The Beginning of After - By Jennifer Castle Page 0,26

sweep of the rest of the room and the large circle of other tables. It was clear how the clique system of our school dropped invisible boundaries into this space. The popular seniors were on our other side, and I wondered how it was that a bunch of juniors got the prime real estate. Fanning out before us were the in-between kids, the ones who were jocks or geeks or a little bit of everything. On the opposite side of the circle, across from where I stood, was one table of Railroad Crowd kids. Not even a full table; just two pairs of couples sharing with members of the only decent rock band at school.

One half of one of those couples was Julia La Paz, David’s girlfriend. Or former girlfriend, judging from how enthusiastically she leaned into her date, another Railroad guy. I tried to picture David there with her, at the prom, but couldn’t. I would have bet money that proms weren’t David’s thing. Maybe Julia had been relieved that they’d broken up and she could go.

Dinner was loud and awkward. Joe and I and Meg and Gavin tried to talk over the din, while Andie and Hannah kept shouting to their friends at the next table. After everyone was done eating, the DJ started up his party music, but nobody made the first move to dance yet. I took the opportunity to go back to the bathroom and stand for three minutes in front of the full-length mirror.

This is me, I thought, nodding to the girl I saw in my reflection. With mirrors I was always looking for something wrong, something that could be thinner or brighter or higher. But unbelievably, I liked everything I saw in this girl.

This is me at the prom, and I look a little bit pretty.

The girl in the glass nodded too, as if to say, Your secret’s safe.

For a second, I imagined my parents standing behind me. Mom on my left, Dad on my right. Nodding and proud. Now stepping into the frame was Toby with his video camera, shooting me a thumbs-up.

I whirled around fast to make them go away.

When I came back from the bathroom, everyone at our table was on the dance floor. I stood by the doorway alone for a moment, watching. It felt odd to be the one staring at everybody, instead of the other way around. Within seconds, Mr. Churchwell was next to me with his hand on my elbow.

“You okay?” he yelled.

“I’m just looking for my date,” I yelled back, and jerked my elbow away from him.

Suddenly, Joe had wriggled out of the dance cluster, taking my hand, his palm warm and too tight, leading me to where Meg and Gavin were.

Then somehow I was moving, and Joe was looking at me like I was interesting, and the blue dress tickled as it swished around my ankles. Andie and Hannah smiled at me when I caught their eye. Some petals broke off from my corsage as I moved, and I watched them drop, then disappear under Meg’s feet.

Chapter Ten

In the limo on our way to Adam LaGrange’s after-prom party—new golf team captain, just got contact lenses, trying to build a rep—the configuration had changed. Gavin and Meg sat together on one seat, leaving Joe and me to share the other. My ears were still ringing and my feet were hurting, so I took off my shoes. Now they looked like part of my anatomy again, naked and familiar. I put them up on Meg’s knees, and she started to rub.

“Do I get to be next?” said Gavin, nudging Meg with his elbow.

Meg smiled but didn’t look up. “Sure.”

She was going to do it, I could tell. She was going to fool around with Gavin, and I was pretty sure it was going to happen before we’d even left the party. I looked at Joe, who was trying to get something decent on the radio, the hair at his neckline fringed with dance-floor sweat. I felt an overpowering sense of dread.

When we got to Adam LaGrange’s house, it was already packed. Meg and Gavin went into the yard to look for Adam, while Joe took my hand and led me downstairs to the den, where a folding card table had been converted into a fully stocked bar.

“What’re you having?” he asked in mock James Bond.

I thought of the time Meg and I took samples from her mother’s liquor cabinet, one capful at a time, taking notes