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I wipe the rest of the shaving cream off my chin, let Mom snap a couple of pictures of me in my tux, and then I head out the door. At Branley’s house there’s a whole process involved. Her parents make me wait in the living room and she actually comes down the stairs to me, like we’re getting married or something. They video my reaction, and I don’t have to fake it. She looks amazing. Stunning. Absolutely gorgeous.

I tell her that, and I mean it, and she actually blushes a little. I can see it under all the makeup and it makes me want to tell her to wash her face, put on a pair of jeans, and we’ll go up to the lodge early, wade in the stream like we used to when we were kids. But her mom is pinning a boutonniere on me (tinted to perfectly match Branley’s dress—sea-foam green—I know this because I’ve been informed many, many times), and if I said let’s drop the shit and just be ourselves there’d be hundreds of dollars thrown away.

So I put on my fake smile and her parents take about a thousand pictures and tell us what a beautiful couple we make, and I bite down on my lip because I don’t know if we are a couple or ever have been. Branley laughs and smiles, rests her head on my shoulder, leaving behind a flesh-colored smudge of makeup on my jacket that I really hope will come off because I can’t afford to pay any kind of cleaning fee.

Then we’re in the car and I’m trying to drive but Branley keeps putting her hand on my leg, her head on my arm, touching me so much that it’s distracting more than erotic and all I can think about is that this is what college will be like. She’ll follow me around and her hands will be on me all the time, feeling, touching, needing, and I’ll give her whatever she wants because I always have and that’ll just make it worse. My grades will slip and I’ll lose my scholarship and have to drop out, and Branley will follow me home and fuck I probably will end up marrying her and we’ll have kids and they’ll go up to the church to make out with the kids of the people we’re going to see at prom tonight.

“Stop touching me,” I say, my voice so hollow she actually listens.

I glance over and I can tell she’s hurt but I can’t let it bother me, not after the thoughts that just chased through my brain, an endless loop that I can’t stop picturing.

Prom is a sea of colors, all of them vying for attention, much like the girls wearing them. Red, green, blue, a few brave souls in yellow, a couple of colors I’m pretty sure don’t even have names and definitely don’t occur in nature. What I see the most of, though, is flesh, everywhere. Technically prom is supposed to follow dress code, but the teachers know that if they toss some kid who spent hundreds of bucks on a prom dress they’ll have to deal with a pissed-off parent, whether it shows her areolae or not.

So there’s legs and tits everywhere, quite a few midriffs. Shiny white teeth flashing out from behind lips coated with gloss, shining unnaturally beneath the lights. I brought a flask and I’ve been helping myself a little more than is probably smart, but I don’t know how else to deal with this night. I tell Branley I need to sit a song out, that if I keep moving I might lose the chicken cordon bleu I paid thirty bucks for all over her dress. It’s a threat to her perfection, so she allows me to go.

I’m sitting at our table, fishing in my jacket pocket for the flask, when I see the hole in the brightness, a spot of darkness that stands out among the chaos. Alex is weaving through the crowd in a brown dress that probably looked like a bag on the hanger but looks better than sex on her. It covers everything it should but hugs close, giving you an outline of what’s underneath that is way hotter than just going ahead and showing it.

Branley looks fantastic, no doubt. She looks like the perfect teenage prom date, a little kid playing dress-up. Alex looks like a woman, like an adult who has already seen it all and doesn’t need to prove shit. She heads for a table on the far side, where I see Sara and her date in matching dresses.

Branley’s watching me over the shoulder of her dance partner, eyes slit like a cat ready to pounce. I grab my punch glass and tip the flask into it under the table, almost dumping half the drink when Peekay flops into the chair next to me.

“Hey, asshole, dance with me,” she says.

It’s not the most flattering invitation I’ve ever had, but I know Park brought his own flask and it looks like Peekay got in on that action early. She drags me onto the floor so hard I’m tripping to avoid stepping on the back of her dress, which drags even though she has on heels. Even with the shoes her face just hits my chest, so I’m looking down into her fairly flushed cheeks as we start to dance.

“You see Alex?” she asks.

“Yeah.”

“She looks good, right?”

There’s no harm in my admitting that, so I nod, trying to steer us away from Branley so she can’t overhear our conversation.

“So what’s up with that?” Peekay pushes on.

“What do you mean?”

Peekay rolls her eyes, and suddenly one very pointy, nicely painted fingernail is digging into my chest. “You listen to me, Jack Effing Fisher,” she says. “Branley’s run-of-the-mill. She’s a golden retriever, you got me? Alex is an Irish wolfhound.” The nail pushes in a little farther.

“An Irish wolfhound,” she repeats, red-rimmed eyes daring me to contradict her. “And you can’t just walk away from that.”

She’s so mad at me I don’t know if I’m going to get the chance to explain that I just came to that realization—or something like it that didn’t include dog breeds—a few minutes ago. I pick her up by her elbows and lift her so that we’re face-to-face, which at least gets the digging nail out from my skin. She’s so surprised she stops talking.

“I know,” I say, and the depths of how well I know it must show because Peekay suddenly smiles, transforming her whole face. I put her back down and she barrel hugs me, little arms stronger than I expected.

“If Branley is a golden retriever and Alex is an Irish wolfhound, then you’re a pissed-off cocker spaniel,” I say.

“With rabies,” she adds. “And don’t you forget it.” She bares her teeth at me and disappears into the crowd.

I’m at the edge of the dance floor, Alex’s table only a few feet away, the doubts of the past few months reduced to nothing. My mind is trying to piece together an argument against it, but my heart knows what it wants and my feet are already moving in her direction. It’s not a decision so much as instinct, and I’m beside her, my hand on hers as I say her name.

She looks at me, her eyes even bigger with a dash of eyeliner around them.

“Can we talk?” I ask.

She nods, takes my hand, and leads me out of the room, out to the balcony where the fresh air and Alex beside me is the most sobering thing I’ve ever experienced. I don’t want to say stupid things. I don’t want to tell her she looks nice or say I didn’t expect to see her. I only want to talk about the things that matter, the things that have been rolling around in my brain for months, knocking into all the normal things I’m trying to concentrate on and throwing them off course. But the only thing that comes out is the truth, simple and impossible at the same time.

“I want you,” I say.