33. Prom And Disasters
33
Prom And Disasters
I’ve regretted fighting with Haze a lot in the past few weeks. I’ve wanted to get a second chance at a conversation and slap some sense into myself way too many times to count. But I’ve never regretted fighting with him as much as I am regretting it right now. Because the row I was in with him… is the reason I find myself alone with a psychopath.
I should’ve told the guys. But I didn’t. Because I wanted this perfect day to last. I wanted us to be careless teenagers. Just once.
“How the hell did you get in here?” I ask, finding the pepper spray in my purse and holding it up to his face. I’ve been cherishing it ever since the Ryan incident.
“Easy!” He puts his hands up in surrender. “The door was open. I was worried someone broke in.”
I scoff at his pathetic excuse. The only intruder in this house is him and he knows it.
“You need to leave, right now.” I try to sound as threatening as I possibly can.
“I’m not here to hurt you, Winter. I promise, I just want to talk.”
“Not interested. Get the hell out!”
He holds his hands up to his face—probably in anticipation of getting sprayed in the eyes—and steps forward. But the last thing I want is to get into a fistfight with him when I’m home alone, so I jerk away, reach for the door, and swing it open… but I can’t run out of the house.
Because Will’s standing in the doorway.
I have never been happier to see this buffoon.
I might not die today.
“What’s wrong? Have you seen yourself in the mirror?” he mocks, but his bad joke flies right by me. He quickly spots what I was running from—or should I say, who— and his face collapses. Kendrick walks in seconds later and displays a similar reaction, but the rage crawling out of him allows me to prepare for what he intends to do.
“Kendrick, no!” It takes every ounce of strength in my body to stop my cousin from pouncing on Blake. I’m not sure Maria would be pleased to see her white welcome mat has turned red when she comes back tonight.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Kendrick barks as Will pulls me behind him.
“I came here to apologize,” Blake dares to lie.
“Apologize? Are you serious right now? You didn’t push me on the sidewalk. You tried to kill my family. You can shove your apology up your a—”
Blake interrupts him. “I heard you’re a member short.”
“So?” Kendrick’s fists are weapons. Weapons that Blake will be closely introduced to if he doesn’t leave soon.
“I want back in. Please, I’m sorry. Betraying you was the biggest mistake of my life.”
He’s lying. That’s all he knows how to do.
“Get the hell out of my house before I kill you.” Kendrick strides to him and stops barely one inch away from his ex-fighter’s face.
“Kendrick, we were best friends,” Blake says, upset that his plan to get our trust and murder us in our sleep isn’t working.
“We weren’t best friends.” A tiny bit of emotion peeks through my cousin’s voice. “We were brothers… and you betrayed me. You betrayed all of us.”
Understanding that sweet-talking Kendrick isn’t his way in, Blake turns to me. He’s even dumber than I thought if he believes he has better chances with me.
“Winter, when I saw you at the fair today, I just… I realized how much I missed the East side. I had to at least try,” he says. “You have to believe me, I never meant to hurt you.”
The laugh Kendrick emits next is loud, throaty—chilling.
“I’m sorry, you mean to tell me that you accidentally tied her up and pressed a gun to her head? You don’t just trip into a fucking murder attempt!”
The fist Kendrick puts up causes Blake to finally take his warning seriously.
“Fine, I’m leaving.” He walks to the door. “But I really am sorry. I learned from my mistake. I’d do anything for a second chance.”
“Yeah, and I’m the queen of England.” Will rolls his eyes.
Probably because he’d like to leave with his two legs, Blake exits Maria’s property as Kendrick carefully watches through the window to make sure he gets back into his car on the other side of the street. Then, when the threat goes dormant, they turn to me.
“When he saw you today at the fair? What the hell is he talking about?” Kendrick reminds me of what Blake said.
Busted…
I lie awake in my soon-to-be empty bedroom and replay the conversation I just had with the guys in my head. So… to sum it up: I’m a moron. They wouldn’t let me hear the end of it, and what’s worst is I can’t even blame them. They’re right. I should’ve told them. Who knows what could’ve happened if Will hadn’t walked in when he did?
Plus, because my guilt isn’t unbearable enough as it is, Haze decided to take up all the remaining room in my brain and steal any chance of sleep away from me. I can’t stop thinking about him alone at his place.
I haven’t had the guts to ask him if the two of us are still going to prom together tomorrow.
Or if there’s even still an us at all…
I’m about to pick up my phone to text him when it vibrates.
Haze: I’m an idiot.
