Prom Musical Quotes

You go through life thinking there's so much you need. Your favorite jeans and sweater. The jacket with the faux-fur lining to keep you warm. Your phone and your music and your favorite books. Mascara. Irish breakfast tea and cappuccinos from Trouble Coffee. You need your yearbooks, every stiffly posed school-dance photo, the notes your friends slipped into your locker. You need the camera you got for your sixteenth birthday and the flowers you dried. You need your notebooks full of the things you learned and don't want to forget. You need your bedspread, white with black diamonds. You need your pillow - it fits the way you sleep. You need magazines promising self-improvement. You need your running shoes and your sandals and your boots. Your grade report from the semester you got straight As. Your prom dress, your shiny earrings, your pendants on delicate chains. You need your underwear, your light-colored bras and your black ones. The dream catcher hanging above your bed. The dozens and dozens of shells in glass jars... You think you need all of it. Until you leave with only your phone, your wallet, and a picture of your mother.

BEHOLD THE FIELD IN WHICH I GROW MY F*CKS, LAY THINE EYES UPON IT AND SEE THAT IT IS BARREN.

us.

I don’t want to start a riot I don’t want to blaze a trail

We did it,” Barry says, so quiet it’s almost a whisper. Then he leaps up and shouts into the other room. “Dee Dee! Non-equity cast of Godspell! We did it! Emma’s going to the prom!

When your mom noticed me watching a Buffy rerun on the little TV on the doorman desk one slow night on the job, she admitted that watching Buffy was her shared solace with you after your dad left. She told me how you cry and cry for Buffy. You cry when Angel shows up to be Buffy's prom date even though they'd already recognized the futility of their true love and broken up. You cry when Buffy's mom is taken away by natural instead of supernatural causes. You cry when seasons six and seven really don't reflect the quality of seasons one through five except for the musical episode.

You’re sure you want to do this,” Galen says, eyeing me like I’ve grown a tiara of snakes on my head. “Absolutely.” I unstrap the four-hundred-dollar silver heels and spike them into the sand. When he starts unraveling his tie, I throw out my hand. “No! Leave it. Leave everything on.” Galen frowns. “Rachel would kill us both. In our sleep. She would torture us first.” “This is our prom night. Rachel would want us to enjoy ourselves.” I pull the thousand-or-so bobby pins from my hair and toss them in the sand. Really, both of us are right. She would want us to be happy. But she would also want us to stay in our designer clothes. Leaning over, I shake my head like a wet dog, dispelling the magic of hairspray. Tossing my hair back, I look at Galen. His crooked smile almost melts me where I stand. I’m just glad to see a smile on his face at all. The last six months have been rough. “Your mother will want pictures,” he tells me. “And what will she do with pictures? There aren’t exactly picture frames in the Royal Caverns.” Mom’s decision to mate with Grom and live as his queen didn’t surprise me. After all, I am eighteen years old, an adult, and can take care of myself. Besides, she’s just a swim away. “She keeps picture frames at her house though. She could still enjoy them while she and Grom come to shore to-“ “Okay, ew. Don’t say it. That’s where I draw the line.” Galen laughs and takes off his shoes. I forget all about Mom and Grom. Galen, barefoot in the sand, wearing an Armani tux. What more could a girl ask for? “Don’t look at me like that, angelfish,” he says, his voice husky. “Disappointing your grandfather is the last thing I want to do.” My stomach cartwheels. Swallowing doesn’t help. “I can’t admire you, even from afar?” I can’t quite squeeze enough innocence in there to make it believable, to make it sound like I wasn’t thinking the same thing he was. Clearing his throat, he nods. “Let’s get on with this.” He closes the distance between us, making foot-size potholes with his stride. Grabbing my hand, he pulls me to the water. At the edge of the wet sand, just out of reach of the most ambitious wave, we stop. “You’re sure?” he says again. “More than sure,” I tell him, giddiness swimming through my veins like a sneaking eel. Images of the conference center downtown spring up in my mind. Red and white balloons, streamers, a loud, cheesy DJ yelling over the starting chorus of the next song. Kids grinding against one another on the dance floor to lure the chaperones’ attention away from a punch bowl just waiting to be spiked. Dresses spilling over with skin, matching corsages, awkward gaits due to six-inch heels. The prom Chloe and I dreamed of. But the memories I wanted to make at that prom died with Chloe. There could never be any joy in that prom without her. I couldn’t walk through those doors and not feel that something was missing. A big something. No, this is where I belong now. No balloons, no loud music, no loaded punch bowl. Just the quiet and the beach and Galen. This is my new prom. And for some reason, I think Chloe would approve.

