Page 39 of Enemies to Prom Dates
“There is the state program for…” He stopped himself before he said it.
“Yes, I know. Janie and Heath already have their college paid for. But that’s not me, is it? My dad isn’t an opioid addict, he’s just a run-of-the-mill, white-collar crook. I don’t even know if my mother would admit that we were broke. How am I supposed to ask for money from the state when she’s insisting everything is still fine? It’s all a total mess.”
More silence as he absorbed what I told him. “You know you can’t be expected to hold it together for everyone. That’s not fair, Beth.”
“There is nothing fair about this.”
His lips twisted into a half smile. “If you’re telling me all this so I’ll go easier on you this year grades-wise, you’re deluding yourself.”
“The truth is I don’t know why I’m telling you all of this. You’re the last person I wanted to know. The last person I wanted to pity me.”
“I told you I don’t pity you and I meant it. Not now. Not ever. Do you believe me?”
I looked at him then and the way he was staring at me. Not as my superior but my equal. I nodded.
“Good. So someone knows your secret and the world hasn’t ended. How do you feel?”
I considered that.
“Relieved,” I said honestly.
He nodded. “Let’s see where Maisy is with our snacks and we’ll get back to work on our bit for the fashion show.”
“I told you there is no point in making up a bit.”
“Beth, if you didn’t come here to rehearse, then that means the only reason you did come was to tell me everything. Which might lead me to conclude you actually like me.”
“Never,” I said quickly. Too quickly. “And if you saynever is a long timeagain to me, I’m going to laugh in your face.”
He smiled. “That was a good fucking line.”
“It was sooo cheesy. I looked around for the jar of Cheese Whiz you pulled it out of but I couldn’t find it.”
He laughed again and I was reminded of what made Fitz unique among our crowd. Yes, he was arrogant; yes, there was an air of invincibility he walked the school hallways with; but beneath all that there was humility, too.
Fitz didn’t take himself as seriously as everyone thought he did. Damn it, if that didn’t make him more likable.
9
Fitz
“Thanks for the ride,” Beth said.
We’d worked, if you wanted to call it that, for about an hour before deciding fashion shows were stupid. Mostly, we ate chips while I listened to Beth talk about all of the things she was afraid of. It was infuriating because there wasn’t much I could do about any of it. The only thing I could do was insist I drive her home so she wasn’t walking home in the dark. That argument took almost twenty minutes before she finally relented.
“You’re stubborn as fuck, Beth.”
She had the self-awareness to wince. “I know.”
“There are times when I fantasize about grabbing you around your arms and just shaking you.” I demonstrated for her on the steering wheel.
“You fantasize about me?”
Yes.
“Don’t flatter yourself. Look, it’s not my place to help you talk to your mother. But you can’t go on pretending like this didn’t happen. If you really think your father’s not coming back, you have to get her to at least the start the process of moving on.”
“You don’t know my mother very well,” she said.
