I'll Be Here

it.
    Why?
    Because Dustin didn’t like her.
    The first day after Mr. Rotholz redid the seating chart and Dustin looked over at me in Chem lab—I mean, really looked at me—I blushed from the tips of my toes all the way up to my hairline.  Two months earlier Alex had turned me down and my heart had gone into a tailspin. 
    Laney had called it a “bump in the road,” but it felt like a lot more than just a bump.  It felt like Kilimanjaro.  And with my mom’s cancer it felt like my entire life was in a tailspin of suckage.   
    You know that saying, when it rains, it pours ? 
    Well, that pretty much sums up the way that I was feeling.  I was in a torrential downpour and I didn’t have an umbrella.
    And then Dustin Rant smiled his cocky smile at me and it was the sun peeking out from behind a patch of storm clouds.  At this point my transformation was underway.  I’d already started paying attention to my clothes and wearing makeup to school.  I practiced my posture in the full-length mirror in my bedroom.  Mom had insisted that I talk to someone—a professional—to help me cope with the stress of her illness.  I’d only had to go to five sessions before mom was convinced that I was stable, but I still remember some of the things that Dr. Snyder (I wasn’t allowed to call her Patty then) had said to me.  
                She brought up my sudden interest in clothes.  Obviously my mother had dished about me prior to my office visit because how else would Dr. Snyder know that the tailored vest and pointy-toed shoes that I was wearing were “new for me”?  The last time she’d seen me I’d been in a pale blue loose-fitting dress with crocheted sleeves at Mom and Jake’s wedding.  Clearly that was no indication of my style preferences. 
    It was easy to brush it off.  I’d shrugged.  “I’m an adolescent.  Isn’t trying new stuff what I’m supposed to be doing?”
    Dr. Snyder had nodded and made this face that at the time I thought was a tad condescending, but in hindsight, I know that’s just the face that she makes when she’s thinking. 
    “When you’re in crisis mode it’s normal to search for areas of your life that you can gain control over.”
    Crisis mode?  I thought that was a bit of an exaggeration and said as much. 
    Maybe my reasons were simpler.  Maybe I was just trying to make a change.  People had been changing their lives for the better for centuries—getting religion, moving continents, giving up candy and fried foods.  Why did it matter so much what I wore?  Combat boots and vintage tops didn’t define me.  Neither could patent leather and breast-boosting undergarments.
    Dustin, for one, liked my new look.  “Nice shirt,” he commented as I sat down at my lab seat.  When he laughed a few minutes later I noted that his nostrils were perfectly symmetrical.
    I told Laney how he walked me to my next class after our lab. 
    “Duh—he likes you,” she said as if that wasn’t something that was altogether amazing. Looking back it’s entirely possible that there was a hint of disapproval in her tone.
    Could it be true?  Did Dustin Rant like me ?  I couldn’t fathom it.    
    A week and one day later he invited me to a party at the beach. 
    (!!!)
    Laney came with me because I said that I needed back-up and even though she rolled her eyes at the gathering of parked luxury cars in the corner of the beach access parking lot and mumbled under her breath about spoiled little rich kids, she was my best friend and if that meant tagging along to some party that she hated, that’s what she would do.
    He found me almost immediately and shoved a red plastic cup brimming with foamy beer into my hands.  It was bitter and I hated the taste instantly but I drank the entire thing within fifteen minutes because I figured that was what I was supposed to do.  When the cup was empty I moved to refill it.  This was my very first experience with a keg and some guy I didn’t know laughed at my fumbling with the spigot thingy (which I later learned is called a “tap”) and ended up filling the cup for me.
    I tried to talk to people—to fit in but I was distracted by Dustin over by the bonfire laughing loudly and jokingly wrestling one of his friends that I recognized as being on the track team also.  I liked the deep dimple that appeared on his cheek when he smiled and the way that his eyes kept drifting over to mine even when other girls were talking to