The Night of Your Life

by Lydia Sharp

  “You made it,” she says, smiling bigger than she did on any other night.

  “Yeah. Sorry I’m late.”

  “It’s not that late. We’ll just have to be on time instead of early.” Her lips twibble and I don’t have to guess why anymore. That twibble is about her plan for later, about how nervous she is to tell me everything she’s been keeping inside. About her fear of losing our friendship over it if I say no.

  She has absolutely nothing to be afraid of. She just doesn’t know it yet.

  “You look perfect, Lucy. Everything tonight is going to be perfect.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t go that far. Perfection is an unreachable standard.” She’s blushing. I know why she’s blushing this time. In a completely nonsensical situation that shouldn’t even exist, the fourth time living the same night, everything is starting to make sense. “But grazie. And you look good, too,” she adds. “Good color choice. I like it.” Her gaze stays on my eyes for a beat and her lips twibble. Again.

  I was wrong the last two nights. This twibble wasn’t because I was wearing glasses before, or because I had a black eye. The twibble is, and always has been, about her plan for tonight. What that has to do with my eyes, I’m still not sure. But now we’re just … staring at each other like nothing else matters but this moment—and it doesn’t. Nothing else matters. Tonight is all about Lucy. A goofy grin spreads across my face and then she’s smiling, too, and any smile on her is a good one. We could spend the rest of the night right here, just like this, and I wouldn’t care.

  “What, no corsage?” Nico says, reminding me he’s still in the room. Our moment is broken. “Did you forget, coglione, or are you just that cheap?”

  Coglione. I don’t have to know the exact translation of that word to know it’s an insult. Every time I hear it, every nerve in me bristles. Lucy isn’t the only person who has the same effect on me no matter how many times the same thing happens. Why is he such a—

  “I didn’t want one,” Lucy says, then everything plays out exactly as before. I stay out of their sibling spat and try to act surprised when Lucy mentions her dad wants to talk.

  He tells me tonight is special, but not too special.

  He tells me to be patient again, after Lucy interrupts.

  Then he tells me to muoversi. Get moving. He doesn’t have to tell me twice.

  After a quick hug and a grazie, I take Lucy by the hand and out the door. Holding her hand now does things to me that it didn’t before. There are no fewer than fifteen hundred butterflies spastically flitting around in my gut, all because she got me thinking, yes, we can do this. And I wonder if to her, it’s always been that way, every time. Is she feeling the same thing as I am right now? Her body language reveals nothing.

  Part of me wishes she’d told me sooner. We’ve lost so much time, and we have so little left. But if she had admitted all this stuff years ago, would I have had the realization I had last night sooner? That I’d be comfortable giving this a try with her? Or would I have been …

  “Ready?” I say once we’re both buckled up in the car.

  “More than ready. I’ve been looking forward to this night for a very long time.”

  “Me too.” I feign ignorance of her real meaning and start backing out of the driveway. My hands tingle with adrenaline. My whole body feels like it’s about to take flight. “We’re finally here, Lucy. The night of our life.”

  And we’re doing it right this time.

  Something isn’t right.

  As we’re finishing our dry and flavorless chicken cordon bleu dinner, and the music is just getting started, I feel a strange urge to glance at Jenna’s table next to ours—and find her glaring at me, her face taut. She holds my confused gaze locked with her angry one for a moment, letting me know clearly that I’m the one she’s looking at, then she turns her attention back to her friends and laughs at a joke or something. Breezy and light, her default mode. As if the exchange never happened.

  Did it? Was that a glitch? Like when the Taco Bell stain appeared on my shirt, on a night I hadn’t been to Taco Bell. Or is she really mad at me? For what, not picking her up? That didn’t seem to bother her on any other night …

  Though, on the other nights, I was actually running late. Very late. Tonight, I was only a little late, so I ended up arriving here with Lucy right before Autumn’s limo. The limo with Jenna in it. She walked in with Autumn and her friends all coupled up, and Jenna with no one, but holding her head high as they announced her name by itself … and she was fine, I thought … until she saw me.

