Page 19 of Jingle Bell Flock
I shook my head, my fingers still tracing patterns on his arm. “No. Or yes. But really, about prom … and what happened.”
The silence that followed felt heavy enough to suffocate in.
“Okay,” he said finally.
I rolled onto my back, needing to break our connection. Above me, a crack in the plaster ran from the light fixture to the far corner. I followed it with my eyes, using it as an anchor for what I was about to say.
“I never asked you about it,” I said, keeping my gaze fixed on that jagged line. “About why you took Sarah Fucking Mitchell to prom.” I left the “instead of me” unsaid.
I felt Harrison’s sharp intake of breath beside me.
“I knew we couldn’t go as … boyfriends or whatever. I get that. I wasn’t that stupid.” My hands fisted in the sheets. “But I genuinely thought we’d go together. That whole ‘bros before hoes’ bullshit we were always spouting. Why would prom be any different?”
Something uncomfortable twisted in my gut. Had I ever actually asked him to prom? Or had I just assumed we’d go together because we always did everything together?
Fuck. I’d assumed. Built this whole plan in my head without ever saying the words, “Will you go to prom with me?” Because asking would have made it a date instead of two friends going stag.
Unfortunately, the realization didn’t make it hurt less.
The memory rose up, vivid and cruel: Me in my rented tux, Dad helping me with the bow tie, his hands steady where mineshook. Mom taking a thousand pictures, her eyes suspiciously bright.
What time is Harrison picking you up?
My throat closed up. I forced the words out anyway.
“I waited for you.” My voice came out flat, stripped of emotion—the only way I could get through this. “Mom kept offering me snacks, but I couldn’t eat.”
A broken laugh escaped me. “I’d bought you a boutonniere. A blue rose to match my vest. Had this whole plan for pictures on the porch, and maybe—” I swallowed hard. “Maybe things would feel real. Just for one night.”
Beside me, Harrison had gone completely still.
“Seven o’clock came and went. Seven-fifteen. Seven-thirty.” The words came faster now, like a dam breaking. “By eight, Mom was making excuses. Maybe you got held up, maybe there was traffic—as if there’severtraffic in Mistletoe Bay. But I knew. Somewhere in my gut, I already fucking knew.”
I turned my head just enough to see Harrison’s face. His eyes were squeezed shut, tears tracking down his temples into his hair.
“At eight-thirty, I told my folks I wasn’t going to go after all. But my dad—” I stopped, my eyes burning. “My dad just looked at me with these sad eyes and said, ‘You take my truck, son, and go enjoy yourself.”
A sob escaped Harrison’s throat, but I couldn’t acknowledge it. Had to keep going, because I knew if I didn’t say this now, I might never gather the courage to say it ever again.
“So I drove to the hotel and sat in the parking lot for twenty minutes trying to work up the courage to go inside. Finally, I went in and there you were. On the dance floor with Sarah in that pink dress, your arms around her waist, looking at her like?—”
I couldn’t finish. Couldn’t say, “Like you looked at me.”
“You were smiling. Laughing at something Sarah said.” My voice had gone hollow again. “And you looked happy. Like you didn’t even realize you’d just destroyed me.”
Harrison sat up abruptly, his back to me, his shoulders shaking. “I didn’t know. Jesus Christ, Jeremy, I didn’t know you were waiting.” His words came out strangled. “I thought—” He stopped, dragged a hand through his hair. “Fuck, I thought … it doesn’t matter what I thought.”
“What happened, Harry?”
He dragged both hands through his hair.
“It was the day before. My dad had been on my ass for weeks about not having a date. About how itlooked. About what people would think. And then Tommy mentioned that Sarah didn’t have a date right in front of my dad, and he just …”
Harrison’s shoulders hunched. “He said, ‘Well, what are you waiting for? Call the girl.’ And he stood there staring at me, waiting. So I … I called her.”
My stomach dropped. “Christ, Harrison.”
“I know.” The admission sounded like it cost him something precious. “I know how that sounds. I thought—fuck. I told myself that it didn’t matter. We couldn’t go together anyway. I figured we’d still hang out, that you’d understand I had to do it because of my dad.” He let out a bitter laugh. “I was such a fucking idiot.”
