But he isn’t there anymore. I don’t know when he left. Maybe it was a long time ago.
THIRTY-TWO
THE ROOM IS beautiful. It’s everything you’d expect in an old hotel—dark wooden beams crisscrossing the ceiling, a red carpet and plush armchair, a fireplace with a coat of arms over it like we’re no longer in Vermont but in some European castle far, far away. Best of all (though it doesn’t feel that way right now) there’s a giant four-poster bed.
Dean heads directly for the bed, pulling me with him. The sheets feel like they’re made of butter, like you could melt into them. It’s like we’re in a movie—this is exactly the moment I wanted it to be. It’s exactly the right time.
I feel like I’m going to throw up.
Dean kisses me and I kiss him back but then pull away and slide a few feet away from him, so there’s a respectable space between us on the bed.
“Thanks for coming with me tonight,” I say, because I need to fill the silence.
“No problem,” he says. Then he breaks into a smile and I can see the joke forming behind his eyes. “I’ll come with you all night.”
I try to laugh, but I feel a bit dizzy and the sound doesn’t come out quite right. I can still hear the thumping bass of the music coming from downstairs, but everything is muffled. Dean reaches over and takes my hand in his and I remember when that feeling, his skin on mine, was the most wonderful feeling in the world. I want that feeling back.
“Are you having a good time?” I ask, trying to stall.
“I’m having a good time now,” he says. “Now that we’re alone.” He tucks a strand of hair behind my ear, resting his warm palm against my cheek. “This is what prom is about, isn’t it? You and me? It’s not about that other shit. That other shit is what we have to deal with to get to this.”
“That other shit—those are my friends.”
“Are they, Keely? Are you sure? You’re better than that.”
Sometimes it feels like Dean is telling me things he wants to be true, not things that actually are. What makes me any better than the other girls at school? Why me, Dean? Is it just because I’m a challenge?
An image flashes through my mind of Andrew and Danielle dancing downstairs, wrapped up in each other, his hands gripping her like he’s scared she’ll float away. That’s what Andrew wants. So this is what I want. It has to be.
And maybe it’s better like this. I wanted to get my first time out of the way with someone I didn’t have feelings for. Now here we are. The girls who have it right are the ones like Ava—who sleep with whoever they want just because they want to. You can’t shame girls for liking sex just because you don’t, Andrew said to me once. And he’s wrong, because I can like casual sex too. So what if he’s about to have a moment, if he waited for the girl he loves? I’ve waited long enough.
Dean uses our clasped hands to pull me closer on the bed and I let him, leaning over to kiss him like it’s everything that I want. His breath tastes like champagne and risotto, and the smell of his aftershave wraps me up. I’m trying to find the feeling I once had while kissing him—trying to find the swoop in my stomach. But it isn’t there. His tongue is just a tongue—slimy and wet. The stubble on his face feels scratchy against my cheek.
It’s funny how things work out, how everything flipped upside down and in the end I still got what I wanted: sex with a guy that didn’t have to mean anything at all. It turns out the Plan wasn’t such a bad idea after all; I just had the wrong guy in mind to do it.
Dean deepens the kiss and pulls me against him, threading his hand through my hair and pulling just a bit, just enough that I know he’s into this. My eyes are closed and I let myself pretend for just a moment that he’s Andrew instead, let myself envision the honey color of his hair, his smattering of freckles, his green eyes. I haven’t kissed Andrew since I realized I love him, and I get light-headed at the thought of it.
Dean moves his hand down the side of my neck and then to the zipper at my back, trying to get it loose. I reach back and help him, because I want this too. I slide down the zipper and then stand up so he can peel the green dress off me. We leave it in a pool on the floor. Dean unbuttons and takes off his shirt and undershirt, and then I’m looking right at the tan muscles of his chest and they’re mine if I want them, and I do. I run my hands down him, and he sucks in a sharp breath as I reach the V of muscle above his belt. He’s so beautiful—his dark eyelashes, the hard edges of his cheekbones. I could cry because I should want this so much—anyone would want this.
I wonder if Andrew and Danielle have left the ballroom yet, if they’ve wandered up to their own room, their own four-poster bed. I can see him now—pulling her down the hallway, both of them giddy and laughing. He’s pushing her up against the wall because he can’t wait until they get to the room. Andrew always did like kissing girls against the wall. I’ve seen him do it so many times at so many parties, so why wouldn’t he be doing that now?
I can see him fumbling with the key to the room, Danielle clucking impatiently, then taking it herself, opening the door and pulling him into the dark, stripping off the layers of his clothes until he’s all skin.
I reach for Dean’s belt buckle and work it open and then he lifts his hips and pulls down his pants, kicking them into some corner of the room. Once they’re off and we’re in just our underwear, he rolls his body onto mine and lies down, pressing me into the mattress.
My mind flashes to the last time I was in this position, a boy on top of me pressing me into a mattress strewn with flowers; how I felt more alive than I ever expected to feel with a boy who was just a friend, only a friend.
Dean reaches out toward my underwear and I pull away from him.
“Let me get a condom.” I sit up, feeling light-headed at the rush of it, and bend over to find my purse.
“You brought a condom?” he asks.
I reach into my purse and rummage around, cursing myself for not cleaning the junk out of it before I took it to prom. It’s still littered with old tissues, gum wrappers, and ticket stubs from movies I went to see months ago, and somehow the condom has gotten lost in the mess.
“If you can’t find it, no biggie,” Dean says. “I’ve got a bunch.”
“I’ve got it.” I dump the purse upside down onto the bed, and everything tumbles out, a tube of lipstick that my mom made me bring, my phone, a cracked pair of sunglasses, and the little square wrapper. I reach out for it but my hand stops on something else—a white cardboard square, rough around the edges. I flip it over and my breath hitches. It’s a card, one I don’t remember getting, one I must have been carrying around in my bag and never noticed. It has a Ninja Turtle drawn on it in Sharpie, a bunch of silly cartoon hearts. And then, in Andrew’s scratchy writing: Happy Birthday. I love you more than pizza.