  Thinking back, it’s obvious. She barely gave me a smile. Based on what she told me the other night, I figured I’m just not that important to her. We’re not even close enough to be called friends. But now I realize—in her mind, I should have gotten here after her, and I got here first, and she doesn’t know it was only a minute before she walked in. She thinks I stood her up.

  Yeah, she’s definitely mad at me. No glitch about it.

  Tonight is about Lucy, though. I made a choice. To put Lucy and what she wants ahead of everything and everyone else. Should I not have? But when I try to please everyone and do it all, it never works out. Except last night, everything was fine.

  Well, no actually, it wasn’t. It was mostly fine. If you don’t count Lucy going outside for half of prom because she was stressed, upset, and worried.

  I don’t know what the right answer is anymore. I’m just guessing in all of this, as well as I can. There’s nothing logical or scientific about relationships, and that puts me wildly out of my area of expertise. And if Jenna is mad at me now for not picking her up, does that mean something bad happened with Melody, since I didn’t wait to see if she was okay until the tow arrived? What if it didn’t show up this time? Now I’m questioning everything.

  “What’s that look for?” Lucy says, then follows my gaze before I can tear it away from Jenna. She grimaces and her brow furrows. She probably thinks I’m pining for her.

  “Lucy, it’s not—”

  “You wanna dance?” Chaz suddenly asks Marcos. He stands and pulls Marcos up by the hand, not giving him a choice. “We should dance now, let’s go dance.” They disappear in the crowd, leaving me and Lucy alone at the table. Just like last night.

  Except it isn’t. Because now I know that Chaz already knows what I know about Lucy.

  What’s worse—that I just had that thought or that it made perfect sense.

  Lucy turns in her seat to face me, and the flickering faux candle on our table gives her face a warm glow. She folds her hands in her lap and her thumbs twiddle. “What’s going on with you and Jenna?”

  This conversation feels too familiar, but I can’t remember exactly how it went before. Or if we were here when we had it or somewhere else.

  “Nothing’s going on with me and Jenna,” I say. “She broke up with Blair.”

  “I heard it was the other way around.”

  My jaw tightens. Because of Blair, not Lucy, but still I snap. “He’s lying. He treated her like garbage and she refused to put up with it. She dumped him. Whatever he said on the student message board was a flat-out lie.”

  She presses her lips together and goes quiet for a moment. Then, “Why are you getting defensive about this?”

  “I’m not.” I shake my head. “It’s just, I feel bad for her, that’s all. He’s a jerk. And Jenna doesn’t deserve that, from anyone.”

  “True,” Lucy agrees. “Jenna’s very sweet.”

  “And there’s nothing more to say about her.” I catch sight of Jenna on the dance floor, having a blast with her friends. This is the part where, last night, I went out there and had a blast with her, too. Now she flicks a glance my way, scowls, rolls her eyes, and moves deeper into the crowd. Whatever, let Jenna be mad at me. It’s not the worst that’s happened on this night, not even close. I’ve still got Lucy; that’s what matters.

  “I’m ready to dance,” I tell Lucy, pushing up out of my chair. “You coming?”

/>   She shakes her head. “I need to let my food settle first. Go ahead.”

  Right. I should have known she would say that. “I can wait with you …” I trail off, my own words triggering a memory of what she’s about to say next.

  “No, it’s fine. Go have fun. Don’t worry about me.”

  Don’t worry about me.

  Screw that. She’s the only person I’m worried about tonight. But she doesn’t want me to hover and she’s not ready to dance. I scan the room, taking in the fairy-tale decorations. The twinkling lights, the gauzy streamers, the blur of colors, the feeling of magic. What can we—

  My eyes land on the photo booth dressed up to look like a castle.

  “Come with me?” I take her hand, tugging her up.

  She doesn’t budge. “I just said I’m not ready to dance.”

  “Not dancing.” I point to the booth. The photographer is currently free, with mostly everyone dancing now or finishing up dinner. “We’ve got pictures to pose for.”

  “We can’t afford those.”

