ten
Rumor Has It… After Prom, WHPA’s official king and queen danced late into the night, under the stars, as befitting this year’s theme. Did they continue the night in private with an even bigger surprise than the upset of the hierarchy to crown the new, unlikely, people’s queen? Check back for the jaw-dropping answer in Monday’s Tea Drop!
Gloria Walton
“Oh my god, let me see!”
The pitch and volume of my sisters’ voices screaming out in unison probably gives the entire classroom permanent hearing loss, but they’re oblivious as they trip over each other to get to the front of the room first. Dixie just walked in, looking triumphant and self-satisfied. She holds out her hand like a magnanimous queen. I halfway expect my sisters to kiss it, but instead they seize it, dragging it closer to inspect… A ring.
My heart stops, and I barely hear their cries of jealousy and awe. They throw their arms around Dixie, and all three of them jump up and down, shrieking and giggling.
“Wasn’t expecting that,” Harper says, as the girls break apart and Dixie floats back to her seat, shooting me a nasty, superior smile on her way.
“Why?” Josie asks. “She never shuts up about how long they’ve been together.”
Surprisingly, Josie is one of the only people willing to sit with me, though I know she’s really here for Harper. But apparently she didn’t hate me as much as she hated the position of queen, which means she’s now sitting with me while Dixie sits with my old friends.
I try not to let it bother me that Dixie now parades around with the same girls who used to have sleepovers with me, share their secret crushes and skin care routines. Now they look at me like something they’d rather not step in—if they acknowledge me at all. They’re Dixie’s ladies in waiting. My sisters will probably be maids of honor at her fucking wedding, which is apparently coming up any day now.
“I just got the feeling they weren’t doing so well lately,” Harper says, glancing at me. “But I guess if they’re happy, it’s none of our business.”
“How’d it happen?” Eleanor squeals at the back table, where Dixie sits with her, Everleigh, DeShaun, Duke, and Colt’s empty chair. “Tell us every detail. Did he get down on one knee? Have you set a date?”
“Oh my god, it was so romantic,” Dixie gushes. “So, we kinda got in a little squabble at prom, but afterwards he apologized for being so inconsiderate, and we danced on the roof all night. It was magical. Then when we left, he said he was sorry he’d been so non-committal, and that I was all he needed and all he ever wanted, and he got down on one knee and pulled out the ring. He said he bought it a year ago because he knew then that I was the only girl he’d ever love. It was literally a fairytale come true.”
“Gag me,” Josie mutters.
The bell chimes, and a minute later, Colt stumbles in looking hollow-eyed and shell-shocked, like a guy who’s been through a long, harrowing battle before finally admitting defeat. My heart breaks for him in that moment. I have to get out my laptop and open it with stiff, numb hands just to keep myself busy, to resist the urge to reach out and stop him as he passes my desk, to ask if he’s okay. Because he really, really doesn’t look okay.
But like Harper said, it’s none of my business.
Still, for a second, all I want to do is take him away, to get in my car with him and drive, to ask a final time if he’s sure. If he’s going to be happy with her.
Or maybe I’d ask what she has on him, what she did, to make him decide she was the one.
Or maybe she didn’t do anything. Maybe I did.
I told him to commit, and he did.
So as much as I want to demand how he could have done this, why he chose her, I don’t have that right. I don’t have a right to anything from him—I never did. He knows about our past. He knows the truth. He has all the facts, and he made his decision, and I have to respect that.
I have to accept that it’s over. I lost.
I’ve lost him for good. He wants to spend the rest of his life with Dixie, and whatever we had, it meant little enough to him that he could walk away without so much as an explanation. Maybe it was all in my head, just a desperate girl reeling with grief from the loss of her brother and the rejection of her family, trying to find something to hold onto. There’s no other reason I’d put meaning in something that he was just doing to prove a point, to humiliate me or even get back at me for what I did to him.
And how can I blame him? I walked away from Rylan when he treated me badly, even when he wanted me back. Why should Colt be any more forgiving? He has no reason to forgive his bully, even when I want him back.
Instead of being pissed that my pep talk sent him into Dixie’s arms, I should be happy for him. As much as it hurts, I should be glad it helped in whatever small way. Sure, selfishly I dreamed that it would make him realize his feelings for me, not her. But that’s not what happened, and it’s time for me to move on with my life and stop living in the past. That week last year meant so much to me, but it’s not like we would have been together if he hadn’t forgot it.
The past two weeks, when he’s come into the club, were torture and ecstasy at the same time, but they were no more real than the week last year. It’s not like we were dating. He never asked me out. The dancing never left the club after that one night, and even then, it never went further than the parking lot. It was just a fling driven by lust and rose-colored memories. He never promised me anything, never professed feelings. He continued to date Dixie in his daylight hours, to show her off, to take her to prom and be her dutiful boyfriend. I was never more than a dirty little secret, a prospective mistress at best, a gullible fool at worst.
A mistake.
Colt collapses into the chair at their table, and I look away, because I can’t watch Dixie cling to him like a leech, preening all the while.
I raise my hand and ask to be excused to the restroom. I walk out on stiff legs and head for the bleachers. The thought of smoking makes me nauseous, so I just sit there, staring at the green grass. Eventually, Harper shows up.
“Skipping the rest of the day?” she asks.
“I don’t feel well.”
“Don’t blame you,” she says, pulling out her cigarettes. “If Royal put a ring on someone else, I’d be in prison right now. But hey, maybe I could get to know my dad.”
