The Anti-Prom (16 page)

I gape.

“Jesus, Jolene, what the hell are you doing?” He gestures around angrily. “Breaking and entering — this is a felony. You’re not a minor anymore — you’ll get real time for sure!”

“My dad won’t press charges,” I shoot back. “And where do you even get off playing law-abiding citizen? I was right there with you for those stunts we used to pull.”

“I remember. What do you think I was doing all that time?” He’s mad now, for real: fists clenched by his sides and those dark eyes blazing. “Watching out, making sure you didn’t get caught, trying everything to keep you away from the real trouble.”

I blink. “What are you talking about?”

“You think I would have been pulling that crap without you?” He looks at me with a strange mix of exasperation and pity. “Sure, it was fun in the beginning, but we’re not kids anymore. I was trying to keep you safe.”

“So why did you shut me out?” I demand, spiteful. “Why did you start ignoring me like that? Did you want me to fall?”

“I wanted you to grow the hell up!” Dante yells suddenly. “You think I should have stayed, thrown my life away on you, on
this
?” He gestures around at the dark building on somebody else’s property. “I’m not some pretty white girl who can bat her eyelashes and get away with community service. Hell, I’m more likely to wind up in prison than ever get through college!”

I feel guilt slap me, hard. “You never said.” My voice shakes.

“I know.” He gives me this faint smile that almost breaks my heart. “I tried, so many times, but then . . .” Dante shrugs. “I can’t say no to you, Jolene. I just had to make it so you couldn’t ask me at all.”

I catch my breath, trying to understand, to rearrange all my memories to see this new version of things.

“I thought maybe, if I wasn’t around . . .” Dante starts. “If you had to deal with it all on your own . . . But you haven’t changed at all, have you? You’re still so self-destructive, you don’t care who you hurt.”

“I’m not hurting anyone.” I clench my jaw, my fists, my everything to keep it together.

“Oh, yeah?” Dante gives me a faded smile, and for a terrible moment, I can see myself from his perspective. Falling apart at the seams.

“It’s my life,” I manage to say, hating him. “I can do what the hell I want with it.”

Dante’s face changes. “But don’t you see — this is your shot now, your chance to get out, and you’re risking it all for
what
? Some meaningless payback that won’t change a thing.”

I shake my head. “You don’t know what he did.”

“I know he doesn’t love you.” Dante says it low and clear. “At least, not the way you need. I know he left, and let you down, but how is that ever going to change? You think you’ll hurt him, but you’re the only one getting hurt here.”

My mouth drops open. I’m coming apart; I can feel it — every word splintering into me until I don’t know how I’m still standing. It’s too much; I knew it was. It’s all too much.

“Jolene.” His voice softens and he pulls me closer. For a brief second, I’m in his arms, like I belong there. “You don’t have to do this,” he murmurs, holding me tight. “Every time he lets you down, you can just let go. Don’t —”

“Stop!” I break, pushing him away. “What the hell do you even care? I never asked you to do this, I never wanted you to save me!”

My words are sharp and fierce, echoing in the empty building.

Dante looks at me for a long moment. “No. No, I guess you didn’t.”

Something in his tone slices right through me.

“Go,” I say, because it’s just about all I can manage. “I’ll do this on my own.”

“Jolene . . .” His voice trails away.

We used to make plans together, laying out by the river on the far side of town. We plotted our escape there, tossing old soda cans into the water and imagining the world beyond state lines. New York. LA. Austin. Any town with a decent record store and a roller derby would suit us fine. But he’s gone now, living his life without a second damn thought to those hazy dreams. And me? I’m never getting out.

“Go.” I pick up the fire extinguisher and aim it for the glass with everything I have.

It smashes so loud, I don’t hear him leave.

We wait.

Of course we wait. Sometimes it feels like I spend my entire life waiting — in hospital waiting rooms and hard plastic chairs, the shadows of the library carrels. There’s a skill to it, I’ve found. You have to empty your mind and slip into a kind of haze; let the time drift by while you wait for something to change.

I exhale, gazing restlessly at the digital clock on my dashboard — the numbers flipping over with infinite slowness. I would have been better heading straight home from prom to accept Dad’s and Stella’s awkward sympathy. At least then, there would have been brownies.

“I’m, um, sorry.” Bliss’s voice comes from the backseat, hesitant. “About what I said before.”

I don’t turn.

“It’s fine,” I say, even though it’s anything but. “No big deal.”

“Yes, but —”

“I said it was fine.” My voice is sharp, and even Bliss can take the hint. She falls silent, leaving me to stare into the neon-lit dark. The things she said to me back at the Loft have been echoing ever since, and even though I try to push it all away as petty bitching, I can’t.

Because what if she’s right?

The thought is more terrifying to me than the deserted warehouses and black, empty street. Some days, the only thing that makes life bearable is the knowledge that I’m graduating next year. An end to this silence, to being constantly ignored — my chance to start again. But if Bliss is right, then it’s not simply circumstance that’s making me miserable. Part of it is me.

I see lights behind us.

“Get down,” I say, ducking down behind the wheel. Bliss is already lounging low in the backseat, but she scrunches even farther as the car draws closer.

“Who is it?” Bliss asks, twisting around to get a clearer look.

“How would I know?” I peer over the dashboard as the vehicle passes us by: a white car with blue insignia printed on the side. It begins to slow. “It’s security.” Fear twists in my stomach. “This place must have a dedicated patrol.”

Bliss swears. “But which building?”

“I can’t tell.” The car turns lazily into the industrial park, the same block that Jolene disappeared toward not fifteen minutes ago. I panic. “What do we do?”

“Call her,” Bliss orders, and I fumble with my phone to find her number and dial.

Silence.

