Page 41 of Ten Years and Then…
“He is. More than you can imagine.”
Daniel, fifteen minutes later
The moment he saw Nora walking out of Morris Hall, Daniel’s first thought was, She must be freezing.
“You look—God, that dress is amazing. But don’t you want to go back upstairs and get a coat?”
She shook her head. “After everything I went through to look like this tonight, I’m not covering it up.” He certainly couldn’t argue with that. Her dress was emerald green, low cut, and it went down almost to her ankles. And she wore gloves, green to match the dress, that went nearly to her elbows. As if she’d stepped out of an old movie.
He could barely get out the words, “Whatever you did, it was worth it.” He took her hand and led her towards the main quad. Just like their first date, the sky was clear and lit up with stars, but her eyes were brighter and more beautiful than all of them put together.
“I’ll be sure to tell Joelle.” She said it with a smile that was somehow both joyful and sad at the same time. “She’ll be thrilled.”
She hadn’t mentioned that name before. She wouldn’t call her mom by her first name, and she didn’t have a sister. “Joelle?”
“I told you about my Dad’s girlfriend.” She laughed at herself. “I guess I never actually said her name.” Now she sighed, and her smile was much more sad than joyful. “I ended up asking her to go dress shopping with me. That’s not—my Mom doesn’t do stuff like that, and Aunt Rachel’s still in London, and I … I wanted somebody with me. So I swallowed my pride and I asked her. She was thrilled and Dad—oh, my God, Daniel. He almost cried, he was so happy I was being nice to his girlfriend.”
It made Daniel want to cry, too. It sucked that Nora couldn’t ask her mother for something as simple as taking her shopping for a dress. As much as things could sometimes be strained with his father, he knew he could go to Dad for anything he really needed help with. It must feel so awful to know you couldn’t trust your parents, or rely on them.
He couldn’t do anything to change Nora’s circumstances. All he could do was make sure she knew she could rely on him.
Nora, a little later
Nora looked over at Daniel as they walked into the Whitman building. There was so much emotion showing on his face. She could see his pride shining out—he would never say the words, not in a million years, but she could read him perfectly. She knew he felt like the king of the world right now, just for having her on his arm.
Well, he would say that last part, but only at the end of the night when they were alone.
That was for later; right now she wanted to enjoy this dance. It was already fairly crowded, and it was weird to see her classmates all dressed up. She’d felt the same way at her senior prom, except here nobody needed to spike the punch or rent a hotel room using their parents’ credit card for afterwards.
No, that was the past. No hotel rooms, no getting drunk to forget about all the crappy things she didn’t want to remember. Tonight was about dancing in the arms of her boyfriend, laughing at his silly jokes, feeling like a queen for a little while—not just in Daniel’s eyes, but everybody else’s too. And even more importantly, her own.
Why not? Didn’t she deserve to feel that way just as much as anybody else?
Daniel’s voice cut through her thoughts. “Do you want to dance?” She wasn’t sure why he was even asking; he had one hand on her waist and the other in the middle of her back and he was leading her onto the dance floor.
“I think we already are,” she said. And as they danced, her boyfriend holding her close and his eyes fixed on hers, she did feel like a queen.
Maybe even the queen of the world
Daniel, a bit later
The last formal dance he’d gone to—the only one he’d ever gone to—was Peggy’s prom, almost three years ago. It had been nice when he’d been dancing with her, but awkward otherwise. He hadn’t known anyone there but her.
This was different. He didn’t know everyone—Albion wasn’t that small of a school—but everywhere he looked, he saw someone he recognized. And every one of them saw him with the most beautiful girl in the room.
He couldn’t deny that it felt good to be seen that way. But it was all because of Nora. The only reason anyone else could see this more confident, more together version of himself was because she’d seen it first, and made him see it too.
“You clean up pretty good, Daniel.” He turned to see Phil passing behind him on the dance floor. Phil was wearing—good God, a tuxedo? He’d never seen Phil in anything but a T-shirt or sweatpants in the year and a half he’d known him. And he was dancing with Jeannette Morgan; Daniel thought they’d broken up before Christmas. Well, that wasn’t for him to worry about.
Jeannette spoke up. “Nora, right? You look lovely. You guys make a great couple.”
Nora nodded her thanks, but before either she or Daniel could say anything, Phil spoke again. “You two are never apart anymore. When’s the wedding?”
Daniel tripped over his feet and nearly fell into Nora. She caught him, held him up, but she had a deer-in-the-headlights look in her eyes. The same look he knew was in his own. Because what if it wasn’t a joke?
Of course it was a joke. A wedding? That was ridiculous! That was absurd! That was … not even as bad as his wild thought about having a baby, back before Christmas.
He heard Phil yelp, and cry out, “What did I say?”
