Bryony cleared her throat loudly, and I looked over to see her staring at Bruce. She’d started fussing with her bangs, which she only did when she was around a guy she thought was cute.
“Um, what are you doing here?” I asked, my heart beating hard. Between the way he was looking at me and the tone of his voice, it suddenly felt like I’d been caught, like I was in trouble. Which, I told myself very firmly, was ridiculous. If he was still upset I’d gotten sick on prom night a year ago, that was ahimissue.
“Grad Nite,” he said, as though? it was obvious, slight edge to his voice I’d never heard before.
“Yeah, I know,” I said, shaking my head, trying to get my thoughts together. “I just—It seems like a long way to come. From Washington.” I was speaking these words and trying to stay calm, even as everything in me wanted to screamWhat is happening?!Between Bruce, Greta and Nora, and Reagan, it was like I’d been dropped into some kind of alternate universe where my past was going to keep confronting me. Like this was my version ofA Christmas Carol, but in June.
Bruce shrugged. “We won this national academic award, so they let us vote on what we wanted to do to celebrate. And this won out.”
“Oh, gotcha. That’s—that’s cool.” I looked up at him, and then immediately had to look away again. Seeing him now was having to actually face how things had ended with us—like the letter he’d sent I hadn’t responded to—and I didn’t much like it.
“Hi, I’m Bryony,” Bryony said, stepping forward and widening her eyes at me. She was giving me very clear introduce-me-to-this-guy signs. And while normally I wouldn’t have hesitated, the fact was, I wanted this interaction to end as soon as possible.
“Hi,” he said. And I noticed he blinked as he looked down at her, like he was trying to get his bearings. “I’m Bruce.”
“Bruce!” Bryony looked at me, then back at him, her eyes narrowing. “You’re the one who dumped Cass on prom night?”
Bruce just stared at me for a moment, his face falling. “Is that what you’ve told people, Cass?Really?”
My heart was starting to beat hard. I’d never had a panic attack before, but I was pretty sure this was what one ?felt like. “It’s…” I started. I looked at the stage, thinking that any time now would be agreatmoment for the band to start playing.
“Is that not…what happened?” Bryony asked, her brow furrowing in confusion.
“Hi, I’m Emma,” Emma R. jumped in, not reading the room at all.
Bruce just gave a short laugh, the kind without any humor in it. “No, it’snotwhat happened. The opposite, in fact. The last time I heard from Cass was when she stoodmeup on prom night.”
Bryony stared at me. “You what?”
“I didn’t stand you up,” I said, even though I knew I kind of did. “I texted—”
“And then the next day, she was just gone, no goodbye, nothing.”
Bryony turned to me, frowning, like she was putting something together. “You did that?” she asked slowly. “Cass?”
“Wait.” One of the girls in Bruce’s group looked up from her phone. She raised an eyebrow at me. “You’reCass?”
“Uh,” I said, frowning. I didn’t recognize her from my time at Evergreen. “Yes. Do we know each other?”
She shook her head and widened her eyes at Bruce. “I’ve just heard stories.”
What waswitheveryone tonight? Had there been some sort of announcement about me? “Uh, okay.”
“Why did you do that?” Bryony asked. She was looking at me like she had no idea who I was.
I swallowed hard, looking between Bryony and Bruce. It felt like I was on trial for some terrible crime, when I actually hadn’t done anything wrong. Was I not allowed to get sick, or something? “It was…” I started, then took a shaky breath. “There were extenuating circumstances—”
“Did you even say goodbye?” Bryony asked. Hurt was lacing her words.
I felt my heart pound, well aware that my former prom date and his friends—and the Emmas, I could see now—were all listening to this conversation and not even trying to hide it. “Look,” I started. “It’s—I move a lot, okay? And it was just the best way.”
“I would disagree with that,” Bruce said, folding his arms across his chest. “You disappear an hour before we were supposed to go to the prom…”
“As friends,” I said weakly.
“And then you’re just gone. And I never heard from you again? You never responded to my letter. It was like I didn’t matter. Like what we had didn’t matter.”
I blinked hard, trying to get my bearings, but it was a challenge. It felt like the ground had been yanked out from underneath my feet, and I couldn’t find stability anywhere. And this—seeing Bruce, having him look at me this way—was almost more than I could take. Especially after Greta and Nora and Reagan. “I…”
