The Anatomy of a Parody Heart

prom

Faith is the first one to bring up the prom. Sitting at the breakfast table - five days after Enzo's surgery, and three days after coming home.

Three days without Dan.

"Have you found anyone to go to the prom with you yet?" Faith asks.

Gem, also sitting at the breakfast table, shakes her head. "No, not yet. But I've got someone in mind." She smiles - the first proper smile that Enzo has seen since the cannula. It lights up her face.

"When are you going to ask him?" Faith pours milk onto her cereal.

"I don't ask him, silly. I wait for him to ask me."

"Really?" Faith pouts. "That's stupid."

"No, it's not. It's better - it means none of us have to do any work. We just wait."

"And what if no one asks you?"

"Then we go to prom with a girl, instead. One of our friends. It's not a big deal."

Robyn raises an eyebrow. "What's got you so suddenly into boys, Faith?"

Faith goes red. "Nothing."

Enzo looks at Robyn. "Who'd you go to prom with?"

Robyn shrugs. "Teri...Teri Parker, I think it was? Or maybe Livi Pritchett. I can't remember."

Gem narrows her eyes. "You can't remember?"

Robyn rolls his eyes. "It was last year, woman. You can't expect me to remember everything."

"No, but I do expect you to remember who you went to prom with! Prom matters!"

Robyn snorts. "No, it doesn't."

"Well, it does for girls."

"Oh, I'm sure."

Gem turns to Enzo. "Are you going to prom, Enz? It's for your year as well, right?"

"Yeah," Enzo says. A pause. "But I'm not going."

Gem frowns. "Why not?"

"Don't pester him, Gem," Robyn says. "He can do what he likes."

"Yes," Gem begins hotly, "and so can I! I - "

"Have you taken your pills yet this morning, Enzo?"

Mum appears at the table. She shakes a heap of coloured pills onto Enzo's plate. 

Enzo notices that she is avoiding his eye. Almost like she is afraid of what she might see there.

Enzo takes them. 

Swallows them. 

And it is in that moment - right then, right now - that he makes a few decisions.

One - that he is going to help Mum, and Gem, and Robyn to keep the household going, and to look after the twins, and to look after Mum.

Two - that he will drop out of school altogether, because Rob needs college, the twins need education, and Mum - well, Mum needs... Enzo sighs. Mum needs a lot of things. Help. Kindness. Dad. Money. Anything to make sure that the silence after he is gone is not a deafening one.

And three - that he is going to ask Dan to the prom.