I let out a huge breath of relief.
Winter: Why?
Haze: The girl I love is leaving soon and we’re fighting.
I sit up on my bed and type a reply inhumanly fast.
Winter: That sucks. Who’s the lucky girl?
Haze: Her name’s Winter. She’s beautiful, funny but beyooond stubborn. Maybe you’ve heard of her.
I laugh.
Winter: Just saw her actually. She told me she loves you too.
Haze: I wish I was with her now.
Winter: Yeah? What are you going to do about it?
Haze: Not sure. I’m thinking sneak in through her bedroom window and give her the best makeup sex of her life.
I blush. Well, that escalated quickly.
Winter: She says to text her when you’re almost there.
He stops replying and leaves me hanging. A minute later, my phone vibrates again.
Haze : No need.
Haze: I’m at her window.
Of course.
I run to the glass, and sure enough, he’s right there, looking at me with puppy eyes. I push my window open.
“What are you doing?” I find myself laughing, trying not to wake up everyone with my dying seal laughter. Seriously, there is no such thing as a cute laugh. There’s the laugh at 3:00 a.m. when you’re alone stuffing your face to a Netflix movie, and there’s the laugh when you’re in public.
“I’ve always been told to follow my dreams.” He throws me one of his oh so famous pickup lines, and I pretend to gag.
He chuckles at my reaction.
“Maria isn’t home yet. Get in through the front door.”
“Why?”
“So that you don’t risk breaking your back, duh.”
“But, Kingston… where’s the fun in that?” He smirks and does what he’s done almost every night recently, easily reaching my window and sneaking inside a bedroom that clearly wasn’t expecting him. I’ve spent the last two hours packing. He doesn’t acknowledge the mess once, standing tall next to my bed as his blue eyes travel from my face to my Disney pajamas. He smiles at my outfit but doesn’t comment.
“I’m sorry,” he breathes out after a few seconds of silence.
“Sorry? Is that all you got?” I taunt. “You think I’m going to forgive you that easy?”
His eyes grow in shock.
“I know you’re going to forgive me that easy.”
“Well, you’re wrong.”
“Is that so?” He tilts his head to the right and steps closer to me. I make it a point to tease him by stepping back although I know my average-sized bedroom won’t allow this You push, I pull game of ours for too long.
“Yes,” I say unconvincingly. When my back hits my closet and his body meets mine, we both put down the weapons and give in to the need—the urge.
We can’t control it.
We kiss.
But it’s not soft. Or gentle. It’s both eager and sloppy. Both sad and happy. We’re miserable and desperate for this kiss, tugging at each other’s hair, clothes, faces. We’re desperate for forever, and we’re terrified, horrified, panicked … because forever ends tomorrow.
His fingers dig into my shoulders as he pushes my hair away to kiss my neck. Taste it. Breathe it. Then, he stops. And for the same reason I won’t let our clothes hit the floor, he looks into my eyes. We’re thinking the same thing. We need to talk— really talk —before we go too far.
If we don’t, we’ll be fine for a second, panting into each other’s arms while we disconnect from reality. For a minute, we’ll forget that the plane taking us to the sky is going to crash. We’ll forget that everything that goes up… comes back down.
And I don’t know if we can survive this fall.
“We can’t keep fighting,” I say.
“I know.”
“What happened earlier?”
He sighs. “Every time we’re happy, there’s a voice in the back of my head telling me that it might be the last time.”
“It doesn’t have to be.”
He pulls away, the hope illuminating his gaze breaking my heart. It’s small, but it’s there.
“Did you decide to stay?”
“No.”
Nothing in this world could make being the reason the light in his eyes dies easy.
“Oh.”
He nods and turns away.
“But I’m asking you to come with me.” The words come out as a quick, crammed mess. His back is facing me. I can’t see his expression, but it’s a good thing since I’m pretty sure his pain would pulverize my courage.
“Before you say no, just think about it. There’s nothing here for you anymore. You’re done fighting, your brother’s with Riley and taking over the company. Your family betrayed you, and you have people lining up to hurt you. What’s keeping you here, Haze? Please tell me, because I don’t get it.”
He swivels around to face me.
“Winter, it’s my home…” he murmurs.
“No, it’s not.” I raise my voice . “I am.”
His mouth falls open.
