Willow
One minute I was trudging slowly through the ravine, desperately trying to keep up with Logan, and the next…
I was running up the walk to Lucas’s house, excitedly knocking on the door. Overhead, the porch light flickered while mosquitoes buzzed around my ears. Waiting, I ran my hands down the front of my dress, smoothing out its wrinkles.
A thick head of blonde curls peeked from behind the curtain, a wide smile appearing. The door popped open and Lucas’s mom exclaimed, “Oh, just look at you! Now if you’ll just let me fix that heavy eye makeup…” she trailed off as her gaze reached my feet. Her wide eyes raced back to mine. “Willow! You can’t wear combat boots to the homecoming dance!”
“Oh my god, Mom, stop it.” The door opened fully, revealing Lucas wearing the three-piece suit we’d found at the local thrift store the previous week. It was a dark twill pattern and, according to the saleslady, a European cut. It was also far too short on him, showing a good portion of his striped socks and several inches of his arms.
Kissing his mother quickly on the cheek, Lucas rushed onto the porch, grabbing my hand. “Bye, Mom!” he called over his shoulder, tugging me down the steps.
“Lucas—what on earth are you wearing?” she called after him. “What happened to your Sunday suit? Lucas—you look like Huckleberry Finn in those floods! Lucas? Lucas, get back here!”
Giggling, we raced down the driveway, down the sidewalk, not slowing until we’d turned the corner on our street. Ducking beneath the heavy canopy of an elm tree, I clutched my stomach, laughing.
“Oh my god, did you see her face? Your mom is too precious for this world.”
Lucas kicked off his shoes and began shrugging out of his too-small jacket. “I’m just glad your mom didn’t follow you over with her camera bag.” Lucas paused, placing his hands on his hips and lifting his chin. “How many times do I need to remind you kids that film is better than digital,” he scolded me in a comically high-pitched voice. “A phone camera will never capture all the details, and details are the most important part of photography, dontcha know.”
Grinning, I fumbled with the side zipper on my dress. “I promised I’d smile for the yearbook photo in exchange fornottaking our picture tonight.”
Lucas guffawed. “And she believed you?”
“I can be very persuasive.” Wearing only my strapless bra and underwear, along with a pair of torn fishnet stockings and my combat boots, I handed my dress to Lucas. “Your gown, milady.”
When we’d gone shopping for our homecoming outfits, it had been me who’d picked out the suit, with my size in mind, while Lucas had picked out a dress that he could also comfortably wear.
Taking the length of satin, Lucas paused to look up and down my body with a sly smile. “Too bad you can’t go like that.”
“Ha,” I retorted, preening under his admiring gaze. “They’re all going to completely freak out when they see you in a dress—if I showed up in my underwear, too, we’d have a county-wide catastrophe on our hands. I can see tomorrow’s byline now—LOCAL SATAN WORSHIPPERS CRASH GOOD, GOD-FEARING HOMECOMING.”
“Satan worshippers,” Lucas snorted. “Don’t insult me.”
Having successfully switched clothing, we ducked back beneath the veil of wispy branches and continued on down the sidewalk, this time arm in arm. It was our first year of high school, our first homecoming dance, and we were determined to make a lasting first impression. Or rather, I was determined to make an impression, while Lucas was always content to do whatever I wanted.
Soon, we could hear the thumping bass and the din of a multitude of voices. Breaching the school property line, the path to the gymnasium had been fitted with an arch of green and gold balloons, our school’s colors. Small groups of students milled around outside the entrance, all of them stopping to watch our approach.
“Oh look, the circus freaks are here.”
“Logan, isn’t that your brother?”
Logan stood, the tallest among his smirking teammates, scowling in our direction. Like the rest of his varsity team, he wore his football jersey over his dress shirt.
“Oh look, it’s the homecoming court of assholes,” I sneered, pausing to do a dramatic genuflect. Standing straight, I met each of their gazes head-on, ending with Logan. “What’s it like to peak at seventeen, Your Majesty?”
As his scowl turned downright murderous, I hurried to retake Lucas’s arm and we ran into the gym, howling with laughter.
“You need to drink, Willow. Come on, just drink a little bit—come on, drink something,damn it.”
A voice reached me; sunken somewhere in the dark recesses of my mind, I grabbed hold of that voice, tethered myself to it, letting it pull me, coughing and spluttering, back to consciousness. Someone was holding me upright; a bottle was pushed past my lips, warm water was pouring into my mouth. Reflexively, I coughed again, sputtering as I tried to swallow. I felt myself being raised higher.
Muscle aches, the likes of which I’d never felt before, burned agonizing pathways through my body. Making everything worse, one second I was burning hot, feeling as if I might suffocate from the extreme heat, and then just as quickly, I was shivering and shaking once more.
“Lucas?” I rasped.
“Willow, you need to drink something,” the voice demanded.
I blinked, focusing on the blurry face before me. I knew that mouth. That nose. That unruly beard. Those hard eyes, which right now, burned with concern.Logan was concerned for me? I must still be dreaming.
