For Keeps

For Keeps

I wish I hated him.

He left me stranded at home on the biggest night of my junior year. Went off gallivanting with some blond chick he met the week before. Would it have killed him to have called and just said "Um, babe, I'm so not taking you to the Junior/Senior Prom." Sure, I would've cursed him blue, green, black, and yellow, but at least I wouldn't have been about to cry my eyes out on the front porch, waiting for a date who wouldn't show.

Yeah, I got dumped on the night of the Junior/Senior Prom. In my pale pink princess dress. Waiting for a soccer jerk who wouldn't show.

Tears blurred my eyes as I sat on my house's front steps in the brisk cold, watching blurs of cars and headlights stream past like one of those slow-shutter photos. The nighttime air was brisk and cold enough to keep me awake but warm enough for me to not need a jacket. The orange hues were just now setting in the western skies, above the baseball park that sat next to our house. I watched a bunch of little leaguers hit a fat ball across the grassy fields, and scramble to catch it like little white ants with white caps on.

I was quite sure I hadn't done anything to deserve this. Maybe I didn't answer a question at the right time, or I wore the wrong thing yesterday? Maybe I had bad breath two days ago when he almost kissed me? Or maybe it wasn't me at all. Maybe it was the fact that I was just me. That I was Amelia Ann Lockheart, the girl who beat up Thomas Graves in first grade, befriended him in second grade, dyed his (and her own) hair blue in 9th grade, who hit a deer on the way home from a football game, who broke the school record for most in-school suspensions by 10th grade, and who, in the end, was stood up by James McRoy, soccer captain and model, on the most important night of her junior year.

I took my high heels off and set them beside me, my gown gushing over my scrunched knees. I must've looked like a huge fluffy marshmallow with pink streams of ribbons blowing like kites from a shock of red hair. I rubbed the heel of my hand in my eye and sniffed. Despite my reputation, I was quite girly, and quite crushed. Besides, Thomas was a wimp in first grade anyway.

"Thought I'd find you here."

I snapped my head up, and before me stood my best friend clad in a funeral black tux, a burst of red rose at his breast. He gave a coy smile, a corsage in his hands.

"What are you doing here?" I asked, not bothering to gather myself together, and let my bottom lip quiver a bit. He wouldn't judge me for being all crybaby this once. He never judged me. "Aren't you supposed to be playing Guitar Hero?"

He shrugged and came up to sit beside me. "Suppose so."

"Then why aren't you? It's the championship at Gamer's tonight."

He popped open the paper corsage container, took my wrist, and slipped a pale white rose over my hand.

I watched him, dumbfounded. My mind reeled. "But you're the reigning champ. No one can do Free Bird like you."

"Suppose so," he nodded and patted my hand, "but I have another game to play tonight."

"Another game?"

"Role-playing."

"Oh," I nodded and took my hand back, and looked away. "Role-playing..."

He stood and turned to me, his tux making him so damn slim in the setting orange glow, outstretched a hand, his eyes chocolate dark as they stared into mine. Something cold and alien shivered down my spine. "Yes, role-playing. As your prom date."

My heart skipped a beat. It skipped two. Then three. I couldn't find words to say; my mouth hung uselessly open. Luckily, I didn't need to speak because he could read my mind. He always could. His outstretched hand snatched my corsage-ladened wrist, and he dragged me up.

"Don't forget your shoes, Aims."

He ended up grabbing them too, and guided me quickly across the damp sidewalk to his old pick-up. He helped me inside, turned the radio to our favorite rock station, and drove away without another word.

I was going to the prom anyway, it seemed, with none other than Thomas Graves.