So she did.
The crowd was still parted, but the mood had turned decidedly toward pitchforks and scarlet ‘A’s. Boys gritted their teeth in anger. Girls literally turned their backs. She saw teachers and parents shaking their heads in disgust. What was she doing here? Why was she wrecking the night for everyone else? Jezebel. Whore. She had made her bed. Who did she think she was? She was going to ruin some poor boy’s life.
Emily had not realized how stifling the air in the gymnasium was until she was safely outside. Nardo was no longer lurking by the doors. Blake had recessed into another shadow. Ricky was wherever she was in times like this, which was to say nowhere useful.
“Emily?”
She turned around, surprised to find Clay. He had followed her out of the gym. Clayton Morrow never followed anyone.
He asked, “What are you doing here?”
“Leaving,” she said. “Go back inside with your friends.”
“Those losers?” His lip was curled. He looked over her shoulder, his eyes following something that was moving too fast to be a human being. He loved watching birds. That was the secret nerd part of Clay. He read Henry James and he loved Edith Wharton and he was making straight ‘A’s in advanced calculus and he couldn’t tell you what a free throw was or how to spiral a football but no one cared because he was so goddamn gorgeous.
Emily asked, “What do you want, Clay?”
“You’re the one who showed up here looking for me.”
She found it odd that Clay had assumed she was here for him. Emily hadn’t expected to find any of them at the prom. She had wanted to mortify the rest of the school for ostracizing her. Frankly, she had hoped that Mr. Lampert, the principal, would call Chief Stilton and have her arrested. Then she’d have to be bailed out and her father would be furious and her mother—
“Crap,” Emily muttered. Maybe this stunt was about her mother after all.
“Emily?” Clay asked. “Come on. Why are you here? What do you want from me?”
He didn’t want an answer. He wanted absolution.
Emily wasn’t his pastor. “Go back inside and enjoy yourself, Clay. Hook up with some cheerleaders. Go to college. Get a great job. Walk through all the doors that are always opened for you. Enjoy the rest of your life.”
“Wait.” His hand rested on her shoulder, a rudder turning her back in his direction. “You’re not being fair.”
She looked into his clear blue eyes. This moment was meaningless to him—an unpleasant interaction that would disappear from his memories like a puff of smoke. In twenty years, Emily would be nothing but a lingering source of uneasiness Clay felt when he opened his mailbox and found an invitation to their high school reunion.
“My life isn’t fair,” she told him. “You’re fine, Clay. You’re always fine. You’re always going to be fine.”
He gave a heavy sigh. “Don’t turn out to be one of those boring, bitter women, Emily. I would really hate that for you.”
“Don’t let Chief Stilton hear about what you’ve been doing behind half-closed doors, Clayton.” She raised herself on her toes so that she could see the fear in his eyes. “I would really hate that for you.”
One hand snaked out and grabbed her by the neck. The other reared back into a fist. Rage darkened his eyes. “You’re going to get yourself killed, you fucking cunt.”
Emily squeezed her eyes closed as she waited for the blow, but all she heard was nervous laughter.
Her eyes slitted open.
Clay released her. He wasn’t stupid enough to hurt her in front of witnesses.
That one will end up in the White House, her father had said the first time he’d met Clay. If he doesn’t end up swinging from a rope.
Emily had dropped her purse when he’d grabbed her. Clay retrieved it, wiping the dirt off the side of the satin clutch. He handed it to her as if he was being chivalrous.
She snatched it out of his hand.
This time, Clay didn’t follow Emily when she walked away. She passed by several clusters of prom-goers in varying shades of pastels and crinoline. Most of them only stopped to gawk at her, but she got a warm smile from Melody Brickel, her one-time friend from band practice, and that meant something.
Emily waited for the light to cross the street. There were no catcalls this time, though another car full of boys did an ominously slow drive-by.
“I will protect you,” she whispered to the small passenger growing inside of her. “No one will ever hurt you. You will always be safe.”
The light finally changed. The sun was dipping down, casting a long shadow at the end of the crosswalk. Emily had always felt comfortable being alone in town, but now, goosebumps prickled her arms. She was uneasy about cutting through the alley between the candy shop and the hot dog shack again. Her feet ached from the punishing walk. Her neck hurt where Clay had grabbed her. Her wrist still throbbed like it was either broken or badly sprained. She shouldn’t have come here. She should’ve stayed home and kept Gram company until the bell rang for dinner.
“Emmie?” It was Blake again, coming out from the darkened entrance of the hot dog shack like a vampire. “Are you okay?”
She felt some of her mettle break. No one ever asked her if she was okay anymore. “I need to get home.”
“Em—” He wasn’t going to let her walk away so easily. “I’m just—are you really okay? Because it’s weird that you’re here. It’s weird that we’re all here, but particularly because, well, your shoes. They seem to be missing.”
They both looked down at her bare feet.
Emily barked a laugh that gonged through her body like the Liberty Bell. She laughed so hard that her stomach hurt. She laughed until she doubled over.
“Emmie?” Blake put his hand on her shoulder. He’d thought that she’d lost her mind. “Should I call your parents or—”
“No.” She stood up, wiping her eyes. “I’m sorry. I just realized that I’m literally barefoot and pregnant.”
Blake reluctantly smiled. “Was that on purpose?”
“No. Yes?”
She honestly didn’t know. Maybe her subconscious was doing weird things. Maybe the baby was controlling her hormones. She would easily believe either explanation because the third option—that she was batshit crazy—would be an unwelcome development.
“I’m sorry,” Blake said, but his apologies always rang hollow because he kept making the same mistakes over and over again. “What I said before. Not before, but way before. I shouldn’t have said … I mean, it was wrong to say …”
She knew exactly what he was talking about. “That I should flush it down the toilet?”
He seemed almost as startled as Emily had been when he’d made the suggestion so many months ago.
“That—yes,” he said. “That’s what I should not have said.”
“No, you shouldn’t have.” Emily felt her throat tighten, because the truth was, the decision had never been hers. Her parents had made it for her. “I need to—”
“Let’s go somewhere and—”
“Shit!” She jerked her injured wrist away from his grasp. Her foot landed awkwardly on an uneven stretch of sidewalk. She started to fall, clutching uselessly at Blake’s tuxedo jacket before her tailbone cracked against the asphalt. The pain was excruciating. She rolled to her side. Something wet trickled between her legs.