It’s just like the valentine he sent to Danielle so many years ago, back in middle school. The one she didn’t understand. What is this doing here? When did he slip it into my bag? Why hasn’t he said anything? Did he make this for me?
“Did you find it?” Dean asks, coming up behind me and resting his head on my shoulder. “What are you looking at?”
“It’s nothing,” I say, closing my hand around the card. I don’t want him to see it, because even if I don’t understand it, it’s wonderful and private and mine.
I love you more than pizza.
It doesn’t add up—none of it makes sense. Danielle doesn’t like Ninja Turtles, or pizza, or climbing trees, or riding her bike. She doesn’t like skating on the lake in the winter, sledding down the big hill at turbo speed. She’s not the one Andrew calls when he’s upset, not the one he lies with in the hammock in his backyard, looking up at the stars. Maybe she’s the one he kissed at a New Year’s party, but she’s not the one he made sure to spend the night with, not the one whose room he ended up in. The pieces don’t fit. I can’t forget the way he looked at me when he told me he was in love, the way he held my hand, how I thought for that brief moment that maybe he was going to say my name.
“I have to go,” I say, stuffing everything back into my bag. I stand up and step into the circle that my dress has made on the floor, pulling it up and over me so quickly that I’m already dressed before Dean makes a move to stop me. If there’s a chance—if there’s one small chance Andrew could love me back, how can I possibly go through tonight without finding out?
“What the fuck?” Dean says, springing off the bed.
“I have to go,” I repeat, heading toward the door.
“You can’t just leave,” he says. “You promised.”
“Well, I changed my mind,” I say.
“You can’t do that,” he says.
“Actually,” I say, hand on the doorknob, “I can do whatever the hell I want.”
“That’s bullshit,” he says.
“This whole thing is bullshit,” I say, the truth of it making me laugh. “You and your pretentious shirts, and your motorcycle, and your movie references. It’s like you’re not even a real person. You’re just trying so hard to be this cool guy. Well, I don’t want someone cool! I want . . .” I think back to what Hannah said to me in the dressing room. “I want someone whose weirdness matches my weirdness!” I throw open the door and then stop suddenly, filled with the need to tell him the truth. “And just for the record, I am a virgin.”
And then I’m running out of the room and to the elevator. Because I need to find him. I need to ask him about this card—need to find out if it’s a mistake, if it’s a joke, if it means nothing at all. I’ve been so in my head, so close to the situation that I haven’t been able to grasp the cold, hard truth until now. Because the truth is: I don’t want to have sex with Dean.
As soon as I think it, I feel suddenly free, like a heavy weight has been lifted off my shoulders and I might just float away. I always thought Dean was out of my league, that I had to pretend to be a better version of myself to impress him. But the realization that comes to me suddenly makes me laugh with relief: Dean isn’t too good for me. I’m too good for Dean. I don’t want a guy I can’t be myself with; who made me so insecure I felt like I had to tell a lie.
And I can still be the adventurous Keely—the one who breaks the rules, who drinks whiskey and rides on the backs of motorcycles—without him. I just have to let go, to learn to take a risk, to tell Andrew how I feel before it’s too late.
It’s not a race, Andrew said, and he’s right.
Except right now, as I careen out of the elevator and run through the lobby to find him, it kind of is.
THIRTY-THREE
I DIAL ANDREW’S number, but he doesn’t answer. Either he’s still in the ballroom and the music is too loud, or he’s with Danielle and he’s ignoring me. When I run through the double oak doors, past the fallen cardboard waves and the broken bubble machine, I realize the ballroom is mostly empty. I might be too late.
There are a few teachers standing over by the DJ booth, helping put everything away, some couples sitting down at the tables, their shoes in their hands. Abby Feliciano is on the side of the stage, crying about something. Jarrod Price is at the buffet table, picking at a tray of chicken. But that’s it. I don’t see any of my friends.
I check my phone. It’s 11:30. It makes sense that most people would have left.
I turn around and head back to the lobby, calling Andrew once more for good measure as I approach the front desk. Again, he doesn’t answer.
“I need some information about one of the guests here,” I say to the concierge.
He’s a middle-aged guy, purple bags under his eyes, and he looks at me with a blank, uninterested expression. “We don’t give out any information about guests.”
“I just need the room number,” I explain. “My friends are staying in one of the rooms and I can’t find them.”
“Are you a relative?”
“No, but—” I say, and he stops me.
“Then I can’t give you anything.”
“I’m basically a relative,” I say, knowing he won’t understand, that he doesn’t know the intricacies of the Reed and Collins families: our history. “It’s an emergency,” I say again. “Please.”
“A prom emergency?” he asks, raising an eyebrow and looking me up and down.
This isn’t how this is supposed to work. In movies, once you realize you’re in love, you just hop in a taxi and race through traffic and get to the airport right in time—the power of true love and all that. I’m not supposed to be held up by a concierge. What if I don’t get ahold of him at all? Or worse, what if I find him and it doesn’t go the way I’m hoping, praying, that it does? I know he might love Danielle, that he might still want to be with her and I could be interrupting. But our friendship has already been ruined. If there’s any chance at all he might feel the same way that I do, I have to tell him. It’s what a Gryffindor would do.
I spin away, heading back in the direction of the elevators. Fine. If no one will tell me any of the information I need, I’ll just have to find him myself.
The elevator doors ding open in front of me. There are twelve floors—twelve shiny gold buttons taunting me. He could be on any of them. I curse myself for not checking ahead of time where they were staying, for trying to act like I didn’t care, as if asking any questions might give away my feelings. The elevator gets impatient with me and the doors close again and then reopen, reminding me I’m supposed to push a button or get the hell out. I sigh and go back into the hallway. If only there were some way to get him to leave the room—to force him to come back downstairs and away from Danielle. But there’s not really anything that could possibly pull any teenage boy away from sex, especially sex with Danielle Oliver; probably only threat of death or fire.