Chapter 2 Prom And Principles #7
“Why don’t you tell me what happened,” Mom suggests gently, picking up my dress from the floor and smoothing it out on the bed. “Is it something Weston did?”
“Yes,” I croak through my tears, snatching a makeup wipe from my vanity and cleaning the mascara off my cheeks. “Well, not so much something he did as something he was hoping to do—planning to do…” My voice chokes around the words.
“And what is it he was hoping to do?” Mom asks, zipping up the dress and sliding it onto a hanger. “Rob a bank?”
I grunt. “No.”
“Ask you to marry him?”
“No, of course not.”
“Have sex with you?”
I can’t reply to that one. I just shut my eyes and let the tears fall, nodding quickly.
Mom places her hand on my shoulder. “Come on. Tell me what happened.”
So I do. I stretch out on my bed and go through half a box of tissues as I tell Mom about the whole condom conundrum. How everything was so wonderful up until the moment I found it and confronted Weston.
By the end of the story, Mom looks surprised that’s all that happened—as if my reaction is unreasonably dramatic for something this serious.
“It’s not that big a deal,” she says, blunt and unfeeling as ever. “I mean, you can’t blame the guy for trying his luck.”
I drop my hands from my red face, appalled by how she makes the whole thing sound like a carnival game.
“But Weston already knows how I feel about sex before marriage. We’ve talked about it before, and then in the truck tonight, it came up again, and he seemed okay with it.
I thought he was okay with it. He was so sweet and understanding—even though I could tell there was something he wasn’t telling me.
But we had a good talk about principles and the reasons behind them and everything.
” I sniff, drying my cheeks with a balled-up tissue.
“He said all these nice things about how he doesn’t deserve me, how I’m so beautiful and confident in my own skin.
He said he respected my boundaries. But the whole time, he had that… thing in his pocket.”
Mom falls silent for a long moment, turning it over in her mind as she gently strokes her fingers over my knee.
“And then,” I add, “to make it even worse, he acted like he never intended to use the thing. When I found it and confronted him about it, he said he planned to throw it away—hours before we even went up to Hickley Point. Which doesn’t make any sense.”
Mom frowns and tilts her head, as if this new piece of information changes the whole story. “Where do you think he got it?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t ask. Does it matter? It’s not like it fell out of the sky into his pocket, it was a conscious decision, and there can only be one reason a guy would make that decision.”
“Not necessarily.”
“Mom, if you’re going to take his side—”
“I’m not taking sides, Tessa. I’m just saying you don’t know what high school is like. Peer pressure alone can make you do stupid things for stupid reasons.”
I shrug. “I guess so. But I thought Weston was different.”
“He is different,” Mom says. “And it must not be easy to be different when you’re him.”
I feel a stitch of guilt at the idea of it. Navigating the cruel, unpredictable world of high school is bad enough for kids with acne or a big nose. Though I’ve never experienced bullying firsthand, I know how mean-spirited people can turn even the most minor flaw into ammunition to hurt you with.
“You think he’s being bullied?” I ask, looking up at Mom. “He’s never mentioned that to me.”
“No, he doesn’t seem like the type who would talk about it. Especially not to you.”
Somehow, that makes it all the more heartbreaking: the possibility that someone at school is being cruel to Weston because of his disability—and he can’t talk to anyone about it, not even me.
“Still,” I say with a righteous sniff, “it doesn’t justify what he did. It doesn’t make it okay.”
“No,” Mom agrees. “But you said yourself he didn’t push you when you told him how you felt. He did respect your boundaries. Right? Even if he thought there was a slim possibility for something more—”
“If he thought there was a slim possibility, then he doesn’t know me at all.” I cross my arms over my stomach and stare at the ceiling stubbornly.
After a moment, Mom starts laughing.
“What’s so funny?”
She taps my nose with one finger. “You. And all your strict moral principles.”
“I don’t see what’s funny about that.”
“You were making out with the guy,” Mom says, arching her eyebrows. “Don’t deny it; I can see the rash coming.”
My hand instinctively flies to the edge of my jaw and neck, where Weston’s face brushed against mine as we kissed.
Mom smirks; her suspicions are confirmed when my cheeks flush pink. “You let him take down your hair, and you were probably playing love songs in the car while you made out with him.”
“Well… yeah. But we didn’t do anything improper.”
Mom grunts. “You didn’t have to. That was enough. Can you even imagine how turned on he must’ve been?”
