Counting to D (22 page)

Lissa reached out and caught it midflight. “God, you’re so immature sometimes.”

I took the spring back from Lissa and set it up for our next measurement, wishing for the millionth time I wasn’t the youngest person in all my classes. “Sorry.”

Lissa flipped her hair around in a manner that resembled Kaitlyn so much, I would have questioned which sister I was facing if it weren’t for Lissa’s blue highlights. “Whatever, it’s fine. It’s one of the consequences of partnering with an infant.”

When I doubled the mass attached to our springs and recalculated their elongation, Lissa wrote down our measurements. After a couple minutes of working in silence, she said, “So, Haroon asked me to prom.”

“That’s awesome.” I studied the harsh expression on Lissa’s face. “It’s awesome, right?”

“I guess.” She handed me the third spring. “We’re just going as friends. But Haroon wants to try and double with you and Nate.”

Lissa had never been overly friendly toward me, but for the last couple months, she’d been borderline hostile. When I went over to her house to visit Kaitlyn, she teased and insulted me. And in physics, she belittled me as often as possible. But as much as Lissa claimed to hate me, I still knew she didn’t have any other female friends.

“That could be fun. We’re getting a limo, and I think Nate wants to go to the Portland City Grill for dinner beforehand.”

“You wouldn’t be weirded out by us crashing your hot date? I mean, you and Nate are all serious and stuff. Haroon even said Nate was thinking about getting a hotel room.”

“Well, I’m assuming the whole double date thing will end before
that.
”

Lissa blushed, which made me feel oddly superior. I remembered Kaitlyn’s early prediction that all of Lissa’s rudeness stemmed from jealousy. She’d been rude to me for long enough now; I wasn’t opposed to making her jealous. But I also wasn’t opposed to making amends. “You and Haroon have both been friends with Nate for years. I’m sure he would want you to be with him at prom. And having you guys along will make it more fun for me too. The more the merrier.”

“Thanks.” Lissa picked up the springs to put them away before I could build them into a projectile. “I sort of thought you’d say no.”

“Kaitlyn’s going dress shopping with me this Saturday. Do you want to come too?”

“No.” Lissa slammed her lab notebook closed. “Sharing a limo with you and Nate on prom night is something I can handle. Letting my little sister take me dress shopping isn’t.”

Kaitlyn and I hit the mall the following Saturday. I’d become more comfortable with the idea of form-fitting clothing and even occasionally wore lip gloss. But I still dressed in jeans, not skirts. I think the last time I’d gone dress shopping, my age had been a single digit. Even back then, I’d never really shopped for dresses but simply humored my mom on important holidays when she handed me a dress she’d found on her own.

“Don’t look so nervous.” Kaitlyn dragged me into a formal shop. “This is supposed to be fun.”

“I know.” I ran my hands over the shimmering fabrics. “I’ve just never been good at acting girly. The whole idea of prom scares me.”

“Please don’t tell me that. I’m already totally jealous that you’re going and I’m not. You claiming to not even want to go makes it way worse.”

“Is Brice going with Jessica?”

Kaitlyn smiled. “No, he dumped her for a freshman.”

“Wow, that must be one popular freshman.”

“Yeah, I would totally hate her if Jessica weren’t so miserable right now.”

I thumbed through the rack of dresses until I found a green satin dress that perfectly matched the color of my eyes. I lifted it off the rack and held it in front of me.

“Definitely try that one on.” Kaitlyn nodded in approval.

While I was changing, Kaitlyn hollered at me over the wall. “So I’ve been thinking about next year, and how much free time you’re going to have once you stop making out with Nate twenty-four-seven.”

“Should I be nervous?”

“No, you should be junior class treasurer.”

I opened the dressing room door and turned my back toward Kaitlyn. “Will you zip me?”

Kaitlyn pulled up my zipper, and I turned around to face her. The corners of her eyes crinkled as her entire face broke into a smile. “You look beautiful.”

I stepped in front of the mirror and examined the dress, running my hands along the flowing lines of the satin. “Thanks.”

“You also look like the future junior class treasurer.”

“Me, class treasurer? I thought you were joking.”

“I’m going to run for class president. And nobody’s better at numbers than you. You’d make a great class treasurer.”

