Page 48 of Electricity

I looked back over my shoulder once but Lacey was gone, abandoning me to the dance floor. Darius’s hands circled my waist and I put mine carefully on each of his shoulders, bringing us as close as Redson High official regulations would allow.

I didn’t need to be closer to feel him near though. After dancing earlier, I was overly conscious of the space between us because it felt like it was full of static, a roiling potential between us that the music spiked with each slow beat.

And it wasn’t just us. I let myself phase out and see the other world all around me.

I could see-feel the speakers pump and wave, the misty-heat of my classmates swaying, the lights that shot overhead, the wires that ran them, the glittering fireflies of everyone’s phones.

If I could ignore my headache, I was in a fairy world, and the magic was all around me.

“This doesn’t feel real,” I whispered.

“Why not?” Darius whispered back. I blinked and all the other lights blurred, as Darius came into focus. We’d stopped dancing and he was looking intently at me.

“You know why,” I said. He hadn’t said a wrong thing all night and where his hands were on my hips, and I would’ve sworn I felt a current running between the two of them, directly through me.

I tilted my head up, and saw the projector overhead, hanging like a spider.

This—me and him—was a lot—and it wasn’t why we were here—although it would be if I let it and—I stepped back with an apology.

“I gotta—” I looked around and saw people as people again and started weaving through them out one of the doors in the back that the chaperones had opened to let the fake smoke out.

Darius was beside me in an instant, with a look of concern on his face. “Did I do something wrong?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re not just saying that?”

“You can just believe me when I say things. Really.”

He looked a little wounded. “It’s just that—knowing what happened— Darius glanced back, and I knew what he was thinking.

Somewhere out there in the swirl of kids, Danny and Mason and all the rest of the team were having the prom night of their dreams, half-drunk and groping their dates furtively on the floor.

“I’m worried about doing the wrong thing. ”

“So am I. But—you’re not. I just don’t trust myself when I’m around you is all. But that’s on me, too, not just you.”

He gave me a sly grin. “How should I help you? I’m afraid I can’t be less handsome.”

I laughed. “Try. And be less funny, and less considerate and kind. Really, your only flaw is the whole pot thing. If we do start dating after all this and you get caught, I’m not going to visit you in jail.

I already live in a trailer park—it’d be too trite.

” I leaned back a little, tilting my face down while looking up at him through mascara’d eyes.

“Would you really be into me, if I didn’t have this?

Be honest,” I said, holding up my hand. A billow of fake smoke roiled out, and I imagined little bolts of lightning flickering between my fingers inside of it.

“I was into you before. But until this, your game was too tight, you didn’t need someone like me.”

“And now?” I asked. I didn’t need-need him—but now that I had him around, I didn’t want to give him back.

“Every superhero needs a sidekick. As long as you promise not to make me wear tights, we’re good.”

“Oh yeah, I’ve totally got my suit on me here somewhere,” I said, teasingly.

“Yeah, you do,” he said, reaching around to draw his hand down my back, following the path the lightning’d taken. I shivered just as Mrs. Ellis loomed out of the fog.

“That’s enough—you two get back inside.”

We were walking very close back to the dancefloor, when I was pounced on my free side.

“That dress!” someone screamed in my ear and I found myself engulfed in another hug.

Sarah—the epitome of prom gorgeousness. Her make-up was perfect, her hair was perfect, her shoes were just-this-side-of crippling and her dress was on point, it hugged her body and had a huge window in the back in a way that mine could not. I spun for her sake.

“Who knew your mom was such a Martha Stewart?”

“Not me.”

“I love it. And you’re wearing it so much better than Charlie ever did.” She was shouting three inches from my face, over the DJ’s blaring tunes. From the alcohol on her breath I knew Bruce hadn’t been the only person pre-gaming.

“I can give it back?—”

“Whatever. Ever since she went to college, I hate her.” Sarah was beaming at me, but then her jaw fell in shock as she stared behind me. “Lacey?”

“Hey Sarah,” Lacey said.

“How did you—oh—it doesn’t matter!” Sarah leapt past me to hug Lacey next, teetering precariously on her heels. “The trailer trash trio rides again!”

Lacey looked over Sarah’s shoulder at me, baffled, as she pat-hugged Sarah back before extricating herself carefully.

“Look—I’m sorry about us not hanging out Sunday.

And about everything. I know it’s been weird since the party, and I’m sure Jessie told you that I was a jerk about things—but that was stupid.

I was wrong.” Facts I hadn’t known about Sarah: she was a cheerful, overly honest, drunk.

“The truth is that all the senior girls are bitches and you two are the only ones that matter to me—I miss you both so much!” she said, voice rising into a squeal as she hugged Lacey again.

Lacey gave me another bug-eyed look, as I pulled Sarah gently back. I took her head between my hands, careful to not smudge or tangle anything. “Sarah—we love you. This is prom, and you’re here with Ryan and it’s everything you’ve ever dreamed! Go have fun—we’ll hang out later. Promise.”

Her contoured face took on an even more beatific glow. “Tonight at Rosie’s—her parents are out of town! Come!” she said, as she wobbled away, waving and air-kissing the whole while.

Lacey leaned into me. “What the hell is she talking about?”

Sarah and her big perfectly lip-lined mouth. “After the party she was mad—she was thinking about ditching you.”

“And you didn’t tell me?” Lacey’s voice rose over the crowd.

“You had a lot going on!” I shouted into her ear. “Plus she didn’t really want to ditch you, she just didn’t know what to do. You getting into trouble made her uncomfortable. We both know Sarah doesn’t deal well with that.”

A series of complicated emotions roiled over her face. “Yeah—which is why I didn’t tell her. I didn’t want her to feel responsible, is all.”

