She giggles. “Fair. But prom is totally not just about dates. It’s about your friends and your class and having this, like, beautiful time together before you all go out into the world to do your own stuff. My favorite prom memory from last year is actually when you and me and Sof and Mariana somehow all squished into the photo booth thing at the same time while the photographer guy kept yelling ‘ladies, be mindful!!’”
The memory catches me by surprise and I burst into laughter. “I forgot about that.”
“That was way better than anything with Matty,” she says. “So you have to come. We have to take that photo again, right?”
“Kat . . . I just don’t want to go, OK? It’s too hard.”
She doesn’t say anything.
“I’ll still help you find a dress, though,” I say.
“Well, duh, you will.”
We’re quieter than usual during the rest of our drive, and then while we’re looking through racks of dresses at Bloomingdale’s that we can’t afford.
“Imagine actually having nine hundred dollars to buy a bright green floor-length dress,” I say, not only to break the silence but also not not because of that, either.
“Right? Like, I guess people come here for serious but I cannot imagine it.” She reaches out to touch a filmy pink dress that I can tell would be perfect for her. The thing about Kat is that if I had a spare thousand dollars I’d just buy the dress for her. I feel like almost anyone would.
“What’s Quinn wearing?” I ask, because there’s no way Quinn Morgan is wearing a dress to prom, prom couple or not.
“She won’t tell me! I told her she has to tell me something so we won’t clash, so she said I should tell her instead, and she’ll make sure we don’t clash. Quinn can be tricky. Oh! Speaking of.”
“Quinn’s trickiness?”
Kat giggles. “I know that Gretchen’s on your team, but since you don’t have all the same friends or whatever, feel free to tell your other T&F teammates to vote for me and Quinn for prom couple.”
“I’m sure they’ll see your posters,” I say.
“Yeah, but sometimes you just need, like, that personal touch.”
I watch her for a moment. “You really want to win.”
“No, whatever happens is fine,” she says very quickly. “I just want to make sure people know they can help make history if they want to.”
We go back to looking at overpriced dresses, as I try to put Kat’s words out of my head. Of course, I know that she cares about Quinn, and of course this is a matter of equality. But something gives me the feeling that she’d be asking me to talk to my teammates if it were still her and Matty, or her and a different boy. If making history had nothing to do with anything.
“Should we go somewhere you can actually afford to buy something?” I ask, though, instead of any real question I have.
“Probably so. Sometimes it’s fun to dream of the stuff I’d buy if I were rich.” Kat’s eyes widen and she flies across the section to grab something off of the clearance rack. It’s a deep blue dress with very clean and simple lines.
“That doesn’t look like you,” I say.
“Duh, for you. It’s on clearance, and it would be perfect.”
“We literally just went over this,” I say.
“No, I know, but how perfect is this? It’s, like, the Jamesiest dress that ever Jamesed.” She giggles at her own joke. “Just try it on, right?”
“Even if I was going, I couldn’t afford a dress here.”
She checks the tag. “It’s not too bad. Just try it on.”
I can’t say no with her pleading eyes watching me, so I head into a fitting room and change my jeans and T-shirt for the silky dress. Oh, god. If Mom hadn’t left us and if I hadn’t had to leave Logan, this would be it. The dress is actually tall enough for me, and I look strong and tough even in this delicate fabric. This is exactly how I would have wanted to look at prom.
“I’m dying to see,” Kat says, slipping into the fitting room. “James. OMG.”
“It’s perfect,” I say, trying not to cry.
“It’s totally solved, then,” she says. “You’re going to prom and you’re going to look like a freaking bombshell and it’s going to be the best night ever.”
“I still don’t—”
“Here.” She pulls something out of her purse and jams it into my hand. I see that it’s a few wadded-up twenty-dollar bills. “Dad gave me, like, more than enough. You have to get this. Like, it’s imperative.”
Kat might have been shopping for the rich version of herself here, and now I’m wearing a dress for a version of myself who had a different senior year.
And I can’t explain why, but I let myself buy that version of me the dress anyway.
Logan texts me a few days later. Our communication has grown more sporadic, and I don’t have a word for the emotion his name on my phone’s screen makes me feel. Somewhere in between annoyed and relieved and nauseated. Kat would say all the feels.
Logan never talks like it’s all over; I can tell from his words that I somehow still take up the same place in his heart. I wonder if I still would if he knew what actually happened.
They probably know best, I text, instead of the truth. I’m not sure why it seems less embarrassing.
And then:
I cry as I type. I can’t remember the last time I let myself.
How is the right way to phrase “no” to mean yes? Or is it the other way around?
I leave my phone in my room and walk down the hallway to the kitchen, where Dad’s poring over a cookbook. “What are you making?”
“I was thinking about burrito bowls. I roasted some mango to help tell a really interesting taste story.”
I grin at him. “Dad.”
“People don’t think about it, but that’s what we all want,” he says. “Anyway, you’re in training. You need the carbs and protein.”
“You always say that.”
“Well, it’s always the case.” Dad watches me. “You OK, kiddo?”
I shrug. “None of us are OK, are we?”
He sighs loudly while taking ingredients out of the refrigerator. “James, I’m not going to pretend things have been going amazingly for me, and . . . it’s a hard thing to explain, but I understand your mom’s point of view. We were so young when we met, and . . . people can change. I genuinely want her to be happy. And . . . you know, she wasn’t.”
“Shouldn’t she have tried harder?” I ask. “If something’s already been decided, shouldn’t you try to stick to that decision?”
“She tried, James,” Dad says. “Maybe she should have tried harder. Maybe I should have. But none of that matters now.”
I shrugged.
“I know how upset you are. You’re allowed to act like it. Get it out of your system.”
“My system’s fine,” I say.
“I probably didn’t act the way I should have,” he says. “At first. I don’t want any of what I went through personally to affect your relationship with your mom.”