“It’s not working.” I try again, but there’s not even a dial tone, just a low static buzz. I call my voice mail, just to test, but it won’t connect either. “My battery must be low — try yours.”

Bliss is already tapping at her tiny pink thing, but she shakes her head. “Me neither. But we can’t be out of range.”

“No,” I groan, suddenly realizing. “That device she got for surveillance must be jamming cell signals too.”

Our eyes meet in the rearview mirror.

“We’ll just have to go get her, then.” Bliss twists her hair up into a makeshift ponytail and then pulls her heels back on, reaching for the door.

“Are you crazy?” I protest. “That guy is parked right out front!”

“Which means he’ll catch Jolene the minute she walks out the door,” Bliss insists. “She doesn’t know he’s there. She won’t be looking out for anyone.”

She wants us to run
toward
the danger?

I shake my head vigorously. “Jolene’s the expert in all this, remember? If anyone can look after themself, it’s her.”

Bliss doesn’t listen. She climbs out of the car, looking carefully around before easing the door shut behind her with a silent click. I watch her, bewildered, as all the terrible consequences spin through my mind. I’m not one for worst-case scenarios, but it doesn’t take a huge leap of imagination to move from the office security guard to the local police, and from there, it’s only another tiny step to interview rooms, lawyers, eternal damnation, and — worst of all — my father.

“Meg, come on.” Bliss taps on my window. “She’ll rat us out anyway if she gets caught.”

I roll it down. “Jolene doesn’t want our help,” I repeat. “She’s said so about a dozen times tonight. We’ll only get in the way!”

“So you’re just going to sit here?” Bliss demands.

“No . . .” I search for an excuse, a reason why it’s not pathetic to leave her to her own fate. Or, better yet, drive far away. Then I stop. Why should I be the one making excuses? I’m the only one thinking clearly here.

“You know what? Screw Jolene,” I tell her, my frustration surging. “She chose to break in there, not me. Why should I be the one to risk everything because of her stupid mistakes?”

Bliss looks at me in shock. “Because you’re part of the team.”

“What team?” I can’t believe her, trying to pull this after everything she’s said. “We’ve spent less than four hours with one another. I bet you both don’t even know my last name!”

“So what?” She glares at me, suddenly fierce. “We’re in this together, Meg, at least for tonight, so why don’t you step up for once and actually do something?” She pauses, giving me a familiar bitchy stare. “That’s right, I forgot — you don’t actually
do
anything. Hey, good luck with that.”

Before I can defend my desire not to acquire a criminal record before I graduate, Bliss turns her back and trots toward the complex. Her white dress flutters like a ghost in the shadows until finally, she’s swallowed up by the dark, and I’m left here alone.

Again.

I sit in silence, seething at their utter stupidity. Does Bliss really want to risk her entire future on this stupid stunt? Because I know for certain that getting mixed up in whatever Jolene is doing will wreck our permanent records forever. It’s crazy and dangerous, and the kind of thing you don’t even ask your best friend to help with, but I’m supposed to jump at the chance when I don’t even
like
them?

I get out of the car.

“You’re losing your mind,” I whisper to myself, hurrying after her down the dark street. My shoes clatter against the pavement, and even the distant sounds of traffic from the highway make me flinch. “Certifiably, undeniably losing your mind.” It’s one thing to be waiting behind the safety of central locks, but out here, the air is thick and still, and every shadow could be concealing some terrible fate.

But despite every reason I have to turn and flee — put the car into drive, and leave Jolene and Bliss to their much-deserved fates — some new urge is driving me on, forcing me to put one foot in front of the other and bring myself closer to impending doom.

Because Bliss was right. I gave up.

I tried at first. God, I tried. When the grief finally eased a little, and I could make it through the day without wanting to weep, I wanted nothing more than to wrap myself in friendship, in some kind of human warmth. So I went out for those clubs and extracurriculars, stayed late for committee meetings, and signed up for the charity drives. I made awkward conversation with study partners, laughed along with bad jokes and inane lunchroom gossip. But it never stuck. Maybe they could sense my desperation, or maybe I’d spent too long as the miserable loner, but either way, nobody looked me in the eye, no one asked me what I thought, nobody invited me along to their mall trips or movie nights — no matter how hard I tried. Even the memory of it drains me: working so hard, all day, all the time; getting nothing more than a basic acknowledgment of your own existence in return. So I stayed invisible, and slowly, that willpower just ebbed away.

But it wasn’t my fault.

At least, that’s what I’ve been telling myself all this time. Bad luck and timing, that’s all it was. My life could be so different if only Mom hadn’t died, leaving me reeling for that all-important freshman year; if I’d had different classes, been on a different bus route, been assigned a locker next to somebody else . . .

The possibilities are endless and reassuring, but for the first time, I have to wonder if they’re wrong, just a lie I tell myself to make it all feel better. Tonight was something different, after all: the promise of excitement and adventure. But I’ve done nothing but play chauffeur and drive patiently around while the other girls complete their various plans — and/or insult me. I’m as separate from things as I was lurking in the hallway back at the country club, as detached as the girl at the party. I’m still on the edge, still outside. It’s the same as it’s always been.

Unless I do something different.

I finally reach the corner, peering carefully around as if the guard will be patrolling, vigilant. But the security car is parked, empty, and the lot is silent, so I steel myself and set out: skirting the buildings, scraping my bare arms on the bricks in my effort to stay back in the shadows. Every step feels like a mistake, but I force myself on, checking each window in turn until I see the pale shape of Bliss’s dress, standing in the middle of one of the office lobbies.

I slip through the unlocked door and creep across the room behind her.

“So where is she?” I whisper.

Bliss lets out a yelp.

“Shhh!” I hiss furiously.

“Sorry!” Bliss switches to a quieter voice. “What are you doing here? You scared me half to death.”