The Anti-Prom - By Abby McDonald Page 0,79
She straightens as a pair of headlights approaches on the horizon, drawing closer. “And here’s our ride.”
I pause, watching as the beat-up Camaro slows and pulls up alongside. My heart skips, but it’s not until the driver climbs out and saunters toward us that I realize why.
Dante.
“You know that nice stuff I was just saying about you?” I tell Bliss through gritted teeth. “I take it all back.”
“Come on,” she says. “Don’t tell me you’re not happy to see him.”
Not happy so much as sick with sudden nerves. But before I can reply, she dances over and throws her arms around him, gushing thanks for helping us out. He’s still wearing that leather jacket, his eyes dark in the shadows of the headlights. But I don’t need to see: I know that boy by heart.
“We only need a ride to the campus and back,” she promises. “It’s an emergency, I swear.”
“Sure, no problem.” He steps into the light, giving a lazy grin. It widens as he looks her up and down. “Do I, uh, need to ask what happened to you guys?”
I fold my arms defensively, but Bliss just laughs. “Just a thing with my ex and a pool. Hope you don’t mind damp spots!”
“In this old thing?” Dante grins good-naturedly. “She’s seen worse, I promise.”
The other girls climb in the car, already telling him about the dorm we need, and where would be best to park, but I hang back, reluctant. He hasn’t said a word to me yet. He hasn’t so much as looked in my direction. After that fight we had back at the warehouse, I can’t say I’m surprised, but his indifference stings more than any angry glare ever could.
“Jolene, come on!” Meg instructs, hanging out the front passenger door. I brace myself. Means to an end, I tell myself; he’s just the means to a necessary end. Clambering in the backseat, I slam the door, and we go.
Meg and Bliss chat the whole way, giving him an edited version of our diary quest. They laugh and joke, happy about our rescue, but I curl up, silent as the dark streets speed by. After everything that’s happened, my defenses are down and Dante’s presence is overwhelming. He hasn’t looked my way since that glance, but I can feel him all the same — every smile and nod of his head, every idle finger-drum on the steering wheel. I watch his profile, lit up in the glare of passing cars, eyes fixed on the road. It would be a comfort to be near him again, if it wasn’t for the ugly things we said just a few hours ago. The yelling, the frustration in his eyes.
He’s out of reach now.
“I’ll go,” Bliss says when we arrive on campus. The quad is empty, the earlier partiers all safe asleep — or passed out somewhere. “Shouldn’t be long. Third floor, right?”
“Yup.” Meg nods. “Good luck!”
We watch her hurry over to the front entrance. It’s locked tight, but, after a moment, a security guard comes to the door.
“I am going to sleep sooo late tomorrow.” Meg yawns. “I mean, today.”
Dante laughs. “Not a natural party animal, huh?”
“Um, no,” she admits.
“Jolene should give you some tips,” he says casually, still not looking back at me. “She’s gone days straight on nothing but caffeine and bagels.”
The memory is sharp: me and Dante in this car, with nothing but open roads and Lyle Lovett on the radio. “My seventeenth birthday,” I answer, my voice sounding like it belongs to someone else. “We drove to Philly for that Thermals show, and then just kept going to make the date in New York.”
Meg twists around to look at me. “You went cross-country?”
I shrug. “Sure, it was fun.” We planned to go abroad, too, one of those days. Europe. South America. Dante had an itch; he used to want to see it all. Maybe he still does.
“My dad won’t even let me leave the state. Not without him and Stella,” Meg says wistfully.
“We’ll work on that,” I tell her, managing a smile. “Who knows; maybe by the end of summer, we’ll get you as far as DC.”
She looks at me, and then her face breaks out into a brilliant grin. “Maybe we will.”
“Here’s your girl.” Dante nods. Bliss is hurrying back from the dorm. She climbs into the backseat next to me, already shaking her head.
“No go. It’s a different guard now — he won’t let me up. They shut the party down hours ago, and