Chapter 20 River
Twenty
River
Talk to me. Please.
I hit Send on the text. Like every other text I’d sent to Holden over the last few days, it went unanswered. Calls went to voicemail.
I slumped on my bed. My tux for prom that night hung on a hanger on the back of my door as it had on homecoming at the beginning of the year.
I closed my eyes, a stupid hope that when I opened them, Holden would be lounging against my dresser with that irritatingly smug look on his face I loved so much.
He wasn’t there, and his absence was like a hole that had opened in me, empty and cold.
Flowers for Algernon lay open on my bed.
I hadn’t read it until a few days ago, after the incident under the bleachers.
That night, I’d picked it up and finished it within hours.
Charlie, a man with a clinically low IQ, participates in an experiment to enhance his intelligence.
His genius skyrockets, but the experiment slowly fails, and Charlie eventually sinks back into his old life.
“And he loses the love of his life,” I muttered out loud.
Holden had neglected to mention that when he gave me the book.
I sighed heavily and set it aside. My phone was silent. I’d have to pick up Violet in a few short hours, take pictures with her parents, then drive us here and do it again with Mom and Dad. I’d put my arm around Violet and smile as if we were a happy couple.
Outside my room, I heard Mom and Dad’s bedroom door close softly, followed by a muffled sob. I tore off the bed and found Amelia in the hallway, one hand pressed to her mouth, shoulders shaking.
“Hey,” I said, moving toward her.
She shook her head but let me wrap my arms around her.
I held her as she sobbed quietly into my shirt.
Mom’s scans had come back. Dad could hardly speak when he sat Amelia and me down at the kitchen table a few nights ago.
The road was coming to an end. A few weeks at most. And this time, there wouldn’t be a miracle.
“Come on,” I said, leading Amelia into her room, next to mine. We sat on her bed surrounded by posters of BTS and Riverdale. Russian nesting dolls lined every windowsill and bookshelf.
“Mom’s napping.” Amelia sniffed. “Again. I went to talk to her, and she was already tired.” She lifted her tear-streaked face to me. “But she’s been sleeping all day. All day, River.”
“I know.”
There was nothing more to say. No words of comfort I could give her that I wasn’t begging for myself. We sat side by side, our hands in our laps, reality creeping toward us like shadows across the carpet as the sun set.
Finally, Amelia peered up at me. “Are you really going to prom tonight?”
“You think I shouldn’t? You think I should stay with Mom?”
She shook her head, her dark hair falling in tangles around her shoulders. “I meant, you’re going with Violet?”
“Well…yes.”
Amelia huffed a breath and wiped her nose. “Do you know what I wanted to talk to Mom about?”
“No.”
“Everything. I wanted to tell her everything. I wanted a hundred conversations with her…all the ones we’re not going to have. I wanted to keep talking until we’d said everything there was to say in a lifetime so that I could… I could…” Tears choked her throat.
Say goodbye.
I started to put my arm around my sister, but she pushed it away.
“So what are you doing?” she demanded.
“I don’t understand.”
“Why are you bringing Violet over here and parading her in front of Mom instead of Holden?”
My stomach clenched as if my sister had gut punched me. “How did you…?”
“I’ve known forever. Or suspected. Since that first dance you were supposed to go to. I saw you leave with Holden. With the silver hair? I didn’t think much of it at first, but then he came over that one day to drop off a book.”
“Flowers for Algernon,” I murmured.
Amelia nodded. “I knew then. The way he said your name… He tried to sound all casual, but he couldn’t do it. It was like he was glowing.”
“Glowing? No…”
“Yes,” Amelia said. “Not literally, duh. But I’ve seen you with your bonehead friends enough to know what regular friendship looks like. You and Holden?” She shook her head. “No chance.”
A thousand denials rose to my lips, but I swallowed them all down, suddenly on the verge of my own goddamn tears.
Amelia scooted closer to me on the bed. “Is he who you’ve been seeing all those late nights?”
I nodded.
Her small hand patted my arm. “Do you love him?”
I sighed. “I don’t know. But what can I do? I’m going to college.”
“Does anyone else know?”
“Violet,” I said with a harsh laugh. “Irony of ironies.”
“The same Violet you ditched at homecoming and are going to prom with this actual night?” Amelia made a face. “Wow. That is one understanding girl.”
“Tell me about it.”
“You should tell Mom about it,” Amelia said, her voice cracking again.
