristin, wherever you are…” He sounded worried and he should be—I was wavering between just striding out of the gym and into the night air, away from the school, away from everything.
But instead, my legs were carrying me towards the stage. Before I knew it, I was striding up the steps and Clark was grasping my hand.
Out of the corner of my mouth, not looking at him, I whispered, “You planned this?”
“How else was I supposed to get you to see me?” his whisper came back.
“And now you’ve even rigged the votes too, I presume?”
“Hey,” Clark turned to face me, “Do you really have such low expectations of me? I may have organized this whole thing, but I let people vote how they wanted to. Stella and Paul will probably win.”
“Since our organizer turned out to be one of the nominees,” Mr. Hartery said, chuckling, “I will read out the winners.”
Taking the silver envelope from Clark, he opened it, his little blue eyes lighting up, and announced, “And the winners, your prom king and queen, are…Clark Denton and Kristin Blair!”
Another shocked silence, then an eruption of applause, and a thunderous roar filling the gym, reverberating through my head. It was a good thing Clark took my hand and led me to the microphone, because I would have been rooted to the spot with shock.
“Thanks everyone for this,” Clark was saying, “It really means a lot to Kristin—and especially to me.”
He lifted our clasped hands, and then it was my turn to speak. The only problem was that I was utterly speechless. Sweat was running down my spine, something between a hysterical laugh and a whoop of joy was bubbling in my chest and I was afraid which would come out.
“Can I say something too?” Clark was saying. “It’s about Kristin and I. It’s meant for her but the rest of you are going to have to come along for the ride.”
Clark took the microphone in his hand and turned to me.
“Kristin, ten years ago, I was the reason that your prom night was ruined, and the reason you never got to be crowned prom queen. And you really, truly should have been. You should have been crowned prom queen because you were a good person—you brought everyone around you up. That was one of the things I always loved most about you—your kind and giving heart; one that never stopped seeing the best in people. I used to be one of those people, until I failed you worse than I could have feared failing anyone.”
This time I couldn’t stop the tears from spilling down my cheeks, but Clark just kept talking.
“That night, I failed you in a way that was unforgivable; and so, I don’t blame you for not forgiving me. What followed for both of us was in part due to that very mistake of mine, you lived your life under the shadow of it, while I lived my life in the cycle of it—perpetuating the mistake time and again, choosing work over my family, my friends, my life more and more as time went on.
So now I’m here, tonight, to say: fuck it. Fuck work and fuck anything that gets in the way of you and I being together, Kristin. And I know this is ridiculous and I really shouldn’t be saying it on a stage where over a hundred people can witness me crash and burn, but h
ere it is: I love you, Kristin Blair. I love you with your freckled nose and your kind blue eyes and the kindest heart I know. I love your forgiving heart and open mind and, I guess what I’m trying to say is, that if you don’t give me one last chance to make it up to you, to be there for you in all the ways I should’ve been, then I don’t know what I’ll do with myself. Because I love you. Call me a fool and show me all the mistakes I’ve made—and I’ve made a lot—but I love you. I love you with all my heart and soul, with everything that I am and everything that I’m going to be. I love you.”
This stunned silence stretched out, and I waited with the crowd, my heart so full it could burst, my eyes streaming with the tears I failed to hold back. Suddenly, it occurred to me just what everyone was waiting for—me. Clark, tears in his eyes, his hand with the microphone outstretched to my lips, the crowd with their heads angled up towards me, they were all waiting. Waiting for my answer.
I took the microphone, breathed in and out.
“I…” I started, just as Clark’s phone rang. He froze, his face falling.
Our eyes met. Together, we grabbed the black little thing and, in one great toss, threw it as far as it would go. It landed on the floor with a sickening crunch. As we laughed, I lifted the microphone to my lips.
“I say yes.”
Now the crowd was roaring its approval once more and Clark took my face in his hands and kissed me. Everything went silent, and all there was were those soft, loving lips pressing to mine. And then it was over and the crowd was still clapping and Clark was tugging me away, but I wasn’t finished yet. No, now, I finally had something to say. I turned to Clark and began to speak.
“It’s funny how your life can change in a split second. Clark, my darling, Clark. I hated you for a very long time. The last time I was wearing this dress, I had a very different prom experience; in fact, that night was the worst night of my life. I was humiliated, betrayed, hurt beyond all reason. And while it was certainly unfair, it was equally unfair of me to accuse you of ruining my life.