The prom’s music came from this really bad cover band called The Gypsies of the Allegheny,

Es más de lo que nunca me atreví a desear; es algo épico, donde hay lugar para todo el mundo.

I wish there was a movie of my life. Something I could turn on when I wanted to know what was coming. Even if it meant I'd know the ending, at least I'd know what to do next. But there aren't movies for boys like me. Growing up I could never find myself in the Hollywood endings or music montages. I wasn't giving speeches at prom, or racing to the airport. I grew up watching movies for other boys, learning from the wrong playbook. Stealing notes from someone else's paper. Maybe that's my problem.

The indie kids, huh? You've got them at your school, too. That group with the cool-geek haircuts and the charity shop clothes and names from the fifties. Nice enough, never mean, but always the ones who end up being the Chosen One when the vampires come calling or when the alien queen needs the Source of All Light or something. They're too cool to ever, ever do anything like go to prom or listen to music other than jazz while reading poetry. They've always got some story going on that they're heroes of. The rest of us just have to live here, hovering around the edges, left out of it all, for the most part.

promenade concert n. BRITISH a concert of classical music at which a part of the audience stands in an area without seating, for which tickets are sold at a reduced price. The most famous series of such concerts is the annual BBC Promenade Concerts (known as the Proms), instituted by Sir Henry Wood in 1895.

Israel was thinking of warm beer, and muffins, and Wensleydale cheese, and Wallace and Gromit, and the music of Elgar, and the Clash, and the Beatles, and Jarvis Cocker, and the white cliffs of Dover, and Big Bend, and the West End, and Stonehenge, and Alton Towers, and the Last Night of the Proms, and Glastonbury, and William Hogarth, and William Blake, and Just William, and Winston Churchill, and the North Circular Road, and Grodzinski's for coffee, and rubbish, and potholes, and a slice of Stilton and a pickled onion, and George Orwell. And Gloria, of course. He was almost home to Gloria. G-L-O-R-I-A.

You go through life thinking there’s so much you need. Your favorite jeans and sweater. The jacket with the faux-fur lining to keep you warm. Your phone and your music and your favorite books. Mascara. Irish Breakfast tea and cappuccinos from Trouble Coffee. You need your yearbooks, every stiffly posed school-dance photo, the notes your friends slipped into your locker. You need the camera you got for your sixteenth birthday and the flowers you dried. You need your notebooks full of the things you learned and don’t want to forget. You need your bedspread, white with black diamonds. You need your pillow—it fits the way you sleep. You need magazines promising self-improvement. You need your running shoes and your sandals and your boots. Your grade report from the semester you got straight As. Your prom dress, your shiny earrings, your pendants on delicate chains. You need your underwear, your light-colored bras and your black ones. The watercolor sunset hanging above your bed. The dozens and dozens of shells in glass jars. You think you need all of it. Until you leave with only your phone, your wallet, and a picture of your mother.

YOU GO THROUGH LIFE thinking there’s so much you need. Your favorite jeans and sweater. The jacket with the faux-fur lining to keep you warm. Your phone and your music and your favorite books. Mascara. Irish Breakfast tea and cappuccinos from Trouble Coffee. You need your yearbooks, every stiffly posed school-dance photo, the notes your friends slipped into your locker. You need the camera you got for your sixteenth birthday and the flowers you dried. You need your notebooks full of the things you learned and don’t want to forget. You need your bedspread, white with black diamonds. You need your pillow—it fits the way you sleep. You need magazines promising self-improvement. You need your running shoes and your sandals and your boots. Your grade report from the semester you got straight As. Your prom dress, your shiny earrings, your pendants on delicate chains. You need your underwear, your light-colored bras and your black ones. The watercolor sunset hanging above your bed. The dozens and dozens of shells in glass jars. The cab was waiting outside the station. The airport, I said, but no sound came out. “The airport,” I said, and we pulled away. You think you need all of it. Until you leave with only your phone, your wallet, and a picture of your mother.

