Page 46 of Electricity

I woke up the next morning to two texts from Darius:

Ride?

Prom?

Lemme ask Lacey

I texted back as I texted her. She responded seconds later.

You can ride in with him as long as you meet me at our lockers.

Prom is go.

A nervous tension I’d been holding somewhere inside my chest uncoiled and then recoiled even tighter, as I messaged Darius.

Prom is happening. Come get me?

He responded with a thumbs-up emoji, and I got my act together.

I met him half a block down from my trailer after Allie’s bus had gone, and I apologized the second I got into his car. “I’m sorry—my mom—I can’t get grounded now.”

“Not when you can wait to get grounded tonight.”

“Ha. Hopefully not.”

Darius pulled out of the trailer park, just behind the bus. “So what was your good reason yesterday afternoon?”

“Lacey wanted me to check in with Sarah. She’s feeling a little paranoid after finding out the pictures were loose. But Sarah doesn’t seem to know anything—not even rumors of things—which means whoever does know something, the circle must be pretty small.”

“What’d I tell you?”

“It’s not even that, Darius,” I said, gaining speed. “Mason’s not the world’s best photographer—Danny’s in almost all the photos. So why would they put up anything at prom, if showing her incriminates him? It’d ruin her reputation, but he’d definitely be in trouble too. Much bigger trouble.”

“That’s awesome,” he said. “So prom is now just prom?”

I nodded slowly. “Hopefully.”

He looked over at me and I felt the corkscrew inside my chest wind half a twist tighter. “That’s awesome too.”

And then the car felt both too big and too small at the same time. “So how was your day yesterday?” I asked, just to make small talk.

“Good. Just like you suggested in the morning, so, thanks.” I made a strangled sound, and he laughed. “It’s okay.”

“Easy for you to say,” I said. “Have you ever been to a prom?”

“Prom no, school dances, yes. You?”

I shook my head.

“Ahhh, that whole date thing.”

I felt myself flush. “Prom is not a date. And besides, we’re paused, remember?”

“Yeah. I remember,” he said, in a slow tone of voice that made me flush even further. “But, afterward—the movies or something? With dinner?”

“No hamburgers?”

“Not a one.”

“K.” Darius had just asked me out. Not under duress or while facilitating me being a superhero. It was all I could do not to smile myself silly. “Is everyone out in California so forthright?”

“I bet half of them wouldn’t even know the word,” he said, and pulled into Redson High’s parking lot.

I beat Lacey to our lockers and wondered for a dark moment if she’d decided to skip again today, risking Mrs. Ellis the counselor’s wrath. Then she appeared out of the back of a crowd—I hadn’t seen her because she’d been skulking along their edge, using them for cover.

“Hey!”

“Hey.” She straightened up in front of me, gaining two inches. “Heard anything else?”

“Haven’t started yet this morning,” I said honestly—and my head was thanking me for it by not hurting for the first time in a week.

“And you’re sure about Sarah?”

“As sure as I can be.” I watched relief spread across her face—and the circles under her eyes weren’t quite so dark. “So—what’s your news?”

“I’m going to prom too.”

“What? Who?”

“Jonah Price,” she said, as my mouth fell open. “You’re not the only one with junior friends, Jessie.”

“But…Jonah?” I knew without snooping anything from Jonah’s phone that he was gay. Everyone did. He’d been gay since he was ten.

“I know, I know,” she said, confirming me. “But his parents are clueless. He wants to go, he needs a date, and I needed to go, and we’ve been friends since choir in sixth grade.”

“I should have never let you be that nerdy. What are you wearing?”

“Betsy’s taking me out today, right after school. It won’t be fancy, but it’ll be new.”

“She’s the best.”

“I know. I wish she were my real mom, every day.”

I thought back to my last talk with my mom and how awful it’d been—but at least it proved she cared, in a willing-to-mutilate-teenage-boys way.

“So,” Lacey went on, “I’ll see you and Darius there, right? And I can come hang with you when Jonah inevitably ditches me for Sam?”

“Totally.” For the first time in a long while it seemed like everything was going to work out. The only weak link was that my mother, for once in her life, might care too much. “Unless I get grounded.”

Lacey grabbed my shoulders and shook me. “Don’t get grounded.”

I grinned at her. “I’ll try not to. Swear.”

I spent that day listening in the halls and trying not to look for Darius.

What we had and how I felt about it was nice and new and I didn’t want to wear the shiny off of it just yet.