“Ugh, Mom, please.” I drag my hands over my reddening face.
“I’m just saying. Guys don’t have much self-control. And when I say ‘not much,’ I mean ‘none at all.’”
A miserable laugh catches in my throat. I remember Weston saying tonight that he admires my self-control.
I admire you in so many ways.
My heart melted when he said that. But now the memory is like a thorn on a beautiful rose. Pricking me with a stab of bittersweet pain.
I sigh, closing my tired eyes. “I don’t know, Mom. I don’t know what to think. When we were up at the lookout together, I felt like he knew me better than anyone in the world. And then, after we fought… he seemed like a stranger.”
Mom nods slowly, brushing a strand of hair off my forehead. “I think you should tell him that. Talk to him. Be honest with each other. And listen to his side of the story, too.”
That’s the last thing I want to do. Weston had his chance to tell me his side of the story on the drive home tonight—and he didn’t. He just sat there silent in the driver’s seat because he couldn’t bring himself to tell me the truth.
And if the truth is that terrible, I’m not sure I want to hear it.
WESTON
I’m awake all night. Kicking myself. Over and over and over again.
I can’t stop replaying everything that happened—not just at prom with Ferguson and his moronic friends, but before that. The countless times he nagged me in the locker room, trying to get under my skin. Trying to drag me down to his level.
Tonight, I fell for it.
What an idiot I was. Weak, insecure, struggling to keep my pride intact. Everything I hate—that’s what I’ve been. In a lame attempt to impress a few guys who don’t even care about me, I lost the only thing that truly matters: Tessa’s trust.
Will she ever look at me the same way again?
Will she ever forgive me?
I wouldn’t blame her if she didn’t. I don’t deserve her forgiveness, her trust… her love.
I don’t deserve her.
At school the next day, I barely speak to anyone—but my bad mood and the dark circles under my eyes don’t go unnoticed by Neil Ferguson.
In the locker room after gym, he smacks my shoulder with his sweat-soaked T-shirt and says, “Correct me if I’m off base, Ludovico, but you do not look like you got laid last night. ”
I slam my locker shut, jaw clenched. “It’s none of your damn business, Ferg.”
“Oh, you definitely didn’t!” He throws his head back and laughs. “Should’ve known you’d be all talk and no action. Let me guess—you got close, but then she broke the news that she’s becoming a nun.”
He doubles over at his own stupid joke, and a few of his dimwitted disciples laugh with him. I don’t react. I just sling my backpack over one shoulder and make myself scarce.
I couldn’t care less what Ferguson says anymore. He can taunt me all he likes, call me a virgin, try to get under my skin. It doesn’t matter to me what any of them think.
The only thing I’m concerned about is how to make things right with Tessa.
I’ve been texting her all day, asking if I can come over after school and talk to her. I’ve called her, left her voice messages, but never got a word back. I’ve apologized, admitted what I did was wrong, asked her if she’ll forgive me.
So far, no response.
Finally, I decide to ask Rudy for advice.
He always knows the right thing to do. The worst part is having to tell him the whole ugly truth of what happened last night after Tessa and I left prom.
No, actually—the worst part is admitting that I was wrong, and he was right, and I should never have put that stupid “insurance policy” in my pocket.
“So she did know what it was,” he says, with a smug, smart-ass smirk on his face.
“Don’t say I told you so, Rudy… Just don’t say it.”
“Wasn’t going to. You know I told you so. No need to remind you that I told you so.”
I sigh, thumping my head back against the row of lockers. We’re loitering in the main hallway as school empties out for the day.
“I was an idiot, it’s true,” I admit. “I acted like… a pansy-ass. And I regret it. And now Tessa’s not speaking to me, and I have no idea how to make it right.”
“Why don’t you just try telling her the truth?”
“I did tell her the truth.”
“Really?” Rudy looks unconvinced. “The whole truth? About what happened between you and Ferguson in the bathroom?”
I shake my head, looking down at the scuffed tile floor. “Not that part.”
“Well, that’s the part she needs to know.”
He’s right. Still, I cringe inwardly, just imagining making a confession like that—how would I even begin? See, there’s this sleazeball named Ferguson who’s been trying to make me feel small and weird and broken ever since I lost my legs…
“It’s no excuse,” I mutter, more to myself than Rudy. “It doesn’t make what I did okay.”
“No, but it’s the truth.” Rudy shuts his locker, hooking his backpack over his shoulder. “And Tessa deserves to know the truth. Don’t you think?”