Coley and I had to separate to get around a girl who was mostly eclipsed by the size of the power she was carrying some sort of project about World War II—a picture of Hitler doing his mustachioed Sieg heil, a gaunt concentration camp victim, a couple of American soldiers smoking cigarettes and scowling at the camera, the captions beneath each photo in glitter-bubble letters. If this had been the movie version of my life, I knew, somebody who did teenage stuff well, some director, would have lingered on that poster and maybe even have swelled some poignant music, out is in slow motion as the hallway continued on at regular speed around us, backlit the three of us—Coley and the poster board chick and me—and in doing so tried to make some statement about teenage frivolity and prom season as it stacked up against something authentic and horrible like war. But if renting all those movies had taught me anything more than how to lose myself in them, it was that you only actually have perfectly profound little moments like that in real life if you recognize them yourself, do all the fancy shot work and editing in your head, usually in the very seconds that whatever is happening is happening. And even if you do manage to do so, just about never does anyone else you’re with at the time experience that exact same kind of moment, and it’s impossible to explain as it’s happening, and then the moment is over.

Coley and I had to separate to get around a girl who was mostly eclipsed by the size of the poster she was carrying, some sort of project about World War Two—a picture of Hitler doing his mustachioed Sieg heil, a gaunt concentration-camp victim, a couple of American soldiers smoking cigarettes and scowling at the camera, the captions beneath each photo in glitter-bubble letters. If this had been the movie version of my life, I knew, somebody who did teenage stuff well, some director, would have lingered on that poster and maybe even have swelled some sort of poignant music, put us in slow motion as the hallway continued on at regular speed around us, backlit the three of us—Coley and the posterboard chick and me—and in doing so tried to make some statement about teenage frivolity and prom season as it stacked up against something authentic and horrible like war. But if renting all those movies had taught me anything more than how to lose myself in them, it was that you only actually have perfectly profound little moments like that in real life if you recognize them yourself, do all the fancy shot work and editing in your head, usually in the very seconds that whatever is happening is happening. And even if you do manage to do so, just about never does anyone else you’re with at the time experience that exact same kind of moment, and it’s impossible to explain it as it’s happening, and then the moment is over.

Hey…you okay?” Marlboro Man repeated. My heart fluttered in horror. I wanted to jump out of the bathroom window, scale down the trellis, and hightail it out of there, forgetting I’d ever met any of these people. Only there wasn’t a trellis. And outside the window, down below, were 150 wedding guests. And I was sweating enough for all of them combined. I was naked and alone, enduring the flop sweat attack of my life. It figured. It was usually the times I felt and looked my absolute best when I wound up being humbled in some colossally bizarre way. There was the time I traveled to my godmother’s son’s senior prom in a distant city and partied for an hour before realizing the back of my dress was stuck inside my panty hose. And the time I entered the after-party for my final Nutcracker performance and tripped on a rug, falling on one of the guest performers and knocking an older lady’s wineglass out of her frail arms. You’d think I would have come to expect this kind of humiliation on occasions when it seemed like everything should be going my way. “You need anything?” Marlboro Man continued. A drop of sweat trickled down my upper lip. “Oh, no…I’m fine!” I answered. “I’ll be right out! You go on back to the party!” Go on, now. Run along. Please. I beg you. “I’ll be out here,” he replied. Dammit. I heard his boots travel a few steps down the hall and stop. I had to get dressed; this was getting ridiculous. Then, as I stuck my big toe into the drenched leg of my panty hose, I heard what I recognized as Marlboro Man’s brother Tim’s voice. “What’s she doing in there?” Tim whispered loudly, placing particularly uncomfortable emphasis on “doing.” I closed my eyes and prayed fervently. Lord, please take me now. I no longer want to be here. I want to be in Heaven with you, where there’s zero humidity and people aren’t punished for their poor fabric choices. “I’m not sure,” Marlboro Man answered. The geyser began spraying again. I had no choice but to surge on, to get dressed, to face the music in all my drippy, salty glory. It was better than staying in the upstairs bathroom of his grandmother’s house all night. God forbid Marlboro Man or Tim start to think I had some kind of feminine problem, or even worse, constipation or diarrhea! I’d sooner move to another country and never return than to have them think such thoughts about me.

The thing I love about Edna, compared to Cello’s Prom Date or Little Shop’s Mrs. Luce, is that she is such a wonderful, well-rounded (pun not intended) character. I felt that Mrs. Luce and the Prom Date were one note characters, whether they were played by a man or a woman - but were definitely played for laughs by throwing me in a wig and dress, that playing Edna was a breath of fresh hairspray…I mean air. She was actually developed into a human being; she loves her husband and her daughter, she has her fears about how the world would view her and her daughter for being overweight, disappointment that her hopes and dreams didn’t come true (explaining why she is strict with Tracy), and the pride she feels when Tracy becomes successful.