“Tell her everything. She’s not going to care that you’re…
gay? Bi?” She waved a hand. “It’s okay. You don’t have to tell me.
But if you care about Holden, you should tell her.
She wants to know that stuff. She wants you to be happy. ”
“It’s not that simple,” I said heavily. “You know how Dad is about football. It would change everything.”
“Is that so bad?”
I sighed, and my eyes fell on a set of her Russian dolls lined up in a row, painted in brilliant reds, blues, and yellows, each one growing successively smaller.
“It’s like this,” I said and picked up the smallest doll, about the size of a peanut in its shell.
“This is me. The real me.” I put the peanut doll into the next largest doll, and then both into the next largest, on and on until there was only one big doll left, heavy with all the others locked inside it.
To my surprise, Amelia nodded, understanding in her eyes.
“There’s a guy in my class. He came out to his family last month, and now he lives in Pittsburgh with his grandma.
Dad would never be as bad as that, but I get it.
” She slipped her small hand in mine and rested her cheek against my shoulder.
“You can trust me, River. I won’t say anything until you’re ready. ”
“Thank you, Amelia. And you can trust me too. When things get bad, you come to me, okay? Don’t disappear on me.”
“I’ll try not to. But you’ll be halfway across the country.” Tears were starting. “What are we going to do?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
Story of my life.
***
The front sign at the Pogonip Country Club was changed to read Tonight—Central High Senior Prom! Garlands of lights were strung along the front walk, and couples strolled in.
Inside, the room was dim, and round tables were set up in a semicircle bordering the dance floor. A DJ spun at one end, and tables with appetizers and nonalcoholic beverages were set up like a wedding reception.
My gaze found Chance and Donte standing in a small group.
“Let’s head over,” I said.
I led Violet, looking beautiful in deep blue, to my friends as if she were a goddamn shield against suspicion, another layer concealing who I truly was. They grinned as I approached, Donte giving me an approving look and wink. I should’ve been relieved.
I felt sick. I was a fraud. Not because of what my so-called friends knew or didn’t know about me but because of what I knew. What I felt. A thousand emotions boiled up in me, every one of them for Holden.
I can’t do this anymore.
My narrow, shallow world was suffocating the life out of me. If I kept up the charade another minute, I was going to implode. If my mother died never knowing who I was…
Elation mixed with fear surged through me—the kind of feeling you only get when you do the right thing, no matter how hard. The urge to run out the door and drive straight to Holden gripped me, but I had to restrain myself. I couldn’t ditch Violet. Not again. Not on her prom night.
A few hours more. Then it’s over.
By the end of the night, my pretend world was going to end because I was going to tear it down, brick by brick, layer by layer, until I was free.
I checked my phone for a message from Holden. Nothing. But the exhilaration and relief were still there, and before my old fears and doubts returned to crush them, I had to make it real. Put it in writing.
Stay in Santa Cruz, I typed. With me.
No answer.
The night dragged, but I did everything I could to give Violet the best prom. I brought her drinks, talked and laughed, and danced with her. Not for show or to prove anything but because she deserved a perfect night.
When it’s over, I’ll have my perfect night too.
“You’re thinking about Holden, aren’t you?” Violet asked in a low voice.
My first instinct was to deny, but I was done denying anything where Holden was concerned, and fuck if that didn’t feel amazing. I grinned. “How can you tell?”
Violet smiled softly. “Because you look happy.”
The time came to announce prom king and queen. Violet leaned over the table to me. “Do you have your speech planned?”
I thought about Donte’s suspicion and how I’d basically checked out of my social life at Central to be with Holden these last few months. “I don’t think it’s gonna be me.”
“Who else would it be?”
“Guess we’re about to find out.”
Vice Principal Chouder and the prom committee chair, Layla Calderon, took the stage and read the nominees for queen.
Layla motioned for quiet. “Your Santa Cruz Central High prom queen is…”
The DJ played an electric version of a drum roll.
“Evelyn Gonzalez!”
The crowd erupted in cheers as Evelyn received her crown and sash, kissing Layla on both cheeks.
I leaned into Violet. “It’s like a beauty pageant my little sister watches on TLC. Toddlers and Tiaras?”
She giggled under her hand. “Careful now. You’re up next.”
Layla took the mic. “And now, I am beyond excited to announce your Central High prom king…Miller Stratton!”
The ballroom exploded with sound, the girls screaming and clutching at each other as if the prom had suddenly morphed into a Stray Kids concert.