  Improvise. “Well, I didn’t tell you. I’ve been saving up so we could get the really nice ones taken tonight. You know, something both of us could have, as a reminder of the best night of our lives, when we’re …” My chest tightens. “Apart,” I finish. “On opposite sides of the world.”

  A lump forms in my throat, and I swallow it back. Do I want this night to stop repeating? If it doesn’t, we never have to go to that future where we live separate lives. We’ll always be together on prom night. But we’ll also always have to start over, with no guarantee of where it will lead. I don’t want that, either.

  Lucy stands, squeezing my hand for balance as she rises. “This is the best surprise.”

  “That’s me. Full of surprises.”

  “Chaos personified,” she says with a laugh. “But this time it’s a good thing.”

  “That’s a good one,” the balding photographer says, checking the image of our latest photo on his camera. “And that’s your last one, too, unless you want to upgrade your package.”

  Blair and Farah are waiting at the front of the line for pictures, and they both bust out laughing. “You need to upgrade your package, Johnson?” Blair jibes.

  I lift my hand to reply in mime, but Lucy pipes up. “You need to upgrade your brain, Bedford? The one you’re currently using appears to be a Stone Age model.”

  And this is why she’s my best friend. Well, one of the many reasons. Her default mode is to stick up for me.

  She doesn’t even wait to see Blair’s reaction, just grabs my hand and guides me to the dance floor—where we run into Jenna. Literally. Her long blond curls smack me right in the face as she spins around, the same twirling move she was making with me last night.

  “Ack—” I choke. Hair smells much better than it tastes.

  “JJ!” she says, big blue eyes wide. They dart to Lucy, then back to me. “Sorry, I didn’t see you guys there.”

  “It’s okay,” I assure her. “It was my fault. I wasn’t paying attention.”

  “Yeah,” she says. “It was your fault.”

  “Jenna—”

  The thumping fast song ends, easing into something slow and melodic. And too soft to cover this conversation.

  Everyone around us either couples up or disperses, putting a spotlight on the fact Jenna has no partner. “E-excuse me,” she says. “I need a break.” She scuttles past us, all the way to her posse by the drink buffet.

  Last night, this was when I left the dance floor, too, and talked to Lucy at our table. But now we’re both standing here, and I think I should talk to Jenna before we get too far into this night. Before she gets crowned prom queen— Oh. Right. That whole debacle with Blair is going to happen. I completely forgot. I definitely need to talk to Jenna. Now. Then the rest of the night is Lucy’s. Jenna deserves an apology at the very least.

  Chaz and Marcos appear in my side vision, swaying slowly. I grab one of them by the arm—I don’t even know whose arm; they’re dressed like twins tonight—and say, “Can you guys dance with Lucy for a minute? I’ll be right back.”

  “JJ, we can’t do three on a slow dance,” Lucy starts, but I’m already walking away, leaving them to figure it out. Who says you can’t do three, anyway? Maybe it’ll start a trend.

  At the drink buffet, Jenna’s friends go quiet and she sips her punch. I make myself a cup of coffee, down it—ughf, that burns—then repeat the process all over again.

  “Dancing fuel?” Jenna says. “Or do you have big plans to stay up all night?”

  I turn to face her. “Both?”

  “With Lucy.”

  “With Lucy, yeah.” I sigh and lean against the wall by a trash can. Right where I belong, with the garbage. “I’m sorry I didn’t …”

  Pick you up like I promised.

  Explain what’s going on.

  Treat you any better than your ex.

  She waits for me to fill in the blank. Her friends pretend they aren’t listening to us.

  “Can we go somewhere quieter?” I say, even though we’re far from the speakers. “I mean, to talk. Can we talk?”

  Jenna surprises me with a grin, then turns on her heels and exits the gym. Her friends stay put, receiving some silent code from her not to follow, but I didn’t get that message, so I’m right behind her.

  Jenna leads me to an alcove tucked behind a flight of stairs. We’re still near the gym—I can still hear the slow bass beat of the music—but it’s private enough that no one will see us.

  Which is good. Because a guy and girl hiding away like this on prom night has the potential to be easily misunderstood. Very strong potential, very misunderstood. Even if it were me who saw it, I’d assume the worst. Or the best? That would depend on who it is.

