What a lie that was.
She reaches the bottom step and stops, one hand light on the banister, and she looks up at me with those eyes.
"You're staring," she says quietly.
"Yeah." I don't apologize for it.
The corner of her mouth lifts. "Is that all you've got?"
I reach out and take her hand off the banister, holding it in mine.
"You look—" I start, then stop, because nothing I say is going to be enough. "There are no words."
Mom moves a little, breaking my stare on Olivia.
"Picture," Mom says. "Don't fight me on this."
We don't fight her on it.
The venue is nothing like what mine was, this place is amazing.
Olivia walks in beside me and stops.
"Hayden." Her voice comes out carefully, like if she speaks too loud she might break whatever this is.
"Too much?"
She turns to look at me. "No." A beat. "It's perfect."
The room is loud and packed and smells like hairspray and cologne and the kind of nervous energy that fills a room when everyone in it is seventeen and certain that tonight is the most important night of their lives.
Olivia leans close to say something and I tilt my head down to catch it over the music, and she's laughing before she finishes the sentence, which means I get the laugh before I get the punchline, and it doesn't matter because I'd take the laugh over anything else in this room.
Around us it's everything a prom is supposed to be. Groups of girls in every color, taking pictures with their phones held high. Guys who look uncomfortable in suits they're only half wearing by now, jackets over the back of chairs, ties loosened. The DJ is set up at the far end under lights that move across the dancefloor in slow blue and white sweeps, and the bass is loud enough that I feel it in my chest.
She catches me watching her. "What?"
"Nothing." I look away, and she shakes her head smiling, and I look back. "Just thinking, it should have been this the first time."
She doesn't say anything to that.
Someone bumps into our table on the way past, apologizes without stopping, and keeps moving. A group near the dancefloor erupts about something, loud and messy and seventeen. The DJ drops into something with more bass and half the room moves toward the floor.
Olivia's eyes follow them.
I watch her watching them, the way her head tilts slightly, the way she smiles at nothing, and I think this is what I wanted. Not a private room. Not somewhere away from all of it. This. The real thing. The noise and the lights and the too-warm air and her in the middle of it all where she was always supposed to be.
The song shifts. The DJ's voice comes low over the speakers, something about slowing it down, and the energy in the room changes. The group near the floor reshuffles. Couples find each other. The lights pull back to something softer, warmer, and the bass drops out and it's just a slow thing now, unhurried.
I look over at Declan dancing with Trixie, and they look so happy which makes me smile. I look around for Lileah and smile when she’s dancing with one of her girlfriends, already knowing if it was a guy her whole night would be ruined, and that’s the last thing I want for her. But she is laughing, laughing so much she wipes the tear away from laughing so much.
I push back my chair and hold out my hand.
She looks at it. Then up at me.
The dance floor is busy, and we find a space in the middle of it and she steps into me and fits there the way she always has. It’s like my body remembers her even when my head spent years trying to make it forget. Her hand in mine. Her cheek is close to my jaw, and she smells amazing.
We haven't spoken for a while.
