Saving prom, p.3
Saving Prom, page 3
I sighed. She was right. Most of the work I got done in math class was thanks to having Connie to help me out. It was a wonder I was getting close enough to a B on all my tests to maintain a decent grade in the class.
Doing math homework was only second on my list of things I really didn’t want to do. Number one on that list was telling Felicity, and that wasn’t happening any time soon.
At least that’s what I thought.
6
The Question
“Can you believe that? I think she’s just showing off when she does stuff like that,” Felicity said.
“Well yeah. That’s sort of the point of doing stuff like that,” I said. “She wants to show us how it’s done.”
“I think coach just wants to show us she still has it,” Felicity said.
I smiled as I pulled my clothes out of my locker. I also used that opportunity to block the view of Felicity stepping out of her own workout clothes.
I was in the middle of another one of those perpetual hells of the gay teen with a crush on their BFF. Being in gymnastics with her was pure torture. We spent entire practice sessions in skin tight outfits, and then at the end of it all we hit the locker room where we had to change out of those clothes.
Yeah, pure torture.
I concentrated on keeping my eyes in front of me. Because not only was there the torture of knowing Felicity was right next to me changing, but there was the terror of knowing that the rest of the team was all around me watching.
I couldn’t shake the feeling that they were all staring at me. I knew that was ridiculous, but it’s how I felt. They were all around me and they were all looking and judging.
At least that’s what it felt like. Even though they were probably all off in their own little world. They were talking just like me and Felicity and I don’t think a single one of them gave a damn about me or where I was looking, but the curse of the teenager is the sure knowledge that everyone is watching you all the time and judging you.
So I kept my eyes forward. The last thing I wanted was to give someone the wrong idea. To leave them thinking I was staring at my best friend or something. That I was some sort of lesbian pervert who only joined the gymnastics team for the eye candy and not because I loved it.
“So did you hear the news?” Felicity asked.
“News?” I asked, my voice muffled because I was halfway into my shirt. “What news?”
“The asshole found a prom date,” she said.
“I thought you said he already had a prom date?” I said, finally breaking through my shirt and blushing as I realized Felicity was still wearing practically nothing.
I looked away. That a view that was dangerous. The kind of view that would have me giving away things about myself that I wasn’t ready to tell the world.
“Yeah, well it turns out he was able to upgrade,” she said. “Now he’s going with Kara Summers instead of Tara Arnold.”
My head spun as I tried to keep track of all the names. It was difficult. Kara was a pretty senior girl. She was in cheerleading with us, but she was one of the rare girls who wasn’t also in gymnastics which was a little weird.
“I don’t understand,” I said. “If he was already going out with Tara then why would he change his mind and go out with Kara instead?”
I mean I knew what both girls looked like. If you were the kind of asshole who only cared about looks then Kara was probably a couple of steps up from Tara. Just like the similarities with their names, though, they were both so close on the prettiness scale that I couldn’t understand a guy wanting to put up with the drama of dumping one girl and going with another.
“Are you kidding?” Felicity asked, miming holding her hands out in front of her chest. “Why do you think he’d want to switch to going with Kara?”
I giggled. Meanwhile she sighed. Clearly she was still having some trouble adjusting to her ex-boyfriend finding all these girls to go out with while she was being left high and dry.
I knew I was going to regret what I said next, but at the same time I couldn’t quite help myself.
“Um. So correct me if I’m wrong here, but weren’t you the one who dumped him in the first place?”
She hit me with a sharp look. “So? It’s not like I’m the first person to ever be irrationally angry over my ex doing better than me after a breakup.”
“Right,” I said. “Got it. Totally.”
It felt weird to me, but then again I was so unfamiliar with the whole dating scene and all of its intricacies that I figured it would be better for me to keep my big mouth shut.
“I can’t believe he moved on to another girl so fast,” Felicity growled.
I looked around. The locker room was clearing out, and I figured that meant it was safe enough to glance at her. Besides, she was in a T-shirt and shorts by then which were totally modesty preserving.
Damn it.
“I mean isn’t that what guys do? He was going to move on to another girl eventually,” I said.
“I wish I could do the same,” Felicity said.
I felt a spike of something as she said that. I wasn’t quite sure what it was. Jealousy? Hope?
I knew it wasn’t what she meant, but she’d just said she wished she could move on to another girl. I was pretty sure she meant she wished she could move on and find another prom date, but that didn’t stop my traitorous brain from totally misinterpreting what she said in the way that was most advantageous for me.
The wishful thinking was strong with me.
“You know if you’re really that hard up for a prom date you could just go with me,” I said.
I stopped. Stared at her. Watched her for a reaction.
I couldn’t believe I’d just opened my mouth and said that. Sure it’d been on my mind ever since the conversation I had with Connie earlier, but I didn’t think I was going to go and do something stupid like actually ask her out!
I was such an idiot. Such a huge fucking idiot!
