Before You Say Goodbye

51

It was a warm, boring afternoon, I was in our school gym, checking on all the decorations, and from time to time glaring at Joaquin – he was yet to apologize to me for dumping the entire prom on me. 

Fortunately for him, he kept his distance from me, forcing a smile on his face every time our eyes connected. He was talking to Monique about something, nervously tapping his foot as he did so. Monique followed his eyes to me and when her eyes landed on me, she gave me a small smile, one of the similar ones she has given me a few times in the past week. One of the firsts that have been genuine since the whole Piper-Jaden fiasco. I gave her a smile of my own, a little relieved that she seems to have put the whole thing behind her. 

When my eyes moved back to Joaquin, the smile however vanished off my face and I narrowed my eyes. The first chance I get to put my hands on him, he was going to get Hell from me, I was sure of that. Terry who sat at the bleachers with Noah and Ezra, watching our wordless interaction with amusement was sure of that too.

"Addie, where do you want the food table?"

I turned to look at a sweaty Jaxon, who had been of great help with this entire thing. I think he was the only one on the prom committee who has pulled his weight to get it all going. I was a little more than relieved that we too have seemed to put our past – you know, the one where I punched him and called him names, yeah that one – behind us. I looked down at the chart in my hand that had the rough sketch of how we were going to arrange everything inside the gym and pointed to the corner that the food table went to, "I thought we could put it on that corner against the wall. What do you think?"

"Um," he looked at the corner I pointed to before looking back at me, "I thought the DJ booth was at that corner. Don't you think if we placed the food next to the DJ booth, it'll be too loud and people won't go to get food?"

I nodded, "Okay, good point. Where do you think we can put them then? There's also a photo booth that should go somewhere in here."

"Give me that sketch, I'll figure it out," he said pointing to the rough sketch in my hand of all the things that need to fit inside this gym. "Meanwhile can you check on the balloons and the other decorations?"

"Yup."

As Jaxon walked off, someone else stepped to my side, grumbling about something. Roman looked around the place with obvious distaste, his nose wrinkling. "I think Prom is such a waste of all our time."

I shrugged, "I think that's just us – there are so many people who actually look forward to this day."

"We could always skip prom and cuddle on the couch while watching a good horror movie. What do you say?"

"I'd say, good try, Roman," I leaned up pressing my lips to his in a quick kiss, "But, no."

"Why?" he sounded so close to whining.

I laughed. "Because I cannot skip it, I'm on the prom committee and you – you're going because you're my wonderful boyfriend. And definitely a no on the horror movie – ever."

"Sometimes, I regret dating you."

"No, you don't."

Surprising no one, Terry and I hadn't gone shopping for a prom dress. We knew the malls and the local boutiques were flooded with teenagers, excited to buy a beautiful prom dress, we knew we should've gone shopping a long time ago if we wanted to get our hands on a fairly decent dress. Yet, somehow this time, shopping for a prom dress was the last thing on our minds. We had so many other things that were still haunting us. We spent the whole of last night, in Terry's bedroom, having a sleepover, talking about how this was our first dance without Piper.