Page 11 of Letters to Lily

My dress was a gorgeous silver silky slip of material that fit tightly to my curves through the bodice and then hung in cascading sheets down to the floor. Atop the silky layer was a lace overlay with brilliant opalescent beading that made the whole thing appear to shimmer anytime I moved in any amount of light. It literally reminded me of moonlight reflecting on water. It was simply stunning. Probably too stunning for me to wear since not one person had commented on the dress since I was picked up.

In fact, we went to dinner, sat through an hour-long ordeal there where Kristin tried and failed several times to pull me into conversation. Then we were back in the limo and headed to the dance. Again, not a word was said to me as each couple whispered to one another as if no one else existed.

I had officially lost count of the tragic turns this day had taken that were all doing their level best to eat away at my poor, battered, teenage-girl heart. This was the day in high school that most girls dreamed about, aside from graduation. Senior Prom. So far, it was shaping up to be my worst nightmare.

I spent most of the night hiding out on the sidelines. I danced with a couple of guys who had also come dateless, one who had asked me to prom, and who I had turned down. He, of course, reminded me that I turned him down only to show up a dateless loser like him anyway. That was a nice addition to the suck fest that was prom night.

I waited the night out, hoping that Kade would ask me to dance, just one damn time. I thought he was heading towards me at the end of the night for just that purpose, but then the DJ’s voice boomed over the sound system, “Last dance of the night ladies and gents, grab your dates, and make that last dance memory count!”

Andrea was suddenly there, stepping in front of Kade and dragging him back out to the dance floor. She sneered in my direction as she spun around and tucked her head against his shoulder. He leaned into her and smiled into her hair at something she said. My heart lurched in my chest, and I left the hotel banquet room where our dance was being hosted this year. I snagged my cell phone out of the tiny little clutch I carried with me. It was the only thing that sat around my wrist, since I didn’t have a date to buy me a corsage. Finally, I worked up the courage to call my mom to come pick me up.

I knew Kristin and Todd had a hotel room reserved. I figured Kade had one for his date as well. While the limo was there, and could have taken me home, it felt tainted somehow. I couldn’t bring myself to get into it all alone at the end of the worst day of my life.

I told my mom I would meet her down by the street, and while she didn’t like me waiting out there this late at night, she didn’t argue. She just told me to be careful while I waited. As soon as I got in her car, the sympathy showing in her eyes undid me, and the dam burst wide open. “He never even danced with me,” I sobbed into her arms.

“Oh honey,” she made a shushing sound into my hair as she kissed my head and held me there. “I’m so disappointed in that boy right now.” That was the thing about my mom. I didn’t have to tell her whom I was talking about. She’d always known, even when I tried to deny my own feelings, she always knew.

“Please, can we just go, before someone sees?”

“Sasha!” I heard Kristin calling out as my mom pulled away, but I didn’t bother to turn in her direction. I wasn’t sure who was with her, and I didn’t want any of them to know I’d been crying. I saw, in the side view mirror that she hadn’t been alone though. She was smacking the hell out of Kade’s shoulder when I looked. My eyes blurred up with tears at that point so I couldn’t make out the look on his face. I didn’t need to though, it had become painfully obvious to me where I fit into his life, and it would never be in a romantic way. I knew that now, and I didn’t need to see the pity that no doubt would have been reflected back at me if I’d been able to see his face.

My night ended with my mom helping me out of my dress, wiping the simple makeup off my face, and then we sat out in the back yard and made a nice little fire. My mom nodded her head once it was going good enough, and I tossed my too-beautiful-for-words dress right into the flames. I wanted zero reminders of this night. I made her delete the pictures she’d taken of me earlier that night too. “It’s not easy being a boy’s best friend at this age,” my mom had said as we watched the dress burning.

“No, it’s not,” I agreed before I walked away from the fire and went back in the house to go to bed.