“You’d be a great class president, but I don’t exactly have leadership skills.” I also knew student body elections were total popularity contests and spending all my free time playing video games with geeky seniors wasn’t what it took to win a class election.

“You might not command large groups, but you get people and you get numbers. You’d be a really good treasurer, and I know I’d have more fun at student government meetings if you were at them with me.”

“It would look good on a college resume.”

“Maybe good enough for Dartmouth to overlook your special ed credits.” Kaitlyn elbowed me in the ribs.

“On my transcript, special ed is listed as independent study.” I turned sideways, examining my dress from every angle.

“You really are stacking the deck to get into Dartmouth, aren’t you?”

“I don’t want to go to Dartmouth. But junior class treasurer might help my chances of getting into Caltech.”

“Why Caltech?”

“Hello! Ahmed Zewail is a professor there.”

“You are such a geek.” Kaitlyn laughed. “But you’re a hot geek. Come on — let’s go find you some shoes to go with that dress.”

“Um…there’s something else I need to shop for.”

“What?”

“Nate booked a hotel room.”

Her blue eyes tripled in size. “Victoria’s Secret, here we come.”

I was way more comfortable talking about running for class office. How had my life become so complicated? Maybe this was what normal teenagers did on a Saturday — I just didn’t know if I wanted to be normal anymore. Despite the swarms of butterflies living in my stomach, I let Kaitlyn help me pick out what she called “cute underwear.”

Nate and I sat in the back of the limo facing Haroon and Lissa. Nate and Haroon both wore black tuxedos, Nate’s with a green tie and cummerbund that matched my dress. Lissa had found a vintage gown from the 1960s in a thrift shop. It was a wild swirl of colors that Haroon hadn’t attempted to coordinate with. Instead, his tie and cummerbund were a classic black.

They were all busy talking about their college plans. Haroon planned to attend Washington University in Saint Louis, and Lissa was headed to Stanford. I played with the corsage attached to my wrist, feeling small and insignificant.

Nate’s fingers traced small circles on my arm as he talked with his friends. His hands hadn’t left me from the time I’d opened my apartment door to him that evening. I knew he was nervous about leaving home. Somehow, I’d become a kind of security blanket for him, and he couldn’t hold me tight enough. I felt more like an accessory than a person.

As Haroon explained the many differences between an electrical engineering major and a computer science major, I found myself counting by exponents of seven. Seven was a hard one — I hadn’t expected prom to be this boring.
2,401; 16,807; 117,649…

Nate leaned in closer to me until his breath tickled my neck as he whispered in my ear, “You’re being extra quiet tonight. Is everything okay?”

I nodded and rested my hand on his knee. He accepted my silent capitulation and continued his caresses while returning to his conversation with Haroon and Lissa.

40,353,607; 282,474,249; 1,977,326,743…
A tinny version of Adele’s latest hit started singing inside my purse. I untangled from Nate’s clutches and fished out my phone. “Hello?”

“Hey, pretty girl, how are you doing?”

I recognized that voice. It was clearer than I remembered, not slurred. Was he calling me sober? “Hi, Dad?”

Nate grabbed my arm like I was a balloon about to drift away. Lissa and Haroon both fell silent. All three of them stared at me while my dad rambled about art openings and travel arrangements.

“May twenty-fifth?” I wrapped my fingers in and out of the sparkly green fabric of my dress. “Okay, I’ll see you then.” I closed my phone.

Haroon’s eyes were wide, his eyebrows raised. “That was your dad, the famous artist, who’s listed in our art history book?”

Nate’s eyes were narrow, his brow furrowed. “That was your dad, who abandoned you when you needed him most?”

Lissa’s eyes were even, the corners of her mouth curled up ever so slightly. “That was your dad, who you haven’t seen for eight years, who’s coming to visit?”

It was my dad, who was all of those things, and more. I didn’t want to think about it. “Tonight is all about prom,” I said as I tossed my phone back in my purse. “All family-related nervous breakdowns are on pause until tomorrow.”

Nate slid his arm around me and kissed my cheek. “You okay?”

“I said I’m not thinking about this until tomorrow. Haroon, will you turn on the radio?”

Finally, the limo pulled up in front of the hotel, and we sauntered into the ballroom. But Nate kept doting on me like a mother hen. “Are you sure you don’t want to talk about it?”

