All of a sudden, I felt dizzy. If Conrad wanted to go somewhere where we could be alone, where we could talk, it meant he wanted to break up with me. I knew it.
“Let’s not go anywhere, let’s just stay here for a while,” I said, and I tried hard not to sound desperate.
“All right,” he said.
So we sat there, watching everyone around us dance, their faces shiny, makeup running. I pulled the flower out of my hair and put it in my purse.
When we had been quiet awhile, I said, “Did your mom make you come?” It broke my heart to ask, but I had to know.
“No,” he said, but he waited too late to answer.
In the parking lot, it had started to drizzle. My hair, my hair that I had spent the whole afternoon curling, was already falling flat. We were walking to the car when Conrad said, “My head is killing me.”
I stopped walking. “Do you want me to go back inside and see if anybody has an aspirin?”
“No, that’s okay. You know what, I might head back to school. I have that exam on Monday and everything. Would it be all right if I didn’t go to the after-prom? I could still drop you off.” He didn’t meet my eyes when he spoke.
“I thought you were spending the night.”
Conrad fumbled with his car keys and mumbled, “I know, but I’m thinking now that I should get back. . . .” His voice trailed off.
“But I don’t want you to leave,” I said, and I hated the way I sounded like I was begging.
He jammed his hands inside his pants pockets. “I’m sorry,” he said.
We stood there in the parking lot, and I thought, If we get inside his car, it’s all over. He’ll drop me off and then he’ll drive back to school and he’ll never come back. And that’ll be it.
“What happened?” I asked him, and I could feel the panic rising up in my chest. “Did I do something wrong?”
He looked away. “No. It’s not you. It has nothing to do with you.”
I grabbed his arm, and he flinched. “Will you please just talk to me? Will you tell me what’s going on?”
Conrad didn’t say anything. He was wishing he was already in his car, driving away. From me. I wanted to hit him.
I said, “Okay, fine, then. If you won’t say it, I will.”
“If I won’t say what?”
“That we’re over. That, whatever this is, it’s over. I mean, it is, right?” I was crying, and my nose was running, and it was all mixed up in the rain. I wiped my face with the back of my arm.
He hesitated. I saw him hesitate, weigh his words. “Belly—”
“Don’t,” I said, backing away from him. “Just don’t. Don’t say anything to me.”
“Just wait a minute,” he said. “Don’t leave it like this.”
“You’re the one leaving it like this,” I said. I started to walk away, as fast as my feet could go in those stupid heels.
“Wait!” he yelled.
I didn’t turn around, I walked faster. Then I heard him slam his fist on the hood of his car. I almost stopped.
Maybe I would have if he’d followed me. But he didn’t. He got in his car and he left, just like he said he would.
The next morning, Steven came to my room and sat at my desk. He’d just gotten home. He was still wearing his tux. “I’m asleep,” I told him, rolling over.
“No, you’re not.” He paused. “Conrad’s not worth it, okay?”
I knew what it cost him to say that to me, and I loved him for it. Steven was Conrad’s number one fan; he always had been. When Steven got up and left, I repeated it to myself. He’s not worth it.
When I came downstairs the next day around lunchtime, my mother said, “Are you all right?”
I sat down at the kitchen table and put my head down. The wood felt cool and smooth against my cheek. I looked up at her and said, “So I guess Steven blabbed.”
Carefully, she said, “Not exactly. I did ask him why Conrad didn’t stay the night like we planned.”
“We broke up,” I said. In a way, it was exciting to hear it said out loud, because if we were broken up, that meant that at one point, we had been together. We were real.
My mother sat down across from me. She sighed. “I was afraid this was going to happen.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, it’s more complicated than just you and Conrad. There are more people involved than just the two of you.”
I wanted to scream at her, to tell her how insensitive, how cruel she was, and couldn’t she see my heart was literally breaking? But when I looked up at her face, I bit back the words and swallowed them down. She was right. There was more to worry about than just my stupid heart. There was Susannah to think of. She was going to be so disappointed. I hated to disappoint her.
“Don’t worry about Beck,” my mother told me, her voice gentle. “I’ll tell her. You want me to fix you something to eat?”
I said yes.
Later, in my room, alone again, I told myself it was better this way. That he’d been wanting to end things all along, so it was better that I said it first. I didn’t believe a word of it. If he’d called and asked for me back, if he’d showed up at the house with flowers or a stereo on his shoulders playing our song—did we even have a song? I didn’t know, but if he’d made even the tiniest gesture, I’d have taken him back, gladly. But Conrad didn’t call.
When I found out Susannah was worse, that she wasn’t going to get any better, I called, once. He didn’t pick up, and I didn’t leave a message. If he had picked up, if he’d called me back, I don’t know what I would have said.
And that was it. We were over.
Chapter thirteen
jeremiah
When my mom found out Conrad was taking Belly to prom, she freaked out. She was insanely happy. You’d have thought they were getting married or something. I hadn’t seen her happy like that in a long time, and part of me was glad that he could give her that. But mostly I was just jealous. My mom kept calling him at school, reminding him of things like to make sure he rented his tux in time. She said maybe he could borrow mine, and I said I doubted it would fit. She left it at that, which I was relieved about. I ended up going to some girl from Collegiate’s prom that night so he couldn’t have worn it anyway. The point is, even if he could have, I wouldn’t have wanted him to.
She made him promise that he’d be sweet to her, the perfect gentleman. She said, “Make it a night she’ll always remember.”
