Page 93 of Indiscretion

Eventually, Mrs. Anderson walked in with two shopping bags. Bailey’s mom usually left to run errands whenever I came to a treatment.

She smiled. “How are you feeling?”

“Fine.” Bailey didn’t look up from her phone. “Dawson just felt me up.”

My eyes bulged. “I didn’t… I felt herport.”

Bailey pointed to my face. “Why should you be the only one to make thingsawkward,you weirdo?” She laughed. “You are so red right now.”

“And you’re freaking evil.”

Mrs. Anderson chuckled. “You two are worse than brother and sister.”

“If we were brother and sister, it would be even weirder that he felt me up.”

I held out my hands. “I didn’t feel her up. I swear.”

Bailey’s mom set down the shopping bags and rummaged through one. “I was in Macy’s and saw the cutest dress. I thought you could wear it to the ninth-grade spring dance at school.”

“I’m not going to the dance, Mom.”

Mrs. Anderson sighed. “You don’t need a boy to go to the dance. Plenty of girls will go with their friends. I spoke to Katie Arnold, and she said Elaina is going with Laura and Penny.”

“Good for them. But I hope the dress is returnable, because I’m not going.”

Mrs. Anderson frowned and looked at me. “Are you going, Dawson?”

I nodded. “Yeah, I think so.”

Bailey’s head whipped up. “You are?”

I hadn’t mentioned that I’d planned to ask someone to the dance. Allie Papadopoulos had pretty much told me that she wanted to go with me already. She was the prettiest girl in school and wasn’t shy about saying she liked me. Bailey and I usually talked about everything, but for some reason bringing up asking out another girl had felt weird. I figured it would probably come out at some point, but now I wished I’d said something because that awkwardness was back again.

I nodded. “I’m going to ask Allie Papadopoulos.”

Bailey’s lips pressed together. “Oh.”

Shit. Now I felt bad. I had someone to go with, but Bailey didn’t. Though plenty of my buddies were going stag. “You should totally go. Like your mom said, a lot of kids are just going with their friends. Ben is going with the guys.”

“Dances in the gym are stupid.” She looked away. “I don’t want to go.”

Bailey’s mom caught my eye and shook her head, silently telling me to leave it alone. Not long after, the nurse came to disconnect Bailey from the IV drip, and we were on our way home. It had been drizzling when we came in, but it was pouring by the time we walked back outside. Bailey sat up front, staring out the window while her mom drove, and I sat in the back.

“Dawson?” Mrs. Anderson looked in the rearview mirror as she turned into our neighborhood. “Are you coming to our house or going home? I can drop you if you aren’t coming over so you don’t get soaked. I think it’s supposed to rain all night.”

“I don’t have much homework, so I can come over.”

“Actually,” Bailey said. “I’m really tired. You should probably just drop Dawson home.”

Mrs. Anderson caught my eye again. She smiled sadly but neither of us said anything else.

Later that night, it was bugging me that I seemed to have upset Bailey about the dance. So I sent her a text.

Dawson: Hey. I don’t have to ask Allie to the dance. We can all go together.

A few minutes went by before the dots started jumping around.

Bailey: Go with whoever you want. It doesn’t bother me. I don’t want to go.

---