“Home is where your heart is. Can’t you picture it? Us moving in together and arguing over what colors to paint the walls? Because I can. I can see every moment of it.” I cup his face with my hands. “I can see us unpacking our boxes and me getting a pet even though you said no until you eventually get attached and want to keep him. I can see you complaining about the cold weather but forgetting all about it the second you come home to me. I can see me graduating and getting a job, while you figure out what you want to do and finally step out of your family’s shadow. I can see all of it. I can see us being happy. But I need you to see it, too…”
I’m crying. I don’t know how or when it happened, but I am. If my enormous speech hit him half as hard as it just hit me, we might stand a chance.
I guess, imagining us together in a whole new life without the constant danger made me emotional. He stays silent for a “math class” eternity. He’s conflicted.
Please don’t say no.
Don’t destroy us.
“I’ll… I’ll think about it,” he barely says.
His voice lacks everything: excitement, determination, hope. But the wave of joy that washes my pain away when the words leave his mouth is unexplainable. I jump into his arms, and I cry. His muscular body hovers over mine, making me feel like the safest and most vulnerable girl on the planet all at once. A tear comes rolling down my cheek and crashes on his shirt.
“Why are you crying?” he asks, worried.
“I’m not. My eyes are sweating,” I joke.
“Winter…” He dabs at my tears with his thumb.
“Fine. I’m happy that you’re even considering it,” I admit.
He smiles faintly and pulls me back to him to kiss my forehead. I welcome his touch the way I always do and dare believe that we still have a shot at forever.
It’s not a yes…
But it’s a start.
I wake up to the sound of the birds singing and the sunrays filtering through my bedroom window. Nah, I’m just kidding . I wake up to the sound of Will and Kendrick chasing each other around the house and screaming about Will losing a bet and refusing to shave his head. I gave up trying to understand these two a long time ago.
Stretching, I look to my right and see Haze sleeping soundly next to me. I gently push a piece of his brown hair off his face and hear Maria and Kass chitchatting downstairs. Haze will have to leave the same way he came in: through my window. I hate that I have to wake him up, but Kass and I have a long day ahead of us. My lovely cousin has scheduled a million appointments for tonight. We need to get our hair done, our nails, our makeup. She has a list—an actual list that’s been on the fridge since last week—of all the steps we have to go through to achieve our princess status.
“Wake up.” I sprinkle Haze’s face with kisses. He groans like something that came out of Planet of the Apes and hides under the pillow. “I have to get breakfast before we leave. Plus, you probably shouldn’t be lying in my bed naked when Kass rushes inside my room in thirty minutes.”
I glance at our clothes scattered all across the floor. I can’t help but grin. Way to be predictable. The couple fight, the guy comes and says sorry, the girl forgives, and they have sex. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you: Every single love story summed up in one sentence.
Haze groans again as an answer and keeps ignoring me.
“How about this? If you get up right now, you won’t have to wear a tie at prom.”
“Not good enough.” He shrugs. “If I get up, I get to do whatever I want with you after prom.” He gets his head out from under my pillow and lets our eyes mix. His stupid sexy smirk gets me every time.
“You wish.”
“All right. Good night, then.” He pulls the covers on top of his head. If he falls asleep again, there’s no way I’ll get him out of my room in time.
“Fine, fine, you win,” I laugh.
“Wise choice.” He grins and transports himself out of bed. He wanders around the room naked and, because he notices my eyes on him, makes sure to take his sweet time picking up his clothes off the ground. Nothing new, here. Just Haze being Haze .
“Meet me at school at four. Don’t forget.” I wrap the covers around my bare body, get up, and kiss him.
“I would never. Especially after the deal we just made.” He wiggles his eyebrows, and our lips collide for a brief moment. He opens the window and turns around. He’s stalling on purpose. He wants to stress me out.
“Go, you jerk!” I hit his arm playfully.
“I love you, Kingston.” He looks at me one last time.
“I love you, Adams.” I use his last-name habit against him.
I watch him make his way down the house and disappear behind the high bushes surrounding the property. I shower quickly and head downstairs for breakfast. Kass is already dressed and ready to go. She’s standing in the kitchen, cooking what I assume to be eggs.
“Haze didn’t want to stay for breakfast?” she asks when I walk in.
My eyes widen.
“Don’t look so surprised.” She turns off the stove. “You guys were crazy loud last night. Man, he must be really good.”
Apparently, the face I make is hilarious because she bursts out laughing right away.
“Chill, I’m totally messing with you. I saw his car leave just now.”
“I hate you so much.” I bring a hand to my heart to soothe my panic and sit down at the table.
She laughs harder and asks me if I’m ready for the few things we have to do today. I nod and mentally try to prepare for the busy day ahead.