I watched her face for any sign of how she was going to react. I figured there was the hope she’d suddenly decide she was head over heels in love with me. That she wanted nothing more than to go to prom with me and be my girlfriend and get married someday after four of the best years of our lives at college and maybe we could even adopt two cute kids someday.
Yeah, right.
On the other hand there was an even better chance that her reaction would be to tell me she wasn’t interested. That she’d never consider going out with a girl. That I was being crazy, and I needed to get a grip if I’d ever thought something like that was even remotely possible.
But to my surprise neither the best case scenario or the worst-case scenario happened. No, she looked surprised, but then a thoughtful look crossed her face. A look that said she was actually considering it.
Okay then. Maybe that meant there was still a chance. I tried to push down on the hope rising inside me. Maybe there was a chance the best case scenario was going to happen after all.
“You know that’s not a half bad idea,” Felicity said.
My stomach was twisting into knots. Like we’re talking it was all I could do to keep from running to the toilets and letting loose with everything I’d eaten that day. That’s how intense the feeling washing over me was.
Somehow I managed to keep cool. Maybe because I was afraid that if I didn’t keep cool, if I gave away exactly how much this was driving me crazy, then she’d figure out exactly how much it meant that she was considering going to prom with me.
Yeah. I know it makes no sense when I say it like that. No one ever said you had to be rational when you’re talking about asking someone out though.
“You think it’s a good idea?” I asked.
I could’ve kicked myself. I was asking her if she thought it was a good idea, but my tone was clearly saying I thought it was a terrible idea. When of course I thought it was anything but.
It’s just that my brain had sort of gone into a tailspin. You try thinking straight in a moment like that.
“Sure it’s a great idea!” she said. “We could totally go as friends and I’d be able to show that jerk that it doesn’t matter that he’s going with some other girl! I’ll totally rise above the whole situation and I won’t be playing his games because I won’t be going with a guy!”
Okay then. Now we’re getting to the part I was talking about where it turns out it was neither the best case scenario I’d been fantasizing about my whole life or the worst-case scenario I’d been dreading for just as long.
No. We were obviously going to be exploring a middle ground where I heard that dreaded phrase that was the bane of people with crushes the world over, gay or straight: just friends.
Ugh. Even now looking back on it it’s difficult to write out that phrase. Even when I know everything worked out pretty okay in the end.
“Yeah,” I said letting out a nervous laugh. “Just friends. That’s totally what I meant!”
That totally wasn’t what I meant. It’s not like I was going to tell her that totally wasn’t what I meant though. Not and let cats out of bags that they needed to stay firmly tied up in.
Felicity reached out and touched my hand. I felt a spark. I always felt spark when she touched my hand. It was always pure torture when she did that. At the time I didn’t think she had any idea what she was doing to me.
Of course I didn’t have any idea what I was doing to her every time she found a convenient excuse to touch me. I had no idea that whenever she reached out like that she was really and truly reaching out to me. I had no idea that it was her way of getting a little bit of a spark herself.
“This is the best,” she said. “Thank you so much for doing this for me. I know how much you hate these dances!”
I shrugged. Tried to say something noncommittal, but I couldn’t bring myself to say much of anything.
I couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d just traded one form of torture for another. Before I’d always worried that when I asked Felicity out it would be the end of our friendship. That she’d freak out.
Now I knew there was something far worse than the hell of being rejected by my best friend and the girl I’d been crushing on for years. She could say yes, but in a way that meant I was still firmly in the friend zone.
Dang it. I should’ve been a lot more specific in my fantasy scenarios when I thought about how much I’d like it if Felicity agreed to go on a date. Now I was going to have to suck it up and ride this out.
It was going to suck, but at least I could look forward to going out on a real date with her. A real fake date, but it would just be the two of us this time. It wouldn’t be like those double dates we’d been on before. I’d have her all to myself.
Again. The plight of the closet case crush. I was willing to take whatever I could get, even if I knew it wasn’t exactly what I wanted.
I had no idea how close I was to exactly what I wanted. How much I was letting fear hold me back, but that’s the thing about hindsight. You can always look back and think about what an idiot you were, but it’s funny how it’s always difficult to see that at the time.
I decided I was going to be excited that I had a date with Felicity though. I was getting what I’d always wanted. Sort of.
7
Terrifying Truth
I wasn’t sure how to feel as I walked home from practice that night. I didn’t even get a chance to talk to Felicity or clarify anything about our “date” because once she’d agreed to go with me she’d disappeared out the door.
I could’ve kicked myself for ever saying something like that. For ever thinking I had a chance at anything more than being her friend.
She’d made it clear that was all I was getting from her though.
I sighed. Pulled out my phone. I figured at the very least I could talk to Connie. Then I looked around and instinctively checked my surroundings because that’s something I did every time I was about to talk about my big secret.