“I want to dance. Are you going to dance with me, or am I swinging solo tonight?”

Nate relented and twirled me around the dance floor. I didn’t feel like Cinderella at the ball. From the very beginning of the evening, it had felt like a painful goodbye. I couldn’t understand why Kaitlyn was so jealous that I’d been asked to prom and she hadn’t. There was nothing exciting about knowing all your friends were about to embark on a grand adventure while you stayed home dreading junior English.

I’d just finished letting go of Arden and Gabby, and now I had to say goodbye to Nate too. But Nate’s departure was no longer my only cause for anxiety. I also had to learn to say hello — to my dad. I wasn’t talking, but Nate knew I was freaking out. Bruno Mars wailed through the ballroom speakers as Nate asked me, “What number is in your head right now?”

“Seven to the twenty-first.”

“What’s that?”

“Five hundred fifty-eight quadrillion — ”

“Quadrillion?” he cut me off. Taking my hand, he led me out of the ballroom and toward one of the elevators. “Come on, we’re talking.”

When Nate unlocked the door and ushered me toward the hotel room’s single queen-sized bed, his eyes weren’t screaming,
Come on, let’s lose our virginity.

“I’m okay.”

“No, you’re not.” He sat down beside me on the bed, holding my hands. “Is this all about your dad?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. I was sort of freaking out even before he called. And even if it scares me, I’m kind of excited about seeing him again.”

“Then why are you doing mental exponents of seven in your head at prom?”

“’Cause I’m at prom.”

He fell against a pillow. His eyes had moved from me to the ceiling, and I relished in the lack of scrutiny. “You’re afraid of
me?
” His voice broke on the final word.

Crap, he was gonna start crying. I crawled across the bed and lay down next to him, lifting his hand off the bed to hold it between mine. “I’m not afraid of
you.
I love you. I’m just afraid of prom. You’re graduating in less than a month. I know we’ll still have the summer. But this still feels a lot like the beginning of the end.

“If I’d never moved here, I’d be spending prom night watching movies and eating junk food in Arden’s living room while wondering if I’d ever get to kiss a boy. And now I’m in a hotel room. It just doesn’t feel like my life. How did I even get here?”

Nate reached out and caressed my cheek. “Do you want to go back downstairs?” His eyes were soft, concerned.

I wasn’t afraid of
him.
Nate couldn’t hurt me. My shoes, on the other hand, could. “No, I don’t want to go back downstairs. But I’m allowed to freak out tonight, okay?”

He blinked twice and gave a slight nod. “If you don’t want to be here, you don’t have to be. The limo already left, but I can call a cab if you want to go home.”

“Shh.” I touched my finger to his lips. “I don’t want to go home. My dad just called me for the first time in half my life. Being alone is the last thing I want to do. I just… Can we watch TV or something?”

Nate rolled away from me and found the TV remote. “You up for Telemundo?”

“
Sí, señor.
”

Nate flipped on the TV and took off his tuxedo jacket. I headed into the bathroom a few minutes later and extricated myself from my sparkly dress. Kaitlyn had convinced me to buy a frighteningly skimpy nightie. I left it in my bag and pulled out the T-shirt and sweatpants that I’d tossed in during a final minute of sanity before leaving home.

When I returned to our hotel room, Nate had stripped down to an undershirt and boxers. His tux lay folded over one of the chairs. He pulled back the covers and slid into bed. “Hey there, beautiful.”

I climbed into bed beside him. “I’m sorry, but I’m not ready. Are you disappointed?”

He kissed my cheek. “Of course not. Do you know how many nights I’ve dreamed about falling asleep with you in my arms? Being near you is all I want. I have nothing to feel disappointed about.”

I rested my head on his chest and looked up at the television. His fingers laced through my hair as the Spanish melodrama played out before us. Even if I wasn’t ready to make love, that didn’t mean I didn’t feel it. “I love you.”

He leaned over and kissed my temple. “
Te amo también.
”

O
n the Monday after prom, Kaitlyn and Sophie came over to my apartment to make campaign posters. I carefully wrote
Sam Wilson 4 Treasurer
on a large poster board.

“I don’t know why I’m running. I only know the names of five people in our entire grade. How am I going to convince all these people I’ve never met to vote for me for their class treasurer?”