Just thinking about him made me smile to myself like an idiot—if I hung out with him in person, who knew what stupid things I’d do?

What if he didn’t feel like this? What if I was alone in my stupidity?

He said he wanted to take me out on another date—but despite my mother’s ineffectual attempts to warn/protect me, I wasn’t stupid.

A lot of guys said all sorts of things right before prom—I knew, because I was reading a lot of their texts right now.

However things turned out, they didn’t bear thinking on, until after tonight.

I goofed off with Lacey during lunch, trying to cheer her up with the electronic foolishnesses of our classmates and discussing where her aunt would take her after school, and then went to chem, in which Liam ignored me entirely.

About damn time.

Lacey and I met at her car at three-oh-five and she had me home at record speed so that she could go shopping. And when I got home, beauty preparations began.

I knew from snooping that most girls had already gotten their nails done and were hitting the Sephora make-up counter before prom.

But I didn’t have that luxury—whatever was in my bathroom now was what I had to arm myself with, and it did feel like arming.

While most people would be too busy having fun or wrapped up in their own drama to notice anyone else, there were a few at the edges who I knew would hunt down slower herd members without mercy.

I had no interest in trying to keep snark about me or Lacey off of ZB for the rest of the night.

I hopped in the shower and had rollers heating before Mom got up.

When she was up, she went into full fluster mode. She was crabby, because she needed to drink some water and likely another beer, but she smiled when she saw I had every make-up palette she owned open.

“Want help?”

God help me, but, “Yes. Please,” I said, and she smiled.

She scooted me over with her hips, brushed her teeth, washed her face, and then had me sit on the toilet seat, just like I had as a child.

“Red’s a hard color to pull off sweetie.” Why was she telling me this now??? “But luckily, you’ve got the skin-tone for it.”

Which for some reason she then entirely covered with foundation, but hey.

By the time she was done, I didn’t recognize myself in the mirror.

My skin was even, then blushed, bronzed, and highlighted—my eyes had lashes for miles, and my lips were a perfectly shaped dress-matching red bow.

She’d rolled my hair and started pulling it up but I fought with her to keep it down—I was afraid the dress would gap and show her the lightning marks hidden inside.

She complained, but then she sleeked my hair down in beautiful rippling waves.

I felt gorgeous in a way I never had before.

Was it because I was doing all this for a boy?

Did that make me the same as every other girl?

I leaned forward into the mirror, not sure that the girl in it was me.

I’d have never let my mother do all this without prom, but God help me, for the first time in my entire life I wanted to be looked at.

“Since the dress is old-fashioned—I went old-fashioned all over,” my mother said, surveying her handiwork.

“Thanks Mom, a lot. I mean it.”

She reached in to rearrange one lock of hair delicately. “You’re very welcome.”

After that, I sat on our couch feeling completely out of place. Allie kept looking at me like I was a different person—maybe because I was. Maybe this dress was Electro-Jessie’s outfit. All I was missing were some spandex tights. I’d have to consult with Darius on the name.

Then tires crunched outside and I stood up—as did my mother, and Allie. Oh God?—

Darius walked up to the door and rang the doorbell just as I was opening it, and at seeing me, he blinked in surprise.

“Hey, Jessie—Liam’s waiting. Ready to go?”

I gave him a relived smile for remembering our cover story. “Yeah.”

“Just a minute young man,” my mother said, coming forward. She’d already gotten herself ready for work—tonight would be a busy night for her, the drama of prom driving many of Redson’s parents to drink—and she leaned forward just as I was walking out onto the porch.

I braced, waiting for the inevitable barrage of interrogation, but instead all she did was reach out and adjust Darius’s tie.

“So your girlfriend is already there with Liam?”

“He just picked her up. She’s on her way.”

“And what’s her name again?” my mother asked, seemingly harmlessly.

But I knew better. If Darius stumbled in the least….

“Hannah,” he said, and got a beatific look on his face, as though he dreamt of her every night.

“Hmph,” my mother said.

The Darius turned toward me, full of vim and vigor, like he couldn’t wait to see Hannah again. “Ready?”

“Yep!” I chimed, and stepped out. The night was amazingly cool for Kansas, I could feel it against my arms and my legs.

Then Darius gallantly took my elbow, and we walked across the lawn together.

We slid into his car and I couldn’t believe we’d done it until we were out of the park, grinning at each other in the rearview mirror.

“Hannah’s gonna be pretty disappointed.”

“I’m just glad your mom didn’t ask me her last name, because I would’ve said Montana.”