The last thing I needed was for someone to realize I was totally a lesbian because they happened to overhear the wrong conversation.
Luckily the coast was clear. It was suburbia, after all, and that meant everyone was inside at this time of night. Probably busy doing homework if they were kids or watching Game of Thrones and pretending they were still happy in their marriages if they were adults.
As always Connie picked up almost immediately. I thought I heard voices in the background, but it sounded like her parents having an argument.
“Bad time?” I asked.
“It’s always a bad time,” she replied. I could hear her rolling her eyes through the phone line. “You provided the perfect excuse for me to get away from the parental units. So what’s up?”
“Well I maybe sort of just asked Felicity to go to prom with me,” I said.
“Oh my God!” she shrieked.
There was a pause on her end of the line. Some muffled conversation that made it clear she’d put her finger over the microphone on her phone to keep me from hearing whatever she was saying to her parents. Then there was the clear sound of someone moving through the house and a moment later it was a lot quieter on her end.
“Sorry about that,” she said. “My parents thought someone died or something.”
“Yeah, well that might not be too far from the truth,” I said. “I can’t believe I did something that stupid.”
“I’m so sorry Lily,” she said. “I mean I always sort of figured it would end like this, but it still sucks that it had to happen this way.”
The only thing that really kept me from screaming at her through the phone was that I was walking through a suburban neighborhood and that was the sort of thing that was likely to draw the attention of busybodies on the neighborhood watch.
“You knew something like this was going to happen?” I asked. “What about all that stuff you said about how I should go for it? All that encouragement you gave me over the years?”
“I figured it’d be a good idea for you to get it out of your system,” she said. “And I figure I’m right even if it does sort of suck right now. I know what it’s like to get rejected.”
I made a noise that was somewhere between disbelief and disgust. I knew Connie. In particular I knew her dating history, and we’re talking a history where she didn’t have to ever worry about finding a date. She was the kind of girl who had guys lined up.
Basically the kind of girl who would’ve driven me crazy with jealousy if I’d had a crush on her rather than the huge crush I had on Felicity.
She wasn’t the sort of girl who understood firsthand what it was like to get rejected, is what I’m getting at.
“Well I’ll have you know it didn’t exactly end with her telling me no,” I said.
I felt like an idiot even as I said it. After all, Felicity didn’t exactly say no, but the yes I got wasn’t exactly the kind of yes that Connie was probably thinking of.
There was a long stretch of silence on the other end. The kind of silence where it was clear she was trying to process what I’d just told her. Because of course she’d get the wrong idea and think I’d just more or less admitted that Felicity was into girls too, and into me in particular.
Oh if only that were the case. Still, it was nice to hear that moment where she was clearly having some trouble readjusting her way of looking at the world.
“You’re full of it,” she said.
“Totally not full of it,” I said, then I sighed. I wasn’t going to be able to keep this up for long. Not if I wanted some actual advice from Connie, that is.
It was all her fault for being so good at keeping quiet about things while also providing good advice. Even if I had just learned that the good advice she gave me was mostly because she didn’t think I actually had a chance with Felicity.
“So you expect me to believe Felicity agreed to go to prom with you?" Connie asked, her voice dripping with disbelief.
“Yup. We’re going to prom together," I said, enjoying these last few moments I had of sticking the dagger in and twisting it.
“Okay. So what's the catch?" Connie asked.
I sighed. Connie was no idiot. Of course she’d realize there was a catch.
"So maybe you're just a little right," I said.
"How can I be a little right?" she asked. "You're either going on a date with her or you aren't. There's no in between."
"Yeah, well it turns out there might be a little bit of an in between," I said. "Are you acquainted with the phrase ‘just friends?’"
"Acquainted with it?" she asked. "If you talk to a couple of the nerdier guys in this school crushing on me I’m the patron saint of ‘just friends.’ Why, did you…”
A pause. I could hear the wheels turning on the other end of the line. Then: “Oh. I totally get it now."
It was a good thing we were having this conversation over the phone. Otherwise I would've had trouble not reaching out and throttling her.
First she admits that all those pep talks she gave me about me and Felicity were so much bullshit. Now she was pretty much admitting that she thought the only way I could ever actually go on a date with Felicity was if we were going as friends.
"You're playing a dangerous game here Lily," she said.
"How do you figure?" I asked, even as I knew exactly what the answer was.
"Come on," she said. "I know exactly how the jerks who got put in the friend zone feel about me," she said. "I mean it’s not like I said I was going to put them in some friend zone like they were bad guys in a comic book or something, even though they see it that way. They never had a chance to begin with, but again they don’t see it like that. And when they realized they weren’t getting what they wanted it wasn’t pretty. Not pretty at all."
"But those are guys who can’t admit to reality,” I said. "I fail to see…"
I trailed off. Because the monumental hypocrisy of what I was about to say finally hit me. I shook my head.
"You play dirty. You know that, right?" I asked.