I didn’t hear from Kade that night, or the next day. When I did hear from him on Sunday he acted as if nothing ever happened. Of course, from his viewpoint, I suppose it would be business as usual. That was a difficult concept to get past my heart though, because it was broken to pieces inside of my chest.

I lay there in bed thinking about the damn dream, and that horrible night. I had asked Kristin about what I saw in the side view mirror. She wouldn’t talk about it though. She said just to forget it, and so I tried to. On the rare occasion that I was able to turn that damn nightmare of a night into a good dream, it was me that he serenaded in the hallway that day, I was the one with the gorgeous silver and white corsage, the person whose ear he whispered into during the limo rides. I was the girl he fed dessert to at dinner, and the one who got all his dances during the night. I was also the one who ended up in the hotel with him afterward.

I had already decided that if he had asked me to prom, I was going to give myself to him that night. Looking back, I was most likely lucky that things turned out the way they did. Here we were, almost a year later, and I did lose my virginity to him. Granted, it had been at a frat party instead of the prom. As it turned out, I ended up pregnant, and he ran away. Fairy tales and happy endings did not exist in Sasha Garrett’s world.

I still hadn’t heard anything from Kaden by the time I woke up this morning. My heart was beyond broken, and I had to start figuring things out on my own now. “I need to go see my mom today,” I said as I finally hauled my butt out of bed and into the kitchen. Kristin watched me from her perch on the barstool at our kitchen island as I fixed myself a cup of coffee.

“Are you thinking of moving in with her?”

“What? No way. She’s living with her boyfriend now, and he still has a couple of kids at home. They don’t have the room. Besides, I have money.” I explained. “She put it in a trust fund for me after dad died. I guess it was like half of his life insurance policies or whatever. I’m honestly not even sure how much it is. She just told me that I would get access to it after I graduated college. I’m hoping, considering the circumstances, she’ll see fit to let me have at least part of it now so I can get ready for the baby.”

“Do you think she’ll agree to it?”

“Under normal circumstances, I’d say no. She’d tell me that I made my bed and I need to figure it out on my own. Once she finds out it was Kade, and how he’s not exactly here to help, or even reachable for that matter, I think she’ll change her mind. Especially since I can’t exactly move back home now that she sold her house and moved in with Jared and his kids.”

“Good points. Do you need me to go? You know, for moral support?”

“Nah, I better do this one alone.”

“Have you tried calling Kade again since…”

I knew what she meant, since I got that text from Jason. I shook my head no, and then pulled my phone out of my pocket anyway. I pulled his contact info up on the screen, and nearly burst into tears just looking at his picture. “I guess I have to put my big girl panties on and keep trying periodically, huh?”

“It’s the right thing to do until you’re sure he knows. Even though I don’t think he deserves to know since he took off to another state, across the damn country, without so much as a word to you.”

I pushed the send button and waited. The weird tone that gets used for numbers that are no longer in service came up, and then trilled the familiar message to me. His phone number no longer worked. The blood drained from my face, and every ounce of hope I had that this had all been some crazy misunderstanding fled with it.

I saw the shock register on Kristin’s face too as I looked to her for answers she didn’t have. Her head just shook back and forth, and then she was moving in on me, wrapping her arms tightly around my shoulders. “I’m here for you no matter what, Chica. No. Matter. What.”

I just shook my head up and down against her shoulder to let her know I understood. I couldn’t speak though. My brain was fried, my heart was kicking around on its last leg, and my soul… it was just… nonexistent in that moment. He took it with him. There was no other reasoning behind my body feeling like it had been ripped in two and one half taken away for good. That’s what it was, to know for sure, that I had lost Kaden Miller from my life. The feeling prevailed even if I didn’t understand how it all happened.

I parked my car in my mom’s driveway, and just sat there staring at the house for a minute. It seemed quiet at first until the front door swung wide open and my mom ran out. “Well, hello, baby! To what do I owe this unexpected visit?” My mom, and her cheerful manner, warmed my battered little heart a bit.

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