I'll Be Here

and Taylor pass me as they walk into the main building before first period.  Her arm is tucked between his forearm and his chest, and her mouth is moving rapidly.  She wears her hair in a sideswept bun.  Loose tendrils drip in front of her cat eyes.  Cough syrup pink lipstick coats her lips. 
    Dustin’s gaze falls on me and skips away quickly.  Taylor is too preoccupied with herself to notice me, standing in the hollow where the sidewalk turns to ground and students mill about freely on the dewy earth.   
    “You could tell her.”  It’s Laney.  She has come up beside me.  Her eyes follow mine.  I called her last night and told her what happened with Dustin at the restaurant.  No one else knows. 
    “ Then you’d have your revenge.”
    I look at Laney’s profile: a slightly upturned nose, freckles on a bed of pale peach skin.  Small silver earrings smile from the swell of her earlobes. 
    “Maybe,” I say feeling my shoulders rise and fall automatically.  “But, it seems sort of obnoxious, right?”
    The sides of Laney’s mouth lift only slightly.  Small lines creep from her eyes to her hairline. 
    “A little obnoxious,” she agrees.  “But, she deserves it and so does he.”
    “You’re probably right, but I guess I just feel like they aren’t worth it anymore.  Yes.  I could tell Taylor that her boyfriend asked me to get back together with him and called her a mistake, but what’s the point?  I might feel good about that for about five minutes but then I’d feel shitty all over again and...” 
    The first bell sounds overhead.  We turn north and begin walking towards our classes.
    “And you have Alex now,” Laney finishes for me.
    I laugh.  “It’s not all about Alex, but yes, I have him and the rest of this crap seems like a waste of time.”
    Laney grins big.  “Good answer Willow,” she chirps over her shoulder as she turns left toward her first period class. 
    I am walking alone, but a few people smile and wave along the way.  Dizzy squeezes my arm as she goes by and Lance twirls me around—up off my feet into the air.  He laughs.  When I am back on the ground Nate comes up beside me to ask me a question about the homework that we are supposed to turn in today.  Francesca, a girl from my English class pauses to tell me that she likes my shoes and asks where I got them. 
    I look left and right.  Nobody is whispering my name or giving me weird looks.  Something bubbles inside of me and at first I barely recognize it.  This is called being happy . 
    Here’s what I think: it’s not about another person.  It’s about liking yourself.  And today I think that I’m okay.
    ***
     
    It is Friday, and after school I’ve agreed to work an extra day.  We end up staying late for a hysterical patient and Smirna and I don’t get to our cars until the sky is turning pink and purple at the edges and the outlines of the buildings look black in silhouette. 
    Mentally, I’m running through a checklist of all the things that I need to do when I get home.  Shower.  Definitely shave.  My legs have sprouted a jungle of hair this week.  Makeup.  Hair.  Maybe I’ll even curl it with the larger attachment on my curling iron so that it falls in those thick, rounded waves. 
    I’m not even sure what time to expect Alex, but when we talked last it was Wednesday after school and he said that he wanted to take me on a “proper date,” whatever that is.  I would think that a proper date includes dinner and the digital clock on the dashboard confirms that dinnertime is happening sooner rather than later. 
    For the fourth time in the past ten minutes, I check my phone.  No messages or missed calls.  It’s a little weird that I haven’t heard from Alex, but he’d said that he would be busy for the rest of the week with school.  I’ve only texted him once.  I don’t want to be a nuisance.  The last thing I want is for him to think that I’m one of those needy, overwhelming girls that freaks out easily. 
    Tonight I’m going to ask Alex to go to my prom with me.  It’s in exactly eight days.  There might not be enough time to rent a tux at this point, or maybe he can’t make it down from school next weekend but I’m going to ask anyway.
    I stop at the red light at the corner of Osprey and Wilton Drive tapping the steering wheel impatiently.  I have to remind myself to come to a full and complete stop at the four-way intersection at the front of my