  “I just wanted to apologize for flaking out on you tonight. I didn’t mean to, but that’s no excuse. And I’m sorry.”

  “Thank you for admitting that, at least.” She nods. “Most guys wouldn’t.”

  We stand there in awkward silence. I guess that’s my cue to leave.

  “What’s going on, JJ?” she says, making me pause. “This isn’t like you. You seem … off. Is something wrong? Is it—” She pulls in her bottom lip, like a new thought just hit her. “Is it Lucy? Did she have a problem with you and me?”

  Me and her? As in, a couple? I’m not even thinking about that anymore, and I just told Lucy it’s not happening. “No,” I say honestly. “Lucy doesn’t have a problem with you. Really. She thinks you’re great.”

  “And she likes you, too?”

  “She does.” Except she hasn’t confessed that yet, not in that sense. “I mean, she’s my best friend. Of course she likes me.”

  Jenna smiles sweetly. “Right. Duh. Sorry, my head is a little …” She makes a face instead of finishing her sentence, crossing her eyes, sticking out her tongue. Back to the same adorable Jenna. “It’s Blair, you know? I thought I’d be okay tonight, but he’s … Seeing him with Farah, like I don’t matter … like we didn’t have a great thing going until he ruined it. And all the lies he’s telling …” She swallows. “It’s hard.”

  “You seemed to be having a good time.”

  “A good act, more like it.” She twists her mouth.

  “I’m sorry.” I keep repeating that, but I don’t know what else to say. On a different version of tonight, she was back in Blair’s arms. Would she really take him back, after all this? Just because she’s vulnerable and hurting? She’s hurting because of him.

  “Yeah. I’m sorry, too.” Her voice cracks on the last word and she sniffles. When she looks up at me, her eyes are watery, like two ice-blue oceans. The first tear spills quickly, and instinctively, I swipe it away with my thumb. It’s nothing but a kind gesture. But when I start to draw my hand away, she snatches my wrist, pulls me closer to her.

  “JJ …” It’s barely a whisper, her tone somehow both a statement and a question.

  I can sense what might be coming but can�
�t think of a way to stop it without physically removing myself from the situation. Like she said before—sometimes the solution is to take yourself out of the equation. I should step away. But what if I’m wrong? Stepping away would hurt her feelings. She’s been hurt enough.

  Jenna wraps her other arm around me, then releases my wrist and brings that hand up to my neck. Her fingers trail upward and tunnel into my hair as she lays her head on my chest. She sighs and her whole body relaxes against me.

  Is this really happening? She told me she doesn’t want me like this … Maybe I’m taking it the wrong way. Maybe she just needs a comforting hug. That’s probably it. I rest my chin on top of her head and squeeze her back. “It’s gonna be okay, Jenna. You’re strong. You’ll get through this.”

  She tilts her head back, the movement catching me off guard, at the same time my head tips down.

  Our mouths meet, I assume accidentally, but she doesn’t pull away. She uses her hand at my neck to guide us into a more suitable position, and then her lips melt against mine.

  Nope, I wasn’t taking it the wrong way. This is definitely happening. And like a fool I let it. My head swims. It wasn’t that long ago that this was exactly what I’d hoped for with Jenna. But I don’t anymore. Tonight is about Lucy. She’s got it all planned out. She’s going to tell me later—

  I pull back with a gasp, quickly putting an arm’s length of distance between us. My good sense came to me too late. I didn’t signal for her to stop. This is on me. Jenna’s brows wrinkle, darting toward each other, her eyes still watery from before, and I feel like I just kicked a puppy. “Jenna, I—I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have— I’m so sorry. This isn’t what I wanted … with you.”

  Liar.

  But no, I’m not. Right now it’s the truth. Given the choice between Lucy and Jenna, I choose Lucy. I will always choose Lucy.

  “You—” Her breath hitches. “You kissed me back.”

  Did I? God, I don’t even remember. Did I black out?

  No, JJ, you just made a colossal mistake. Because you excel at that. Congrats, buddy.