Chapter 20
20
Natalia
senior year
“Are you going to prom?” Yuri asks as I pick at the large bag of barbecue Lay’s sitting between us at the lunch table. Her slender fingers reach into the bag for a fresh chip before popping it into her mouth with one quick sweep.
Yuri Kim is a senior like me. We’ve been friends through most of high school, spending a lot of our time together on after-school Starbucks runs and weekend trips to the movies or to hunt for the latest fashion trends filling our local Forever 21. It feels almost surreal that we’re talking about end-of-year celebrations like prom and graduation now. The last four years flew by without either one of us realizing how quickly they did.
I shrug. “I don’t know,” I answer. I haven’t really given it a second thought. The entire task of finding a date, then finding a dress, feels a bit daunting .
“You don’t know what?” a breathless voice asks. I turn to see Lucy sliding in the seat next to mine, her hand reaching to get her own share of potato chips as she opens a cold strawberry kiwi Snapple. She gently lays the black Canon camera on the table, on loan to her from the yearbook department to catch candid shots of football practice and debate team meetings.
“I don’t know if I’m going to prom,” I answer her. “I’d rather stay at home and binge watch K-dramas.” My brows wiggle, facing Yuri. “We could both skip prom and watch ‘The Heirs.’”
Her face scrunches. “You know I don’t really watch K-dramas.”
“But they’re so good!” I argue.
She shrugs a shoulder. “I’d much rather spend a night binge watching ‘Teen Wolf’ and drool over Dylan O’Brian. It doesn’t really matter though,” she adds. “I’m already going to prom with Tyler.”
My face drops, realizing that my prospects for finding a prom date of my own are slim to none.
“You know, Mom’s going to make you go,” Lucy butts in, an apologetic yet smug face telling me what I already knew.
“Your mom makes you guys go to prom?” Yuri asks.
“She’s going to make Nat go,” Lucy explains. “She did the same to our older sister, Carmen, her senior year.”
“Well,” Yuri offers, “at least it’ll be an excuse to shop for a pretty dress.” She flicks her long hair to one side of her shoulders, her chin resting on the heels of her hands as she smiles somewhat sympathetically.
“Silver linings,” I mutter, making a mental count of prospective prom dates.
present
My brain feels like a storm is raging through it while my heart rattles in my chest, telling me to decide on one single emotion and focus on that. I’m feeling too many things at once. While those different emotions become a torrent in every nerve ending of my body, I realize I’m panicking. My entire body starts to shake as a memory I’ve buried deep starts to resurface. And that memory, along with the reality of Matteo’s engagement, causes all of those emotions to start clustering into a ball in my throat, making it hard for me to breathe.
Hayden kissed me.
Matteo’s getting married.
“Are you okay?”
I look to see Hayden’s worried eyes looking at mine while understanding that the answer to his question may be no. Instead of answering, I step into Hayden, wrapping my arms around his waist while my entire body trembles against him.
“Nat,” he whispers into my hair. “I’m sorry.” He doesn’t say anything else. He stays silent as he runs his hand up and down my back.
Why is this happening? This tightness in my chest that I can’t seem to loosen.
Why does it feel like the world is crumbling from underneath me?
I breathe in Hayden’s scent, feeling safe wrapped in his warmth. He is my safe place right now, just like when we were kids, and I don’t know if I want to leave his side just yet, if ever. I close my eyes and shudder, finally letting Hayden go and reluctantly stepping away from him.
“You think?—”
“How ’ bout?—”
Hayden and I speak at the same time. We look at each other and huff an awkward laugh.
“You first,” he says, gesturing toward me with a sympathetic smile.
“I don’t think I’m ready to go home just yet,” I confess.
He tilts his head, giving me that same sympathetic smile as his head angles in the opposite direction from where we came from.
“I know a place.” He suddenly grabs my hand, almost sprinting through the busy sidewalk. I stumble after him, tripping over my feet.
“Marshall, my legs are about half the length of yours. You’re going to have to slow down or you’re going to be dragging me behind you like a rag doll,” I call breathlessly behind him.
“Keep up, Marquez!”
After multiple turns and sprints across intersections, we land in front of a bar with tinted windows and neon signs decorating the front in bright blue and pink lit-up words saying “half off mai tais” and “karaoke night.”
I turn to face Hayden. “What is this?”
“Better warm up those vocal cords,” he says, his hands rubbing together in front of him with that devilish grin I know only comes out when he’s got something hidden up his sleeve. “’Cause I’m about to out drink you and out sing you.”
“Hayden, I’m not doing karaoke.” My mouth dries, and my palms start getting clammy. I’m definitely not doing drunken karaoke, let alone karaoke.
“Yes, you are.”
