“Do you have any idea what you just did to her?”
I looked at Darren for a long moment, then I let my shoulders drop.
His expression changed immediately. Hope rushed in where shame should have been.
“Maybe you’re right,” I said quietly. “Maybe this has gone too far already.”
He nodded quickly. “Exactly.”
“If Elsie finds out you arranged all this before she hears you out, she’ll run.”
“That’s what I’ve been saying.”
“So let me talk to her first.”
“Maybe this has gone too far already.”
He took one eager step toward me. “You’ll help me?”
I lowered my eyes like I was thinking, like I was torn, like there was still any part of me left that would protect him.
“I’ll bring her,” I said.
He exhaled hard. “Thank you.”
I smiled.
It was the first lie I’d told all evening.
“You’ll help me?”
When I stepped back into the gym, kids were whispering in knots near the bleachers. Parents stood with careful faces that didn’t hide a thing. The principal was by the exit with Elsie. Mason’s coach stood nearby, along with Mason’s parents.
Good, I thought. Let them all hear it.
Elsie looked wrecked. When she saw me, fresh hurt flashed across her face.
“Elsie,” I said.
“I don’t want excuses.”
“You’re not getting excuses.” I took my daughter’s hands before she could pull away. “Listen to me carefully. Your father is here. He’s been here all night. He’s the one who arranged this. He contacted Mason.”
The principal’s mouth tightened.
Mason’s mother made a strangled sound.
Around us, the whispering sharpened.
Elsie stared at me like I’d slapped her.
“No,” she whispered.
“Yes.” I squeezed her hands. “He apparently thought it was the only way he’d get a chance to speak to you.”
Around us, the whispering sharpened.
Her face folded in on itself.
For a second, I thought she might collapse.
Instead, she lifted her chin. Her eyes were still wet, but there was something steady in them now. Something I had never seen so clearly before.
“He wanted a chance to speak to me? Then he can have it. Bring him out,” she said.
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen her look so determined, so I nodded.
For a second, I thought she might collapse.
I walked back down that hallway and opened the closet door.
Darren looked up fast, smiling like an idiot. “You talked to her?”
“She wants to see you,” I said.
He followed me into the gym.
At first, he didn’t understand what he was walking into. The silence hit him a beat too late. He slowed, and looked around at the ring of faces… The principal. The coach. Parents. Students.
Mason standing off to the side looking ashamed and cornered.
Elsie waiting near the exit, spine straight as a blade.
I walked back down that hallway and opened the closet door.
Darren stopped. “Elsie, honey, I know this is a shock—”
Her voice was flat. “Don’t call me that.”
Darren blinked. He looked around again, finally understanding that whatever reunion he had pictured was dead.
“You had a stranger pretend to like me,” she said, louder now. “At my prom.”
“I thought it would make this easier. I only wanted to talk.”
Mason stepped forward then, voice shaking. “I’m sorry, Elsie.”
She looked at him. “Then tell me why. Why did you do it?”
“You had a stranger pretend to like me.”
Mason swallowed. “He said he knew someone who could help me get into college on a football scholarship. He said he just wanted a chance to talk to you. I thought it was harmless.”
Mason’s mother covered her mouth.
His father looked ready to drag him out by the collar.
Elsie nodded slowly, tears slipping down her face again. “You didn’t think about how it would make me feel at all.”
He dropped his eyes.
Then Darren took one step closer. “Elsie, I made mistakes. A lot of them. But I’m here now. I want to make things right.”
“You didn’t think about how it would make me feel at all.”
That did it.
She pointed at him. “You don’t make things right by trying to manipulate me into meeting you! God, pick up a phone! Knock on our door, anything but this!”
Darren’s face broke. “You wouldn’t have listened to me!”
“You’ll never know that now, will you? Because you never even gave me a chance to meet you honestly.”
Darren flinched.
I felt my own eyes burn.
The principal stepped in then, voice clipped and calm. “Sir, you need to leave. Now.”
“You’ll never know that now, will you?”
Darren looked at Elsie one last time, then left with every eye in that gym on his back.
It wasn’t the prom either of us wanted for her.
But when I think about that night now, I don’t picture the dance floor or the lights or Darren’s face when he realized he’d lost control.
I picture my daughter standing in the middle of that gym, tears on her cheeks, spine straight, telling the truth without flinching.
