I'll Be Here

particularly known for understanding and fairness.” 
    She pulls a packet of seeds from the crocheted satchel on a braided strap that she’s been carrying around her waist and rips a strip off the top.  She pours a little pile of dark seeds into the open palm of her hand.
                I feel weirdly confused, like I don’t know what just happened. 
                I don’t cry even though I sort of feel like I might.  There are definite tears in my eyes but somehow they never brim over.  I think about Alex and I wish that he was a seed that I could hold in my hand and plant in this dirt and water and dazzle with sunshine and then pluck after he’s sprouted.
    ***
    So, I did end up going to prom.  With a push from my mom, I called Wes Hardin in the early afternoon and asked him if he still wanted me to go as his date.  He said yes and picked me up at six thirty in his grandfather’s Cadillac.  Wes told me that I looked beautiful when I came out of my bedroom door.  He had a wrist corsage of lilies for me and he seemed incredibly nervous as my mother took a series of pictures of him putting it over my hand.    
    Even though Wes protested, I insisted on paying for my own ticket and dinner.
    Prom ended up being better than I thought it would be.  I danced almost every slow song with Wes, but the rest of the time I just had fun with my friends.   
    On Monday at lunch Laney and Colleen chortle about Ellie Grabove’s pink bubble dress that we all agree looked like an enlarged Barbie outfit.  I ask them if they think that Melanie Cullum was wearing a hairpiece on top of her head or if they think that poof was real. 
    Dizzy and Asher can’t add much to the conversation because they disappeared from the dance after the first song (presumably to have sex in the rented white limo).  Lance is the only one that thinks that prom was only “so-so.”  His date, a junior from Bayview with a dyed black fauxhawk, was wasted and ended up spending the second half of the night vomiting in a urinal.  Classic. 
    In an unexpected twist, Taylor Irwin was not inaugurated as reigning Queen of the senior class.  That honor was reserved for Kathleen Osterman, a girl with a mild form of cerebral palsy who has a wheelchair and an aid that accompanies her to class.  She didn’t campaign for the title and was a write-in on the ballot. 
    Taylor took it hard and left the dance in a haze of light blue taffeta and drippy mascara, pulling Dustin in her wake.  
    The other surprise is that long-shot Michael Donovan—Valedictorian and all-around nice guy—was chosen as Prom King.
    Whodathunkit.
    I don’t think I’ve ever liked my fellow classmates as much as I do right now. 
    I run into Taylor as I’m walking to my last class of the day.  If she’s still feeling the sting of not being made Prom Queen, she’s not showing it.  She looks like a photo that’s been snipped from the page of a fashion magazine.  Her honey blonde hair is blown out and drapes long and smooth over her shoulders.  She’s wearing a thick black patent leather belt over a red short-sleeved tunic and leggings.  Black wedges hug her narrow feet.  I wonder if the fabric is itchy and I’m willing to bet that she’s sweating under all the material. 
    I look down at the thin tee shirt dress and the patterned green tights that I borrowed from Colleen last week.  Normally having Taylor see me like this when she looks like that would make me feel small or like I’m a complete spaz who showed up to school wearing a garbage bag and a glittery headdress.  But today I just keep walking because frankly, I like the tights and the dress is simply comfortable.   
    This is what happens when our eyes meet and I smile: Taylor’s gaze slides away and she focuses on some interesting patch of air beyond me. 
    That’s it. 
    There’s no confrontation or nasty looks or bad feelings. 
    I don’t feel upset anymore or distracted by her presence.  Something is changing inside of me.  Something is clearing up and Taylor Irwin and Dustin Rant have no part in it.

 
     
    I would feel really badly about killing you in a post-apocalyptic death match.
    ~Lance Everest (to Willow James)

 
    CHAPTER TWENTY
     
    “You’re mom’s a baller.”
                I look around, momentarily confused.  We’re sitting at one end of the reserved-for-special occasions dining room table.  Stacks of papers and envelopes litter the