Page 8 of Once Bitten

We walked in silence down the hall for a few steps and I waited for him to talk. I couldn’t imagine what he’d want to talk to me about, and I tried to scan my brain for anything he might need from me.

“Penny for your thoughts,” I heard him say, and I realized I’d kept walking when he’d stopped and was a few steps behind me.

“That’s about twice as much as they’re worth. So, what did you want to talk to me about?”

“Well, as you know, tomorrow, the world is ending.”

I wasn’t sure where he was going with this, so I just blinked.

“Or, otherwise known as, Senior Prom. Therefore, everything must stop for 4 hours, so a bunch of 17 year olds can wear lots of taffeta and make complete fools of themselves and then get drunk so no one has any recollection of it.”

I giggled nervously, where was he going with this?

“Anyway, I wasn’t going to go, being grounded at all. But my dear parents are worried that 30 years from now I’ll be laying on some shrink’s couch blaming them for my substance abuse problem for not letting me go to my prom so they’ve released me from the dungeon for the night.”

“Okay...”

“And, I wondered...”

I held my breath.

“If by some miraculous chance you’re not already going with some lucky guy, would you go to prom with me?”

Huh?

What did he say?

“I’m sorry, what did you say?”

“Come on, Kara, you heard me. Let’s go to prom together, we’ll have a blast!”

“Um.” My brain could not comprehend what was going on.

“Oh.” He grew serious. “You’re already going with someone.”

“No.”

“Then, great! I already got our tickets! My way of trying to control the future.” He winked at me.

What was going on?

I just blinked at him.

“Earth to Kara.”

“I’m here.”

No, I wasn’t.

I was in heaven.

“Ok so, yeah, I’ll call you tonight and we’ll work out the details for tomorrow ok? Or are you coming over after school with Heather, I can just talk to you then.”

“Um, yeah, cool. Sure. Yup. Ok”

He laughed and put his sunglasses back on and walked backward away from me out the school front entrance.

“It’ll be a hoot. See ya babe,” he winked and left.