“Say hi to mine too.”
She cracks a grin, then sobers after lighting up. “Seriously, though. You okay?”
“Not really,” I admit. “But I will be. I mean, I kinda have to be, right?”
“I guess,” she says, slowly rolling the cherry of her cigarette along the edge of the metal bench. “Or you could ask him what happened.”
“We know what happened,” I point out.
“I don’t know, he looked awfully happy with you the other night,” she says.
“He doesn’t owe me an explanation,” I say glumly. “I want to pred she manipulated him because, well, it’s Dixie. But maybe she didn’t do anything to him, didn’t hold anything over his head. Maybe he just loves her.”
“Maybe.”
“I don’t want to accept it because that means accepting that he’ll never be mine,” I admit. “But I have to. He’s getting fucking married , Harper. It’s pretty damn hard to argue with that. As much as I want to believe we had something, we don’t anymore.”
“That doesn’t mean it wasn’t real,” she says. “Or that you can’t feel sad about it.”
“I’m done feeling sad,” I say with a sigh. “And it doesn’t matter what it was before. Now it’s nothing. He chose her—permanently.”
Harper leans her head on my shoulder. We sit there in silence while she finishes her cigarette. “If it makes you feel any better,” she says at last. “I’ve known Colt for a few years, and he’s always been with Dixie, but I’ve never seen him act that way with her. The way he was acting when y’all were in that elevator…”
“Like a cocky asshole?” I ask, rolling my eyes.
“Happy,” she says.
If there was anything left of my shriveled, blackened heart, it would break. She could have said anything else, even that he acted like a man in love, and it wouldn’t have hurt worse. Love doesn’t always make a person happy. Love can be torture. It makes people stupid.
Happiness… That’s rare.
“And yeah, cocky too,” she adds with a smirk. “Is that a bad thing?”
I shrug off my melancholia. “In hindsight, he was gloating that I caught feelings and was blinded by love, so he used it to get what he wanted.”
“I don’t think so,” she says. “Royal’s cocky as hell, and I love it. It means he feels good about himself when he’s with me, that he’s proud of pulling a girl like me. That’s pretty fucking hot, you know?”
Suddenly my throat is tight, and I want to cry. “You think Colt would be proud to pull me?” I ask incredulously. “In case you forgot, I’m the fucking pariah now, and he’s a king.”
“I don’t think he cares about status as much as you’d expect,” she says. “You’re used to the Dolce boys being on top, and that’s what they care about. But he’s not like them. And come on, Lo. You’re still hot as hell, no matter your social position. Shit, I’m proud to walk around with you.”
I give a half-hearted laugh. “I thought everyone agreed I was a fat cow who let myself go.”
She gives me a look. “Come on, Lo. We both know that’s not what happened.”
“We do?” I mutter, picking at the button on my leather jacket.
“I’m not stupid,” she says. “I know it sucks, but you’re tough as hell, and you’re going to get through this, just like everything else. And when you want to give up, I’m going to tell you to pick yourself up and push through, just like you did for me by the bike rack that day last year. Deal?”
I nod, my throat too tight to speak. “I don’t deserve you,” I manage to choke out.
She laughs and throws an arm around my shoulders, squeezing me to her side. “Yeah, but lucky for you, I see the good in even the shittiest people.”
“Rude,” I protest, laughing and dabbing a fingertip to the single tear that squeezed out the corner of my eye.
“Or maybe just honest,” she says. “We’re all shitty people. You gotta be to survive this place.”
“Not everyone here is shitty,” I say quietly, wiping my cheek when more tears leak out.
“Tell me you don’t mean Colt.”
I just sniffle.
“You really are blinded by love,” she says, nudging me playfully. “Dude had his dick in you five minutes after he basically accepted the Perfect Couple award with his girlfriend. In front of the entire student body, who voted for them because he fooled them into thinking he’s the perfect doting boyfriend, I might add. And then five minutes after that , he asks her to marry him.”
“When you put it that way…”
“Look, I love Colt, but he’s a dog,” she says. “Always has been, probably always will be. But hell, maybe you can change him with your magical pussy. I try not to think about that, since you fucked Royal, but I seem to remember that being a rumor last year.”
“You must not have heard the rumors this year.”
“I have,” she says. “But considering I have personal experience, I can make my own decision regarding your pussy.”
“And?” I ask, my cheeks heating at the reminder that we fooled around at a party when I was wasted.
She cracks a grin. “Not that magical.”
“I hate you,” I say, pushing her arm off me. “You’re the worst best friend ever.”
She just laughs. “What are friends for if not to be brutally honest? Besides, I can also confirm the rumors this year are bullshit.”
“Try telling Dixie that.”
“Come on, Lo, you’re fucking her boyfriend,” she says. “What do you expect? I’d have knocked out all your teeth by now.”
I snort. “You could try. In case you’ve forgot, I kicked your ass last year.”
She draws herself up and gives me an imperious look I didn’t know she was capable of. “You most certainly did not,” she says, sounding mortally offended.
I can’t help but laugh. “Fine, that was a stretch. But I held my own. I may not have your experience, but I’m not some pushover. I don’t go down without a fight.”
“So don’t.”
I search her baby blue eyes as if I can read the answers there. “What do you mean?” I ask at last, my throat tight and my pulse racing.
She shrugs and stands to go back in. “I mean, when you find something worth fighting for, you’ll fight for it.”