Chocolate is a girl's best friend.' 'Consequently, I am going to polish off this entire chocolate pie, as well as sit here and cry, yes just sitting in my white tank top, and light pink comfy old short shorts, with the black drawstring in the fronts, tied, into a big floppy bow.' 'I sit looking at the TV, hugging my teddy bear. Tonight's movie lineup is 'Shawshank,' 'Misery,' 'The Notebook,' and 'A Walk to Remember.' While my black mascara from the day runs down my cheeks.' 'Life is not a fairytale, so maybe I can go next year. I know the prom is not going to happen either, yet I want to go at least once in my life. Yet, some get to go to prom, and dance for five years running. They go all four high school years.' 'Plus, they get asked for their date, which is still in school after they're out, even though they have gone many times before.' 'Then someone like me never gets the chance; that is not fair! I am not jealous; I just want to have the same opportunities, the photos, and the involvements.' 'I could envision in my mind the couples swaying to the music.' 'I could picture the bodies pressed against one another. With their hands laced with desire, all the girls having their poofy dresses pushed down by their partner's closeness, as they look so in love.' 'I know is just dumb dances, but I want to go. Why am I such a hopeless romantic? I could visualize the passionate kissing.' 'I can see the room and how it would be decorated, but all I have is the vision of it. That is all I have! Yeah, I think I know how Carrie White feels too, well maybe not like that, but close. I might get through that one tonight too because I am not going to sleep anywise.' 'So why not be scared shitless! Ha, that reminds me of another one, he- he.' 'I am sure that this night, which they had, would never be forgotten about! I will not forget it either. It must have- been an amazing night which is shared, with that one special person.' 'That singular someone, who only wants to be with you! I think about all the photographs I will never have. All the memories that can never be completed and all the time lost that can never be regained.' 'The next morning, I have to go through the same repetition over again. Something's changed slightly but not much; I must ride on the yellow wagon of pain and misery. Yet do I want to today?' 'I do not want to go after the night that I put in. I was feeling vulnerable, moody, and a little twitchy.' 'I do not feel like listening to the ramblings of my educators. Yet knowing if I do not show up at the hellhole doors, I would be asked a million questions, like why I did not show up, the next day I arrived there.

From Jason Parker—I came back after nine years because I couldn’t outrun the pain. Prom night. A car wreck. My twin brother gone. Our music gone with him. Except not. I’ve got platinum behind me, and what does it mean? Nothing without the folks I love. Less than nothing without Lila Sullivan. She’s always been the one, the only one for me. Bless Bart Quinn for lending me Sea View House. My daughter was conceived there a long time ago. But I didn’t know anything about her all those years. Folks might call Katie The Daughter He Never Knew, and they’d be right. But I know her now. As for her mom and me…? Sea View House came through for us again. Our wedding took place right there. I believe in the magic. I believe in happily ever after. If that’s not love, what is?

Yet the structure we have built to protect and nurture these children actually does the opposite. Imagine an impoverished six-year-old boy who rarely gets a healthy meal and rarely has parental supervision. He finally goes to school and falls in love with the first person who has ever been there every day for him—his first-grade teacher. She loves and encourages and teaches him. She won’t let the kids bully one another, and she makes sure he gets a good breakfast, lunch, and an after-school snack. Only the weekends are scary. The sixyear-old has a daily routine that includes a committed relationship for the very first time. Life is good; hope is learned. Then the school year ends, and this wonderful teacher says, “Good-bye. You will have a great teacher in second grade.” So the seven-year-old survives the short summer and begins the process all over. But now he has a homeroom teacher, a math and science teacher, a language arts teacher, and a music teacher. Which one is he to fall in love with? Who will fall in love with him? Each of these teachers has dozens of students to care for an hour at a time. And so, at the end of second grade it’s a little less painful to part with his teachers because he never really got to know them. But at least he was physically safe and was fed every day. And so, by the end of third grade, he hardly notices his teacher because he has formed a strong attachment to the friends who move along from class to class with him. They share multiple hours together daily. Instead of taking his signals of proper behavior from a committed adult, since he has none at home or school, he models his life after the future football captain, just as the girls in his class likely emulate the future prom queen. This child from an impoverished culture was taught, in effect, that no adult cares enough to hang out and teach him for more than the 150 hours required to complete a credit. And as he got older, he also learned that the teachers were not quite as able to physically protect him as when he and his classmates were small, and it’s humiliating to have to eat the government-provided free lunch. Even our elementary

Alyssa, my Alyssa,

It’s easier to be quiet, and unsettled, and just feed my mother the nodding agreement she wants. It changes nothing, but it brings a bit of peace to the ride home. For now, peace is good enough.

