I raise an eyebrow and warily extend my hand. When Zan takes it, Jess whispers, “I still can’t believe she doesn’t know.”
Ness snorts.
Zan holds my hand in both of his and smiles up at me, eyes sparkling like pale emeralds. “Rico Danger,” he says, “wouldst thou grant me the honor of permission to escort thee to the promenade?”
“Escort me to the what?”
Jess: “Blessed mother of God, Rico. He’s asking you to prom.”
“Prom?”
“Yes! As in our senior prom. The thing everyone’s been talking about for the past two months.”
“You’re asking me to prom?”
“Yep,” Zan says.
“And it starts in like five hours, so we should maybe get a move on—”
“Jess, chill,” from Ness.
“Sorry.”
He’s asking me to prom?
“I knew you wouldn’t be into it, which is why I didn’t ask you a month ago,” says Zan. “But let’s be honest: it’s been a rough few weeks, and we both need to have some fun.”
I bite my lip and look down at my hands.
“He’s right,” Mama says. “You’re not allowed to be here tonight, and Señora Alvarez is house-sitting to make sure you don’t go home. Prom’s as good a place to be as any. I’ve got your dress right here.”
“And it’s amazing,” Jess says. “I helped pick it out.”
“From Belle’s Basics?”
“Nope. Nordstrom.” And she smiles like she just shared the best news ever.
Belle’s Basics might’ve meant free. Nordstrom, though?
I look at the garment bag, and then up into Mama’s eyes. A terrifying storm cloud forms overhead—or so it feels. “Mama, may I have a word with you outside?”
She nods.
We go.
I’m boiling now. (Which sucks because I’m supposed to be ecstatic.) “You have to take that dress back,” I say. “We can’t afford it. Especially right now.”
“Don’t do this, Rico.”
“Do what? Actually consider how much debt we’re about to be in? What about work?”
“That’s none of your concern.”
“But, Ma—”
“I get it, Rico. Money is tight.” There are tears in her eyes, and I’m floored. “Life is hard and endlessly unfair, but it’s also short, and you need this, honey.” She holds out the bag. “Please. This one time, let me give it to you.”
I hate her. And this. I hate being in this position. I hate that she put me here just like she put me in this stupid, overpriced town where I can’t “get a good education” because I’m always working. I hate that I didn’t realize my own prom was tonight. And I hate that if I go, I’m basically saying it’s fine that she spent money on this stupid dress instead of putting it toward bills. Rent. Gas. Something linked to keeping us all alive.
I hate that I’m seventeen years old and on the brink of tears because for the first time in my life, I have actual friends, and two of them are about to move away.
I hate that I still feel inadequate and unworthy anytime I look at Zan.
I hate that I even let him get close to me.
I hate that I tried to find that stupid ticket. Maybe if I hadn’t, none of this other stuff would’ve ever happened: Jax wouldn’t be in the hospital because he wouldn’t be sick. Mama wouldn’t be standing here offering me a dress we can’t afford because nobody would’ve asked me to prom. I’d still be invisible, the way I liked it.
“Please, Rico.” She’s crying in earnest.
(“But did you really like it, Rico?” The dress calls to me from within the bag. I wonder what it looks like….)
I stare into the face of a woman who really is trying her best. All things considered, she probably needs this as much as—if not more than—I do.
Because, fine: I do need it.
I sigh. “Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Okay.”
She hands me the dress and pulls me into a hug. “I love you so much, honey.”
“I love you too.”
Blah, too much emotion.
We go back in.
“So how ’bout it, Rico?” from Ness. “You rollin’ with us, or chillin’ in the hospital lobby tonight?”
I look around the room at the expectant faces of the people who obviously care for me way more than I give them credit for.
And I burst into tears.
They dance.
And dance.
And dance, dance, dance.
Even when Rico’s legs strain against my satin lining, burning like she dipped them in Hades’s river of fire, they dance.
And dance.
And dance.
I’m the murky blurple of a dark night and bedazzled all over with tiny Swarovski crystals. So with the low lights and the dark walls and the little strings of light twinkling as they dangle from the ceiling, Rico feels like she’s twirling within a night sky.
And then there’s Alexander Macklin. His arm around Rico’s waist. His hands on her hips (and sometimes her thighs). His chest and stomach against her back and shoulders.
Those arms tighten around her and me from behind, and he leans down to set his chin on her bare shoulder.
She slides a hand around the back of his neck up into his hair, and continues moving her hips.
“I need you to be my girlfriend,” he says right into her ear.
“What?” she counters. My lining is damp now because she’s instantly sweating way more.
“Rico Danger, will you please be my girlfriend?”
Rico stops. Removes his arms. Turns around. Looks over his face. “Why now?”
“Huh?”
She wipes her damp palms against me at the outer thighs (I crinkle in a cringe). He wouldn’t know it, but her heart is racing. “The girlfriend thing.”
People are staring now.
“Oh. I mean…If you don’t want to—”
“That’s not it at all. I just…I dunno.” Questions churn in her belly. Is this what I want? What would it even mean? “I wanna know why.”