Just Like Heaven (5 page)

“It is,” Arthur admitted.

Demi shot daggers across the kitchen at Arthur. She wanted to seem unaffected by his behaviour, but now he was here, before her, all the memories from Saturday came flooding back, fresh and vivid and it was all she could do not to burst in to tears.

“I shouldn’t have ignored you,” Arthur said, his voice low, as if it were about to break. “You just…caught me off guard, that’s all. At school, I’m a jerk. I become this different person around my friends, just to fit in and stay on top.”

“Sounds like a lot of effort,” Demi replied bitterly.

“It is, and I wish it didn’t have to be that way but without my ability on the field, my grades would never be good enough to get me in to college. Being a jock is my ticket out of here and I guess I got so used to playing the part, sometimes I forget to just be me.”

“If only I had the world’s smallest violin right now, I’d play it for you,” Demi told him sarcastically, her hostility masking her sadness.

“I don’t blame you for hating me, I’d hate me,” Arthur said, fearing that the damage he’d done was irreparable.

“I don’t…I don’t hate you,” Demi’s arms fell to her side as she allowed her guard to lower, just a little.

“Good, cause if you hated me, I don’t know what I’d do!” Arthur said, relieved.

“But today at school, you made me feel so small, like a complete idiot.”

“I know and I’m sorry.”

“But sorry isn’t enough,” Demi said flatly. “I deserve to be treated better than that. Maybe I’m not the prettiest girl, or the smartest, or the most popular, but to be made to feel insignificant – no one should have to be made to feel like that.”

“But to me you are all those things!” Arthur declared.

“Then prove it,” Demi challenged.

Arthur didn’t need to pause and debate this. On the drive over, in fact all through the day, he’d been thinking about how he could make it up to Demi and prove just how serious he was about her. He knew he’d been a fool and potentially risked everything but he wasn’t willing to let her go. What they had was special, and he was prepared to prove that.

“Come to prom with me,” he said, issuing an order rather than giving an invitation.

“What?” Demi gasped, confused and shocked.

‘senior prom, its next week, I want you to be my date.”

For a moment the world seemed to stop as Demi took in what was happening. The captain of the football team was in her kitchen and he’d just asked her to prom. Demi had never been to prom before and despite this being her senior year, she’d had no previous intention of going. Prom was for couples, it was no place for someone like Demi, someone you didn’t conform or fit in. Plus everyone would be there which always made it feel like a parade, which she despised.

“You’re joking, aren’t you? You thought you’d come here and provoke me some more? Well, I refuse to give you something to laugh about with your buddies in the locker room tomorrow! Get out!” Demi’s cheeks flushed red as she motioned towards the door.

Mouth agape, Arthur stood rooted to the spot, confused by her sudden outburst.

“Demi, I’m serious. I want you to come with me to prom. I care about you, I really do, please, let me show it.”

“As if
you
would invite
me
to senior prom!” Demi felt tears trickle down her cheeks as she spoke.

“You are the most popular guy in school and I’m nobody, now leave!”

“Next Friday, at seven, I’m coming to pick you up to take you to prom as my date so you’d best be ready,” he told her.

“You’d love me to get ready, wouldn’t you? To sit here all night waiting like some pathetic fool!”

Arthur saw the pain and anger in Demi’s eyes and gave in to her order to leave. Reluctantly he moved to the door, hating himself for hurting her so deeply. But he’d make it up to her, he had to.

“I’ll see you next Friday,” he called to her just before he stepped out in to the cool night air. Behind him Demi slammed the door shut, her heart racing.

Beyond the kitchen, Demi’s father sat upon the small staircase, having been listening to the conversation between his daughter and her visitor transpire. It pained him to hear just how his beloved little girl thought of herself. And he wished, as he did daily, that his wife were still there so that she could reassure her in the way that only a mother could. But it was just him and so he’d have to do. He went in to the kitchen and let Demi collapse into his outstretched arms and sob. She soaked his shirt but he didn’t care. His little girl was hurting and she could drown him in her tears as long as it made her feel better.

#####

The following week of school went by in a grey haze. Demi and Hayley still weren’t talking. They had reached a stalemate as neither felt obliged to apologize or make contact and so now they just weren’t communicating at all. It made that final week seem unbearably lonely. Demi walked the halls, her head down, wishing the days away so that she could graduate and be free of Collinswood, of Hayley and more importantly, of Arthur.

She didn’t see him at all that week, but then she avoided all the places where he went. She would skip final period just so that she could catch the bus early to avoid people. And the plan had worked well, as Friday came around and at 2.00pm, Demi was on the bus, heading home.

The school had been buzzing about the prom, girls excitedly discussing their dresses, the corridors already adorned with decorations. Demi tried to ignore it all but felt herself glancing wistfully at the banners, glancing furtively in to the gym as the stars were put up for the Never-ending Night theme. The idea was to make the last night of high school last forever, which to Demi, sounded like a cruel form of torture.

