It was hard to escape the realities of adulthood when we were only six months away from graduating high school and the big, bad, real world was just looming on the horizon. Everywhere you went, everyone was talking about prom or graduation or college.
There were also fresh tears spilling in random girls’ bathroom all throughout Washington High. Relationships were sinking faster than the Titanic all over the place. Everyone was ready to start their new lives off at college or the military or wherever their plans were taking them. However, there were still a few serious relationships that were promising to last through the transition from high school teenager to young adult.
I prayed for those relationships.
I really did.
A wistful part of me wished for those relationships to work. I was rooting for them. I wanted them to have that rare story where they made it through all the pitfalls of adulthood. I wanted them to live into their eighties and still be together. The realistic part of me knew they’d need more than my simple prayers to make it, though.
They were going to need a damn miracle.
Sitting at the same lunch table I always sat at, I listened to my best friend, Margot, prattle on about her upcoming birthday party. While I already turned eighteen a couple of months ago, Margot was hitting the big one-eight this weekend, and she had a huge party planned with damn near the entire school invited.
I smiled across the picnic table at my friend because I could feel her enthusiasm and it was contagious. I hadn’t had a party for my eighteenth birthday, but I wasn’t popular like Margot was. I was a book nerd with a few casual friends, and I was okay with that. The less people you knew, the safer all your secrets were.
“I’m so excited,” Margot rushed on. “It’s going to be so much fun.” My smile widened. “And can you believe my mom agreed to let it be unchaperoned?” Margot’s parents were divorced, and her father was absent from her life, so she grew up with a mother who walked the tightrope of parent and friend.
“I’m just wondering how you’re going to be able to fit the entire school in your house,” I joked. I wasn’t kidding at Margot’s popularity. She was a Washington High Tigers cheerleader and she knew everyone. Take whatever stereotype idea you have of cheerleaders and erase it from your mind, though, because Margot was the opposite.
Margot was stunning with her dark red hair, bright green eyes, and her athletic build, but those were the only clichés you could lay at her cheerleading feet. She wasn’t snobby or entitled or condescending. She wasn’t a jock-whore or conceited. She was none of those things.
No.
Margot was nice to everyone and was smart as a whip. She stopped and said hi to everyone and she never tolerated nastiness or bullying. Margot Cross was genuinely liked by everyone and I couldn’t imagine anyonenotgoing to her birthday party.
“That’s what the backyard is for,” she laughed. “Besides, you’re exaggerating just a bit, Missy.” Margot was the only person who called me Missy, and I loved her for it.
While my parents were the best and my home life was happy and blessed, I still wracked my brain wondering where the hell my parents came up with the names for me and my sister and brother. They weren’t hippies or druggies. They had no good reason for naming me Mystic, my sister Destiny, or my brother Alaric. Drugs. Drugs would have been a good reason, but that wasn’t the case. My mother claimed that she had wanted our names to mean something, but with the exception of Alaric-which meant all-powerful ruler-mine and Destiny’s names were stripper names, much to my mother’s denial and our dismay.
Sure, Destiny’s name was synonymous with fate and had meaning, but it was also a name plastered on a locker in the back room of a strip club.
And Mystic just sounded ridiculous. I had spent all my life trying to get people to call me Missy instead, but my mother refused, and my father wasn’t going to sleep on the couch for calling me Missy. Alaric and Destiny refused because they weren’t going to be the only ones suffering through life with ridiculous names, so that left Margot.
“Well, no matter, I’m sure it’s going to be a great party, Mar,” I replied.
She arched a perfectly plucked brow as she said, “By the way, I forgot to tell you, guess who asked me to prom?”
I almost rolled my eyes. It was a safe bet that every single guy at Washington High has probably asked her to prom already or was going to. “Who?” I asked out of curiosity. If she was mentioning a random invite, there had to be a reason.
“Chance McQueen,” she replied, causing my stomach to roll.
I did my best to act casual as I picked up a french fry from my lunch tray and popped it in my mouth. It bought me a few precious seconds, but I would swear Mar could see my heart trying to beat out of my chest. I swallowed my fry and asked, “Really?”
Margot’s smile was all teeth. “He caught me after cheerleading practice to tell me he was coming to my party, and then he just asked me to prom. Kind of out of the blue,” she said, shrugging a shoulder.
Margot’s party Saturday night was going to kick off the first party since we got back from Christmas break, and while I had nothing against parties, knowing Chance was going to be there had me wishing I could bow out. There was also the fact that he had asked her to prom. Why would he suddenly do that after all these years?
I prayed my face was impassive. “What did you say?”
Her grin was telling. “I said yes,” she squealed. “I said yes, Mys.”
She said yes.
Margot was going to prom with Chance McQueen and that probably meant they were going to start hanging out more now.
I willed my voice to sound steady and casual. “I didn’t know you liked him?”
She shrugged a shoulder again before saying, “Come on, Mys. You can’t deny the guy is gorgeous. Plus, he’s the best wide receiver on the football team. And he’s just...fucking hot, Mys.” She pretended to fan herself. “The boy is red-hot sexy.”
