Healing Hearts ✅

45. Paris

Prom is the day that most people wait their entire high school lives for but I never thought that I'd be one to get excited over the silly dance yet here I was, sitting in my room and letting my best friend do my make-up. "I told you I didn't need to have my face all caked up. I hate make-up" I complain. Maya rolls her eyes. 

"It's one night. Humor me" she replies as she finishes off my eyeliner. "Are you excited?" she asks conversationally. I shrug despite the butterflies in my stomach. To say I was excited was an understatement; I had been looking forward to today all week. 

"I guess" I reply nonchalantly. "What about you? Are you excited?"

She laughs. "I get to spend the entire night showing off my older boyfriend to people who have taunted me and made my life a living hell for years. I'm beyond excited. Tonight is going to be epic and you can't tell me you aren't even a little excited."

"I didn't say that" I protest as my smile gives me away, breaking into a huge grin. "I'm excited, okay? I just" I pause, biting into my lip. "I just feel guilty sometimes" I admit softly. 

She furrows her eyebrows at me. "Guilty for what? I thought you and that Farkle person worked everything out." I nod.

"We did but that's not who I'm talking about. Sometimes when I'm doing all these things I'm reminded that my brother will never get to do any of them. He'll never have his first kiss, he'll never go to prom, fall in love" I trail off, biting back tears. "It's just hard to be happy about these types of things all the time."

She gives me a sympathetic smile, pulling away from me to put her makeup brushes away. "I know I never met your brother but I promise you, he'd want you to be happy over anything else. He'd never want you to skip out on living your life to the fullest just because he isn't here."

I smile back at her, pulling her in for a hug as knock sounds on the door. We pull apart and look up to find Josh standing in the doorway. "Sorry, didn't mean to interrupt. What are we talking about?" he asks, stepping into the room. 

"Auggie" I reply causing his lips to quirk into a frown. I sigh, nodding my head. "I know. I'm a depressing date" I chuckle sadly. "I think I'm gonna take a little walk" I add, climbing off my bed. 

"But you'll be back for pictures, right?" Maya asks hopefully and I smile, nodding my head. 

"I'll be back" I assure her before hugging my uncle and walking out of the room and down the steps. I tell my parents I'm going for a walk and leave the house, heading towards the barn. The walk is the shortest in history but I just needed to feel some sort of peace and the barn gave me that. 

I walk inside and immediately a wave of calm rushes over me as I climb the ladder to sit among the rafters. I rest my head on one of the support beams and close my eyes, taking in the sounds around me and focusing on nothing in particular until the sound of footsteps capture my attention. "How do you always find me?" I ask, opening my eyes to find my boyfriend taking a seat beside me. 

"Boyfriend super powers" he teases. "Maya told me you went for a walk" he adds after a moment and I chuckle. 

"Still, you knew my walk was only to the barn."

He shrugs. "I know you sorta like the back of my hand. It's not a big deal sweetheart." I laugh, moving my head to rest on his shoulder. "She said you're thinking about Auggie."

"I'm sure she did. I'm sorry Luke, I don't want to ruin our night."

"It could never be ruined" he argues, wrapping his arm around me. "But if you don't want to go-."

"No" I protest, sitting up to look at him. "I want to go."

He smiles, nodding his head. "Okay then we'll go. Whatever you want."