She’s killing me right now. I want to take off into the night and find that little punk so I can beat him into giving her an apology. It’s not even what he said that makes me angry; it’s how it made her feel.
“I didn’t even really like him that much, to be honest. I just thought he was...Well, it doesn’t matter. I guess he really was out of my league after all.”
I almost drop my ice bag.
“What?” I can’t stop myself from sounding harsh now. “What the hell are you talking about, Molly?”
She stares down at her feet. “It’s just...I know it sounds dumb, but I feel like we all have people we’resupposedto date, who are on our same level, you know? And when we go above that, things blow up. Just like they did tonight.”
“How can you...How...?” What she’s saying is so fucked up I can’t even finish my sentence.
She still won’t look at me. The toe of her sneaker nudges at a little rock on the sidewalk.
“You think I’m crazy, but it’s true. Like...like in high school, I tutored this really popular guy. You know, the super hot one who’s on every sports team and in every girl’s dreams. It was so cliché—the awkward, nerdy girl with a crush on the jock—but I thought I was the one whounderstoodhim. We got pretty close through all the studying. His parents went through a bad divorce too, and he told me things he said he’d never told anyone else. Sometimes we texted until three in the morning. Sometimes he’d leave little notes in my locker at school. I wassosure he felt the same way I did. He could have taken any girl to prom, but two weeks before graduation, he still didn’t have a date. I thought he was holding out for me, so I planned this big, huge prom-posal to ask him out. The whole school saw it happen.”
She takes a shuddering breath in and shifts so her hair falls over her face. I know what’s coming next.
“Of course he said no. He told me he wassorryfor me. Turns out he had a girlfriend from another school the whole time, and almost everyone knew except me. He said...he said he thought it was clear where we stood, considering whoIwas and whohewas. Those were his actual words. In front of everyone. I don’t know what I was thinking. You see? That’s what happens when you aim too high. Cosmic payback for thinking you’re hotter shit than you are. It was mortifying...just like tonight.”
Her fists are balled at her sides. I swallow, trying to work out how to make all the feelings inside me into words, and how to make those words into English ones. Usually the whole process happens without me having to think about it, but I feel like a computer on overload right now.
“Prom...prom-posal?” is all I can manage to choke out.
Her laugh is watery. “Yeah. You know, when you make some big gesture to ask someone to prom?”
“I don’t think we have this word in French.”
Another laugh that sounds like she’s drowning.
“Molly.” I wait until she finally shakes her hair back and lifts her eyes to mine. “Molly, I’m going to say something, and I hope it rocks your world. Listen, okay? Those guys…They weren’t out of your league. I think you’re looking at the whole thing wrong. All those bad things happened becauseyouwere out oftheirleague.”
She doesn’t look like her world has been rocked.
“That’s nice of you to say, JP.”
I know what I want to do now. I want to take her face in my hands and kiss her hard until she believes me, until she tastes the truth on my tongue. If words aren’t going to get through to her, I want to show her with everything I’ve got—with my eyes and my hands and my lips on her skin, I want to point out everything that makes her amazing.
That’s not what she needs right now, though. She’s trying to be strong, but I can see that she’s hurting. I can see that she’s barely keeping it together out here. If I touch her now, it will just confuse her. It will hurt her even more.
Tonight, Molly doesn’t need kisses. Tonight, she needs a friend.
So I put my hand on her shoulder instead of her cheek, and I wait until she’s ready to go back to the party. I lead her onto the dance floor, and I bust out the most ridiculous moves I’ve got until she’s laughing again. I grab us beers and get all our friends around us, and we make toasts to every stupid thing we can think of. I set what’s left of my costume up on a desk and I let her beat me at Pac-Man.
The only time I leave her side all night is to walk up to the guy manning the sound system and make a request.
When ‘Teenage Dirtbag’ comes on, I nod for Matt to follow my lead. We sneak up behind Molly and lift her onto our shoulders. She squeals and screams, but she’s also laughing like crazy by the time we get her to the middle of the room. The whole party roars along to the song and claps Molly on as she acts out all the parts about Noelle. We take her for a victory lap around the office, everyone reaching up to give her high-fives. When we finally set her back down on her feet, I know that she sees it, if only for a second.
She finally sees herself for what she’s worth.
