I tried to ignore him, but as I reached for the handle, he grabbed my hand, putting a folded note in my palm.
I crinkled the notebook paper in my fist.
“Please read it. I won’t bother you anymore, if you just read it.”
With the tiniest movement, I nodded once and then opened my car door. The drive to the Dairy Queen from the mural was just a couple of minutes. I parked and walked into the small building, note in hand.
“Hey, stranger,” Frankie said, smiling. She was on the phone, and I could tell immediately that she was talking to her mother about her kids.
I smiled at her, leaned against the counter, and fingered the paper in my hands. After several minutes I finally unfolded it, my face crumpling as I read the two simple sentences.
I TOLD MY DAD ABOUT DALLAS. SEE YOU AT SIX ON PROM NIGHT.
LOVE YOU,
WESTON
I crumpled the paper in my hand and held my fist to my chin, supporting my elbow by resting my other arm across my stomach.
Frankie watched me warily. “I’ve gotta go, Mom. Kiss the kids for me.” She hung up the phone and took a few steps toward me. “What’s that?”
“A note from Weston.”
“Is it bad?”
“We aren’t together anymore.”
“You’re not?”
“No. He…I found out he was planning to help Alder get me to prom so they could embarrass me.”
“What?” she shrieked. “No. Weston wouldn’t do that.”
“It’s in her journal. He didn’t deny it. Brady knew about it.”
The color left her face. “There has to be an explanation. There has to be something else you don’t know.”
“There is. I was stupid,” I said, wiping the ridiculous tears falling down my cheeks.
“But…she’s dead. Why would he continue with the plan?”
“He told her he would? I don’t know. I knew there was more to it. I knew he wouldn’t just suddenly have interest in me. I just…I wanted to believe it,” I said, my voice breaking.
“What’s in the note?” she asked, horrified.
I held it out to her, and she scrambled to read it. Then she looked up at me. “What does it mean?”
“I promised him that if he told his dad he wanted to go to the Art Institute of Dallas instead of Duke, then I would go to prom with him.”
“You don’t think he’d still go through with it. He’s…Somewhere in the midst of all this, he had a change of heart, Erin. He fell for you, and now you know the awful truth, and he wants to fix it. He isn’t the type of person to go through with something so cruel.”
I shrugged.
“You don’t have to go with him. If you’re afraid of what will happen, don’t go.”
I lifted my chin and wiped my cheeks once more. “I’m not afraid of them. I refuse. No matter what they do to me, I am in control of the way others make me feel. They can’t hurt me if I don’t let them.”
Frankie handed me the note, and I took it, folding the wrinkled paper into the same square it was in when Weston gave it to me. As I did so, the paper sliced my finger, and a small dot of blood pooled from the tiny cut. I shoved the note into the front pouch of my apron and wiped the blood on the closest napkin.
“They can bring whatever they’ve got. The joke’s on them,” I said, opening the window when the first car slowed to a stop in front of the shop.
Frankie watched me, shaking her head in awe. “You’re so close to graduation. So close to being free.”
I turned to fill a cup with soft serve and dumped in bananas and caramel, holding the cup up to the mixer. “I am not Easter anymore. I won’t hide.”
“You want to go with him.”
Her words hit me with such force, I crouched to my knees, barely holding the cup on the counter.
“Is she all right?” the woman on the other side of the window said.
Frankie rushed over to me, kneeling down.
“I’m a high school senior who wants to go to prom. I’ve got one chance to see what that feels like. Screw ’em. Screw him. Screw ’em all.”
“Attagirl,” Frankie said, holding her palm to my back. “To hell with ’em. And if he does anything to embarrass you, even so much as acts like a fool, God help him. Because your parents and me will nail him to the wall.”
I stood, holding the cup in both hands. “You won’t have to worry about that. I am writing my own story. And in my story, I get a happy ending. No matter what happens, they can’t touch me.”
I pulled my cell phone from the front pouch of my apron and texted Julianne.
Do you have plans tomorrow?
No. Did you have something in mind?
I’ve been asked to prom. Kind of.
Yay! Who?
Weston.
Are you sure?
Not really. But I’m going.
Okay, then. We’ll discuss this turn of events later. But you’re going to need a dress.
Tuesday after school, Julianne met me at Frocks & Fashions downtown. I just sort of stood around while she looked at the dresses. She would show me one, and I’d shake my head.
After several noes, she approached me. “What’s your favorite color?” she asked.
“All of them.”
“That’s convenient.” She chuckled.
“What about this one?” she said, holding up a sea-green dress with a full skirt and a bunched bodice. I shook my head again.
“What do you dislike about it?”
“The big skirt. The color. The fact that it’s strapless.”
She nodded. “Got it.”
A few minutes later, she held up another dress, her eyes animated. “Look at this one!” She took a closer look at the tag. “It’s your size!”
It was blush pink, the long skirt soft and flowing to the floor, with a thick, gathered empire waistline that sat below a transparent bodice. The see-through fabric went over both shoulders, and hundreds of small silver rhinestones grouped together to cover the breast area and then broke apart as they traveled up to the neckline.
Julianne turned it around. The back was see-through like Alder’s dress, but the rhinestones lined the outer edges instead of grouping at the bottom.
“Do you hate it?”
I shook my head. “No, it’s kind of pretty, actually.”