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…”