Six hours. Six freaking never-ending hours. This is what Kass meant by “a few things.” I yawn my head off as we pull into Maria’s driveway, and get out of the car in a rush. Man, trying to look pretty is exhausting.
We only have about an hour left before we have to be at school. Haze and I have been texting all throughout the day. I can’t stop thinking about him possibly coming with me to Toronto. I know he didn’t say yes—it was more of a maybe— but he said he’d think about it. Tonight, he’ll give me the final answer. Soon, I’ll know what the future holds for us.
Kass and I hurry inside and change into our prom dresses and shoes. I have to reassure her that she doesn’t have back fat close to twenty times before she agrees to come out of her room. I struggle to walk with my three-inch heels inside the house and fear it’ll be even worse in a large crowd. I don’t know what I would’ve done if it wasn’t for Maria offering to pay for half my dress. Those things cost a fortune. My stepdad, Harry, transferred me the first half of the price as a surprise to celebrate my graduation. I’m so grateful for him. Heaven knows my mom wouldn’t have done that.
We spend the next hour bowing to Maria’s every demand. She compliments the guys on how handsome they look in a tux, takes way too many pictures of us, and asks Kass and Luke, her date to prom, to change locations every five minute. Will is beyond jealous, and Kass knows it. I think that’s what she wants. She’s desperate for him to grow some balls and tell Kendrick the truth. I really wish Haze could’ve come, but Maria forbade me from seeing him again. Having him show up would kind of defeat the whole purpose of Haze sneaking in through my window every night for the past week.
Then, when 3:45 p.m. comes, I give Maria the biggest hug—since she’ll be working tomorrow, and we won’t see each other again before I leave—and we scramble inside Will’s car to embark on the road leading to my very last night in high school. To my last moments in Florida. To my last hours… with him.
The high school gym is big—like how many calories can I eat when I’m bored big. But there are so many of us, the students crowd every inch of our personal space, leaving Kass and me no choice but to hold hands to get to the photo booth on the other side of the room. We lost Alex and Kendrick shortly after we arrived. I haven’t found Haze yet.
Kass spots him first. He’s standing in the corner with his hands in his pockets. I’ve seen him in a tux before, but the fact that he’s wearing it because he agreed to take me to prom—something he once told me he would never go to—makes him all the more irresistible. He looks like the definition of droolworthy, the tux fitting his hard body in all the right places and owing him a few—okay, a lot —of glances from any female present. I’m so caught up in checking him out that I don’t even notice the tanned girl standing right next to him. To my defense, she wasn’t obvious from this angle.
Bianca.
I look back at Kass, waiting for one of her usual “I hate that bitch” comments, but she isn’t where I left her. I glance around and see her getting dragged into a room by someone.
Will.
Well, shit. I sure hope they brought prom tection.
That’s it. I’m going to hell for this pun.
I eye Bianca, who’s wearing a glittery and gorgeous red dress that puts my sleeveless white dress to shame. I wasn’t sure about going with white at first since I thought it was a well-known unspoken rule that white should be saved for weddings, but Kass changed my mind. “Is it a law? No? Then break the fucking unspoken rule.” She made me laugh. Mind you she was in a mood that day, but she was right. She always is.
Maybe it’s time we make rules of our own.
I take a breath and weave my way to Haze, my heels already killing me. I catch the last sentence Bianca tells him.
“I’m giving you one last chance here. Think about what you’re going to do. Think carefully.”
Unbothered, he doesn’t reply and looks around the room. His eyes find mine and go from uninterested to huge as he looks me up and down. This look right there. This is the reason some girls dream about this night their whole lives.
“Winter, you’re…” He desperately searches for words for a few seconds. “ Everything. ”
I flush.
“Thank you.” I smile and wrap my arms around his neck. “You’re very everything , too.”
He laughs and kisses me. I can feel Bianca’s hateful eyes on us, but I couldn’t care less. When we pull away for air, I’m pulled away from him, tumbling a few steps back. Haze catches me before I lose my balance.
My eyes quickly find the person who just roughly slammed her shoulder into me. Bianca. Who else? She turns around, forces a smile that’s full of arrogance on her lips, and spits a bitter “sorry” as she walks away. I sigh and look back at Haze, who just tells me to ignore her. I ask him what they were talking about, and he replies that it’s not important. I insist and he tells me that she somehow heard through the grapevine that he was thinking of leaving town with me. She gave him one last chance to choose her. One last chance to choose right.