Arthur had continued to text, always professing about how he’d be taking Demi to prom come Friday. Demi just deleted them as soon as they came in. She considered showing them to Hayley but knew it would just be met with more cruel words and wicked taunts.     

So Demi went home from school early on the Friday. She sat at her kitchen table, did her homework, and then ate dinner with her father. After, she cleaned away the plates before going up to her bedroom. It was now half past six. Most girls would be excitedly getting ready for prom, putting on their prettiest dress, desperate for a memorable night.

A digital rendition of The Cure’s
Just Like Heaven
suddenly sung out as Demi’s Sidekick sprung to life. Inwardly groaning, she anticipated that it would be Arthur and so was surprised to see Hayley’s name accompanied by a cheesy picture of them both flashing to signal the incoming call. Demi considered not answering, but at the last moment answered, still caring for her friend in spite of how spiteful she’d been.

“Demi, hi, I’m glad you answered,” Hayley said quietly, sounding sheepish.

“I almost didn’t.”

“I don’t blame you, I feel horrible. We are best friends and we are supposed to stick together.”

“I’m not the one who made us come unstuck.”

“I know, I know, it’s all me. But listen, I’m sorry. Like really sorry. I don’t know what came over me; I guess I just felt a bit jealous that you were hanging out with Arthur Cooper.”

“I was only his tutor.”

“But still.”

There was an awkward silence between the two friends who usually couldn’t find enough time in the day to swap all their gossip and stories.

“So, look, tonight is Senior Prom and I know we said we wouldn’t go, but we totally should, for old time’s sake.”

“No, thank you.”

“Oh, Demi, come on! It’s our last chance to go to Prom!”

“Really, no.”

“But we’d have so much fun!”

Demi frowned as she sat down on her bed, her Sidekick held to her ear. Hayley had never been a fan of Prom, she called it the “charade of the deluded” and now she was desperate to go? And with Demi too?

“Why are you so keen to go to Prom?”

“What do you mean?” Hayley’s bright tone faltered slightly.

“I mean, you hate Prom. We both do. So why do you want to go?”

“Just as it’s our last one!”

“No really, why do you want to go?”

Hayley inhaled deeply before delivering the missing piece of information;

“I’ve got a date.”

“Oh, so why do you need me?”

“Aren’t you going to ask who it is?”

“I don’t care.”

“It’s Chip Matthews.”

“I don’t care.”

“Demi, please. There is so much expectation to do it on Prom night. I need you there to keep me balanced, stop me doing anything stupid.” Hayley whined.

“I refuse to be your chaperone! I hope you have sex and get knocked up and have Chip’s love child and never leave Collinswood! Hayley, you are a shit friend!” Demi threw the Sidekick away from her, shaking. She couldn’t wait for high school to end, she hated everything about it.

Downstairs the doorbell rang but Demi failed to hear it, too lost to her current rage about Hayley.

“Demi!” her father yelled up the stairs.

“What?”

“You’ve got a visitor!”

Fuelled by anger, Demi stomped down the stairs, not really sure what or who she was expecting to see and there in her kitchen stood Arthur Cooper, dressed in a tuxedo, a white lily corsage in his hand. He looked white as a sheet and appeared to be trembling with nerves.

“I promised to take you to prom, remember?” he said nervously, glancing at her father who raised his hands and excused himself from the kitchen, glad to be away from the drama. He remembered all too well the angst of being a teenager and had no desire to relive it through his own daughter.

“I’m not going,” Demi told him defiantly.

“Fine, we’ll stay here. Maybe watch a movie, have some take out.”

“What, with you in a tux?” she scoffed.

“Please, Demi let me make this up to you.”

“I don’t want to go.”

“But why-” before Arthur could finish his line of questioning Demi snapped and delivered the true, devastating reason for her reluctance to attend.

“Because my Mom isn’t here!”

“Oh,” Arthur felt so stupid, yet again.

“Prom is a rite of passage, a time when your Mom takes pictures of you and tells you how beautiful you are,” Demi didn’t notice she was crying as she spoke. Arthur came and held her in his arms.

“You are so beautiful,” he told her. “And your Mom wouldn’t want you to miss out on moments like prom because she isn’t here, she’d want you to live every moment.” Demi found that she was sobbing into Arthur’s tuxedo jacket, the pain and anguish of the past week, of the past ten years, flooding out of her.

“If you don’t want to go, then fine, I respect that. But going would give me a chance to redeem myself and show everyone that we are together. That you belong with me.”

Demi didn’t want to go, at all, but looking up in to Arthur’s eyes she yearned to dance with him beneath the artificial stars in the gymnasium.

“Let me go and change,” she said hurriedly.

####

Forty minutes later, Demi Mitchell arrived at her senior prom on the arm of Arthur Cooper, the captain of the football team. And people didn’t stare in disbelief; they looked on with mild interest, too caught up in their own dramas and dilemmas to really care. High school was officially over, the social hierarchy from within it now redundant. The only person whose eye’s nearly popped out of their head was Hayley. She stared, dumbstruck, her eyes watering slightly and Demi just raised her chin and turned the other way.