“Well, she doesn’t. Because she has no idea what went on.” I spun her around like we were dancing. “None of these people do. See?”

Everyone was wrapped up in their own story, living their own lives, making their own memories. No one cared what two silly sophomores were doing, we didn’t matter in the least. It was 49% existentially horrible—but 51% liberating.

We finished our circle and I turned to Lacey, and for the first time since Liam’s party, saw a smile creep across her face.

“Fuck it! I’m at prom!” she shouted, giving a loud, “Woooooooo!” spring-break-style, and we all started dancing to the very next song.

We danced to every song after that, even when they weren’t good or we weren’t good at it—at least we weren’t Bruce, who’d cleared half the floor attempting to do The Worm before a chaperone intervened.

And adding Lacey took a lot of the tension away between Darius and I, which was a good thing.

We were both willing to sing the words to our favorite songs, occasionally pretending we were holding microphones, and laughing at the end of each karaoke dance.

If this was what prom was like, no wonder kids liked it so much.

“Ladies and gentlemen, can the man behind the curtain have your attention? How is your prom night going?” The DJ shouted overhead at the volume of a monster-truck rally emcee, and everyone inside the gym screamed in appreciation.

“If you’ll just clear a path—it’s time for us to appreciate the glories of your junior and senior years before we crown our court!”

More wild cheering, and even I found myself yelping and clapping my hands like I cared.

Then the Oz images on the projection screen stuttered and a blank screen went up.

Lacey was by my side in an instant, her hand holding mine before the first slide showed on the screen. It was Amy and Robbie on a swing-set, looking gloriously lean and tan, her sun-bleached hair fluttering in the wind, and Amy, Robbie, and all their friends cheered.

Photo after photo. The crème of campus, at their most silly or beautiful.

Candid shots in the halls, posed shots after teams played, each moment of triumph lovingly displayed.

I realized it wasn’t just cameras taking those photos and storing those memories—that each photo image was doing the same inside our minds, the photons filtering in through our eyes, coloring our perceptions of other people’s lives, pressing other people’s memories into ours like they were our own, giving us endless opportunities to compare that we’d never had before.

Were we as happy as they appeared to be?

Were we as half as tough, as smart, as beautiful?

And then, out of nowhere, blocking my view—Mason.

Lacey took point. “Outta my way, Mysterious Asshole,” she said, stepping forward, and I was glad she had sensible ass-kicking shoes on.

Another photo came on. Rosie and Todd, at some sort of car-wash function—she was in a bikini and he was soaking wet.

“So that’s what you do for fun? Take pictures, because you can’t get any on your own? ”

He turned toward us, the projector’s light making his eyes glitter cruelly. “I get plenty on my own.”

He didn’t look dismayed in the least. And he’d sought us out—to relish in the last moments of our fear?

Or—I threw myself into the other-world. People’s phones hummed, reporting in, GPS information, data back-ups, furtive messages making party plans.

I scanned everything I could and caught nothing in mid-air. Another harmless slide went up.

“What I do for fun,” he went on, “is teach stupid whores lessons.”

Lacey shrank back against me as Darius stepped up. “Say that again,” Darius dared him. Other kids heard his tone and stepped back, pre-fight.

Mason leaned forward. “You aren’t the only dealer in town.”

“But I got them all,” I said out loud, trying to convince myself.

My eyes latched onto the projector and I followed its cables back with my other-sight.

The cables reemerged from the ceiling, down the wall, and plugged into a laptop, guarded by not only two adults, but two upperclassmen from the baseball team.

The bottom of my stomach fell out again, just like it had when I was back in Mason’s room.

“I deleted them all!” I told him, like saying that could make it true.

“And Danny’s dick was in half of them— I said, volume rising, not caring who heard.

Mason returned his attention to me. “Two words,” he said, holding up fingers to count. “Originals. Photoshop.”

Lacey squeezed all the blood out of my hand. “No.”

“Don’t do it, Mason, please,” I begged.

“After I washed away your puke? Hardly.”

The slideshow flickered again. And in the moment between images I knew—I could feel it—one of the photos, like a bullet being shot from a gun. The screen went dark and I knew in a second it would flash Redson red. Lacey gasped, Darius stiffened and I—I—did the only thing I thought I could.

I closed my eyes instead of screaming—sending out energy to flash-fry the computer and make the projector show the only slide I was interested in seeing—which was why everyone gasped as they read what was on the screen.

DANNY MAYWEATHER IS A RAPIST.

Then two hundred some-odd cellphones started to ring with a cacophony of ringtones, as everyone within a five hundred foot radius got a text message that said the same thing.

“Oh my God,” Lacey whispered.

“Jessie?” Darius asked, a note of warning in his voice. “Your nose?—”

I swayed as I opened my eyes. Everyone’s eyes were still focused on the screen—or their phones—or using their phones to take pictures of the screen—as I reached up and swiped blood as red as the velvet I wore away from my upper lip.

“We need to get out of here,” Darius said, grabbing both Lacey and I’s arms, hauling us toward the door, just as our principal’s voice boomed over the loudspeakers.

“Prom is canceled! Everyone go home!”

“What?” someone shouted. There was a series of groans, a few smattered laughs, and but mostly an undercurrent of people murmuring about what they were reading, what they couldn’t help but read because it was in letters three feet tall.

The lights flickered on, stunning everyone still, destroying whatever magic prom had had, exposing everything for cardboard and balloons. “Chaperones—please escort everyone out of the building immediately!”

The three of us looked to one another, me clutching my nose desperately to keep the blood inside. We each knew what’d happened, although none of us could admit it. My eyes met Darius’s and I said, “Be-zap.”