Marc: Nice dress. Go find someone else to take you.
Me: No, it’s fine. I’ll just stay home. I mean, who cares about prom anyway?
Marc: No one.
Me: You’ve left me with no choice…I’m calling in the big guns.
1 week later
Group Chat
Ashleigh
George: Marc, why won’t you take Ashleigh to the prom?
Marc: Stay out of this, George.
Me: George, see how awful he’s being? Everything I did for him for all those years.
George: She was there for you at every soccer game. For every win, but more importantly, for every loss.
Marc: We lost, like, twice in my four years of high school.
George: And she was there for you. One prom doesn’t seem like a lot to ask in return.
Marc: FINE! I’ll take her. But I’m not buying her flowers or staying longer than one hour.
Me: Happy dance! Thanks, George. Marc, no screwing this up. This is important to me. It might be my one normal high school event.
Prom Night
Ashleigh
I stood barefoot in the living room in my dress. The shoes were Vuitton and were going to kill my feet, so I was waiting until the last possible minute to put them on. Just like I’d waited for the last possible moment to put my dress on.
I’d bought two dresses. One I showed my dad, the other I wore tonight. It was a simple, black strapless one that scooped low around my back and fit every curve tightly enough to make me breathe shallow.
My hair was done. My makeup was done. I was so ready.
I checked my phone and it was after seven o’clock. Technically, the event started at seven, but that didn’t mean we had to be on time. Still, he should have been home by now.
Marc had a morning class and he told me he would leave right after that so he would have plenty of time to get here and change into his suit. Only, as of one minute ago, Marc still hadn’t arrived at the carriage house, according to George.
I think George was getting worried. For me or for Marc, I wasn’t sure which.
Marc wasn’t answering texts or his phone. He was twenty minutes late. While I thought a miracle might happen and he would walk through the door any moment now, by eight o’clock I had to accept the facts.
He wasn’t coming.
It sort of sounded right. Marc telling me he would go, then pulling the rug out from under me at the last minute. Except we’d been different since last summer. He had been trying to treat me like I knew how he felt about me.
I wasn’t under any delusions. I didn’t think he was going to see me in my fancy dress and makeup and decide this would be the night we were going to change everything. This was going to be the night he would make love to me.
But I thought we were going to dance. And laugh. I would have a night I could remember. The night Marc took me to prom.
Except he wasn’t going to do that. He was standing me up instead.
I contorted myself in a way to bend down and pick up my shoes, then began the long walk up the stairs to take off the dress and makeup Marc would never see.
The front door opened, and, for a second, I thought everything was going to be okay. Until my father stumbled through the door. It was Friday night. He never came back from the city on Friday nights!
I watched him stumble forward and I dropped my shoes on the stairs and rushed to him to see if he was in pain or hurt. Or possibly having a heart attack.
“Daddy? Are you okay?”
Then he straightened and looked at me. I could see his face was flushed red. Could see his eyes were glassy. I watched his confusion at my appearance turn into anger.
“What the fuck are you wearing?”
I blinked. In my whole life I’d never heard my father swear. He called language like that coarse and classless. Underneath the cursing was the slurring.
He was very drunk.
“I…ah…it was supposed to be prom…but…”
Then with a sudden charge, he rushed toward me, lifted his hand high, and brought it down hard against my face.
I fell to the floor. From the power of the blow certainly, but also because my legs gave out with shock and surprise.
Cupping my face, I felt the throbbing along my cheek and tried to swallow the tears that had immediately sprung to my eyes.
“Go to your room and take off that slut dress. NOW!”
I wasn’t going to be able to stand. I was shaking too hard. My father had never laid a hand on me. He’d been distant. He’d been absent. He’d never been abusive.
“This was your fault,” he hollered. “You lied to me! You deceitful slut.”
Then he kicked me in the stomach. Not so hard, but again the shock of it had me gagging. He’d hit me. He was kicking me. The reality of what was happening was starting to penetrate my brain and I began to crawl away from him.
The second I put some distance between us, I forced myself to my feet. I could hear the dress rip, could hear the sobs from my father, now blubbering about how sorry he was.
“You’re my little girl. You need to stay my little girl,” he cried. “Ashleigh, my Ashleigh, honey, I’m so sorry.”
I didn’t acknowledge it. Instead, I ran upstairs to my room as fast as I could. Once there, I locked the door behind me. Sitting on my bed, I tried to think about what I needed to do.
Tell George.
No, I couldn’t let him know what my father had done. What if George tried to confront my father? What if my father fired him?
There was no good outcome if George knew. Which meant he wasn’t going to know.
Marc. I couldn’t process how I felt about what he’d done. He’d lied. He’d, once again, deliberately set me up to be hurt emotionally. Because of his actions, he’d set me up to be physically hurt, too. I wouldn’t have been home when Daddy showed up, if only Marc hadn’t stood me up.
I didn’t want to see him. I didn’t want to talk to him. While at the same time, I wanted to scratch his eyes out. I wanted scream at him about how much he’d failed me.
Carefully, I got up and went to my en suite bathroom. I took off the dress and the makeup. I put a cold washcloth on my cheek, laid on my bed and focused on each and every breath. Not letting a single one get away from me. Not falling into the trap I’d fallen into before when I’d let my emotions overcome my body.
One breath, then another. Until, eventually, I fell asleep.
That was how my prom night ended.
10
Prom Night
Marc
She was never going to believe me. I sat on the metal bench staring at the bars in front of me, and all I could think of was what she’d texted me when I agreed to this.
Marc, no screwing this up. This is important to me.
This was pretty much the definition of screwing it up.
“Campbell,” the officer called out, as he entered the area that contained the holding cell where I’d spent the night.
I stood and walked to the front of the cell, careful to keep my hands behind my back because the urge to choke this motherfucker was real.
“We got confirmation you borrowed the car from a friend, so the charges of car theft will be dropped. But you’re still going to have to report to court for resisting arrest.”