Beside You

Prom

Hadley 

 Maddi and Arya wake me up the next morning by jumping in to my bed. "What? What time is it?"

 "Calm down, it's like 11. Now get up! We have a present for your birthday!" 

 They get out of my bed and walk across the hotel room to Maddi's suitcase. I sit up as they pull out a gift bag and hand it to me. "Here, open it."

 I take the bag from Arya and take the tissue paper out. I pull out a big photo album. "We went through our computers, Facebook, Instagram, everything. We got everyone in on it. We printed out a bunch of pictures and put them in this album for you."

 I flip through the first few pages of pictures. There are pictures from parties, birthdays, even my public school graduation. "Thank you guys so much! It's awesome." I get up and give them a hug. "Thank you so, so much." 

 "You're welcome, now come on, let's go downstairs and have brunch."

 When we finish eating I go upstairs to shower and pack my bags. 

 "Hey, so I have a question for you guys, do you think it would be weird if I wore the dress that I bought for the spring formal to prom?"

 "Wait, I thought you weren't going to go to prom?" Maddi asks. 

 "Yeah, well, that was before I had someone to go with." I'm fully prepared for the barrage of questions that follow my statement. 

 "What?! you have a prom date and you didn't tell us?" Arya exclaims.

 "Well he only asked me yesterday." I attempt to reason with them. 

 "Yeah, but you saw us yesterday and didn't tell us." 

 "I didn't want my brothers to overhear." 

 "Why would they-wait! It's Ryder, isn't it?"I simply nod. 

 Maddi gasps. "We so called it."

 "What do you mean you called it? What did you call?" 

 "We've had suspicions that he liked you for a while now." Arya says in excitement.

 "What do you mean he likes me? We're going as friends." 

 "Oh, yeah.. that's what we meant." Maddi attempts to save herself. 

 "Look, I know you're lying, but we need to finish packing before my mom hunts us down. I want to finish this conversation on the way home though." 

 When Maddi and Arya finish packing their suitcases we go back downstairs to wait for the others. Max and Ryder were already there, and my mom joins us a few moments later, looking at her watch.

 "Where are the other two? It's almost time to check out."

 Ryder answers. "They said they'd be right down." My brothers walk up as Ryder finishes talking.

 "There you are, come on, let's go." She ushers us over to the desk and we return our room keys. 

 We split off as soon as we reach the parking lot. Maddi convinces Max to ride with the rest of the guys this time so that we can finish our earlier conversation. 

 As soon as we leave the parking lot I ask "So, what did you mean earlier when you said that Ryder liked me?" 

 "Well it's pretty self explanatory. The guy clearly likes you, like a lot." Maddi says. 

 "It's super obvious too. Everyone sees the way he looks at you. Except for you apparently." Arya agrees.

 "Yeah, and when you were mad at him it killed him."