How did she even know about this? Haze brushed it off, but I’m so creeped out it takes me a good minute to forget about it and enjoy the rest of the night.
The dance floor is crawling with people by the time the slow songs come flowing out of the speakers and the lights go from blinking to dimmed. Haze and I have been dancing, mocking the DJ’s upbeat song choices and laughing until our stomachs hurt for a few hours now. I haven’t seen Will and Kass once since he dragged her away, which tells me things either went very wrong or very right. As for Kendrick and Alex, they drank way too much of the obviously spiked punch and are probably trying not to puke somewhere.
“May I have this dance?” Haze holds out his hand to me when couples start forming around us.
“You may,” I agree. We’re as close as can be, slow dancing along to lyrics that say “ If we can’t have tomorrow, let us have right now. ” The irony isn’t lost on me.
I want to enjoy this with all of my being, but I’m afraid. Everything is too perfect right now, and if there’s one thing I learned about fairy tales, it’s that after the ball comes the fall. Soon, the clock will strike midnight and the glass slippers will vanish. Along with my life in Florida. Along with our story.
“Did you think about my offer?” I ask, pulling away and admiring the reflection of the pale gym lights in Haze’s eyes.
“I did.” He nods.
Ten seconds until midnight.
“And?”
Five seconds…
Three…
Two…
One…
“I can’t come with you, Winter.”
Here’s midnight.
“Why not?” I ask.
“This is my home. I’m not ready to give it all up.”
“But… don’t you want to be with me?” My voice cracks.
“Of course I do. But life is constantly standing in our way.” He stops dancing. “Maybe it’s trying to tell us something. Maybe we weren’t meant to be more than this.”
I take a step back, the tears threatening to ruin my overpriced makeup, as I fail to mentally grasp what he just told me.
“What?” is all I can say. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that… maybe we were meant to be a fling.”
If words could stab you, I’d be hemorrhaging right now.
“A fling?” I spit with disgust. “You mean to tell me that we went through all of this… for a fucking fling ?” I yell and cause the students dancing around us to stare.
“Winter, I…” he begins but stops speaking too soon for any real apology to come out. He’s staring at something in the distance. Someone. “I’m so sorry, I have to go,” he says quickly and leaves me and my broken heart stranded in the middle of the dance floor. I don’t even bother to look, or care, to see who was worth ditching me for. I don’t want to care. Not about him.
Not anymore.
I let the waterfall building up in my eyes flow freely and push my way through the thick crowd of students. I can see the door from here. I tell myself that this will all be over soon. That I’ll call Maria and be out of this school—no, out of this country—in no time. I’m about to walk out of the gym when someone spins me around. Worried eyes are pointed at me. Kendrick’s.
“Winter, what’s wrong?”
“I think Haze and I just broke up for good.” My lips quiver.
Saying it out loud hurts even more. I didn’t even know it could hurt more. How is that possible?
“What? I’m sorry. What happened?” he asks.
“Please, don’t pretend like this isn’t the best day of your life,” I scoff and remove my arm from his grasp. He has no right to play the “sorry” card on me. He’s been trying to sabotage us from day one. I run outside the gym and into the empty parking lot with a gigantic lump in my throat. As I move away from the building, I want to scream. I want to shout at the top of my lungs, but no sound comes out. A fling? A fling?
I’ll show him a fling by flinging him off a bridge.
I begin to dial Maria’s number but am interrupted by my phone ringing. The caller ID rips my heart out of my rib cage.
Haze Adams is calling.
I press the Reject button, but he calls again two seconds later. We go through the hang up on me, I’ll call right back cycle a few times before I lose my temper and pick up.
“What?” I snap, but I can’t hear his reply.
What I hear instead is the vehicle loudly hitting the brakes behind me. The screech of the tires resonating through the empty parking lot. The swinging of the van door, the pumping of my blood when strong arms close around me, and I drop my phone. I hear someone curse while I fight back. I hear the moans when I kick the stranger where it hurts.
“You fucking bitch.” He grabs my hair and bashes me in the face twice. I can taste the blood on my tongue.
“Hurry up!” a female yells from inside the car.
I hear the sound my body makes when it gets thrown in the back of the van, and I curse myself for falling for the wrong boy. I hear the roar of the engine when it takes off. I hear a lot of things… but the sound that sticks with me is her voice. The high-pitched voice I’d recognize anywhere, even with my eyes closed, even in the dark, even when I’m passing out because of yet another stranger. I hear it over and over…
That voice belongs to Bianca.