He latches on to my wrist and yanks me toward the door, dragging me along as I uselessly resist. Once inside, Hayden plops me onto a barstool lined against a small table and walks toward the stage area, where a binder and a mic sit at the edge of a stage. He grips a pencil before he furiously scribbles his request on a clipboard .
I start toying with my fingers under the table, hunching my back forward as I try to disappear in the room slowly filling with those ending their day with a drink to take the edge off, most still in their loosened work clothes.
“So, I thought we would ease into it with a little bit of Carly Rae Jepsen and Vanessa Carlton. And then end it with a bang with a Carrie Underwood number,” Hayden says, returning to our table.
When he smiles at me, his grin widens enough to cause a giggle to slip through the pile of nerves settled in my stomach.
“Wait here,” he orders. “I’ll grab us a few drinks.”
Before I can protest, he takes off, rushing toward the bar at the other end of the stage.
As I patiently wait, I scan the room, my eyes landing on a couple sitting nearby under a low light situated in a secluded corner, acting as if they were the only two people in the world. They look into each other’s eyes, their fingers tangled and ankles overlapping each other, as I watch a little too wistfully. The tears that rim my eyes appear out of nowhere, just as the tugging ache pulling at my heart becomes too much to bear.
Up until now, I’ve been able to pretend that Matteo isn’t actually getting married. That the invitation isn’t real instead of sitting in my kitchen drawer where Carmen strategically placed it under a growing pile of junk.
But now, I’ve seen her. I’ve seen him with her. Her dark wavy hair tumbling down in every direction. Down her shoulders to her arms, down her chest as it curved along her face and figure. Her blue eyes shined and looked at Matteo the way I used to, proud and blissful. She would make a stunning bride.
A sudden sob breaks from my chest as I quickly wipe the tears that fall before Hayden returns to his seat across from me.
“It’s almost our turn,” he whispers with a smile that falls as soon as he sees my face .
“Yeah,” I manage before looking up at him. I gnaw on my lower lip as I force a smile through the wiped away tears.
Hayden opens his mouth but whatever words of encouragement or insult he set aside for Matteo dies on the tip of his tongue when a familiar tune starts to play over the speakers. Hayden hands me one of the shot glasses he placed in front of me, clinking his own against mine.
“This better not be tequila,” I question, lifting the glass.
He makes a forced pfft sound before saying, “Please, Marquez. Don’t act like I don’t know you.”
I let a small smile slip before I reluctantly toss the contents of the shot glass down my throat and grimace. Hayden drinks his own glass of what I now know is vodka, confirming he really does know me, and nudges my shoulder.
“Come on,” he says, turning to walk to the stage. “Let me show you how it’s done.”
I follow Hayden, my steps much less confident than his. He takes the mic left on a lone barstool sitting in the middle of the stage and hands it to me, gesturing at me to raise it. He firmly grips the one already on the stage nestled in a mic stand, and we both face the room. The slowly gathering crowd causes a thin layer of sweat to form down my back. I peer over at Hayden, silently glaring at him before he wiggles his eyebrows at me in response. And I laugh, throwing my head back just as the beginning beats of “Call Me Maybe” play in a loop over the speakers, waiting for us to finally start singing.
When Hayden sings, it’s loud. It’s obnoxious and shrill and scratchy. He hits all of the beats at the wrong times and the notes at opposite pitches. And it’s perfect. By the time the song is finished, I’m breathless. Not from singing along with him but from laughing so hard.
When we slump back into our seats, weak from our hysterical fits of laughter, I clutch onto Hayden’s arm. “Please don’t ever do that again,” I beg, wiping the tears from the corner of my eyes.
“What?!” he exclaims. “We still have two more songs on the list. Plus a very promising Carrie Underwood duet. Something about a baseball bat and leather seats.”
“No, no,” I say, waving my hands in front of him. “You’re cut off. No one should ever give you an amp.”
Hayden’s mouth drops open as if to say how dare you before he sits in the seat next to mine. Instead of squawking through more songs about breakups and revenge, we open a tab while tallying up glasses of beer and cocktails. Our lingering laughter dies down to a comfortable silence as the bar continues to fill with more people and the music grows louder.
A man appears from the crowd and takes the stage rather confidently. He starts singing the smooth tunes of “Perfect” by Ed Sheeran, sounding very close to Ed Sheeran himself with his low, sultry voice before smiling modestly toward a small table full of people cheering him on. I turn to look at Hayden, the gratitude shining off every surface of my face.
“Thanks, Hayden.”
His face is turned toward the singer when I voice my appreciation. For everything he did to make me forget, even for a moment. Instead of turning to face me, he continues to stare at the singer, making me think that he didn’t hear me over the music. But then he reaches over and covers my hand with his, giving it an encouraging squeeze.