Noah looked at me. “We can still go.”
“No,” I said, though my voice came out thinner than I wanted. “We came to prom. I’m nervous, but I’m okay.”
Jada nodded toward the dance floor. “Then go dance!”
I almost laughed. “Right now?”
“Right now.”
Noah held my hand a little looser, waiting for me to choose.
That mattered, so I stepped forward.
We made it maybe five steps before the footballers showed up. Chad moved in front of us. Nathan came up beside him, already smiling like he’d found the funniest thing in the room.
Ali lingered behind them, quiet enough to pretend he wasn’t part of it.
Chad looked me up and down. “Wow.”
I stopped. “Use a full sentence.”
His smile twitched. “Big entrance.”
“Move, Chad,” Jada said.
“I’m not in your way.”
Nathan looked at Noah. “You really walked in with him like that?”
Noah’s jaw tightened. “Of course I did.”
Chad gave a short laugh. “Come on, Damien. You knew people were going to say something.”
“I knew you would,” I said. “That’s different.”
His face changed for half a second.
Then Nathan looked around and raised his voice. “So are we all pretending this is normal?”
The word hit me harder than I expected.
Normal was the word I’d spent most of high school pretending not to care about.
Jada’s voice sharpened. “Nathan, if you need everyone’s help deciding what normal is, that sounds like a you problem.”