I don’t want to call my mother a homophobe and a transphobe, but, god, it’s all right there on the surface.

Emma, Emma, Emma,” my mother mocks, waving a hand. “She must be loving all of this attention. Those people do. I mean, look at that disgraceful display tonight!

How long does my mother’s happiness have to come first?

My mother’s voice is a blade. It slices between us, severing our conversation. Her perfect veneer falters, revealing all the cracks underneath. She’s so close to breaking. We pass beneath a traffic light. Her face glows green for a moment, then goes dark. And when the dark comes again, everything’s smoothed back into place.

Heck, no one knows if the internet will still be around in ten years— Rock-IT! Towne by Mark Streuber This is about the music and the bands who made it. And this is about all those unlikely people who became stars and then fell from the sky and had to scratch out a living to make ends meet at some crap job when their hit machine ran dry and their money ran out. And it’s about the fans who played their music on their first date, and their first prom, and when they cruised the street in their first car. The fans who cried during their first breakup, or first divorce, who jumped for joy during the birth of their child, or first big promotion. This is about the people who want to remember the good times— and the bad, I guess— and relive a happier time when they still had rock ‘n’ roll, and they still had something to believe in. That’s what this website is about. It’s not only about where they are now — or about the money— Rock-IT! Towne by Mark Streuber Rockers were pretty good at unzipping their fly on their own. They didn’t need a snot-nosed journalist to unzip it for them— Rock-IT! Towne by Mark Streuber You keep thinking this band will turn up, and maybe they will. But if you ain’t found ‘em yet, it’s a good bet your band has drowned…. Every band gets swept out to sea at one time or another. Most make it back to shore, but some don’t. I think your band has drowned and you ain’t never gonna see ‘em again— Rock-IT! Towne by Mark Streuber Be careful… The First Cut is the Deepest, as Rod Stewart once sang. But the second cut is pretty deep too— Rock-IT! Towne by Mark Streuber I knew them well enough. I knew they were as dysfunctional as any band I ever worked with. Although, I don’t think they used the word dysfunctional back then. I think they used words like screwed up—Rock-IT! Towne by Mark Streuber Seems she was more agreeable to you being here. For my part, I wanted to put you both in a sack and drop you into Lake Winona— Rock-IT! Towne by Mark Streuber Yeah, well. One man’s truth can be another man’s dagger to the heart— Rock-IT! Towne by Mark Streuber People move on, Jonathan. Rock music moved on. It was never gonna last. You write for a rock magazine. You of all people should know that… Yes, but it didn’t disappear without a trace— Rock-IT! Towne by Mark Streuber Fame, money, prestige, power. It’s what we think we want until we find out how it destroys as easily as it helps. I know that from personal experience— Rock-IT! Towne by Mark Streuber

I’m dizzy for a moment. She makes me dizzy.

She’s been using her mom as the reason she can’t come out for months, and suddenly I realize, it’s not a reason. It’s an excuse. Yeah, her mom is obviously a bigot and a homophobe, but it looks like Alyssa’s carrying some of that on her own.

I back away from her, because I don’t know this woman. This calculating, manipulative person masquerading as my mother is terrifying. She stepped right out of Game of Thrones and into Game of Proms. And she won. I have to get away from Elena Lannister Greene. If I look at her for one more second, I’m honestly afraid I might throw up.

She never once outed me. She never told anyone that her girlfriend went to the other prom. That her girlfriend’s mother is the reason this all got started and ended up so out of hand. She never blamed me; she never named me. She never even mentioned that we agreed to go together and I backed out on her. All this time, she’s been protecting me, and I didn’t even see it until now. And then, she plays. The silent chords suddenly have voice, and she sings words that she said to me what seems like a million years ago.

\We’re told to hide this beautiful part of ourselves, the falling-in-love part, the dizzy infatuation part.

my being a lesbian still wouldn’t be okay with her. She doesn’t even have the vocabulary to understand who I am. In her world, in her mind, there’s gay and there’s normal. And that means, if I’m not straight, I’m not normal.

I rub my cheek against her hair and squeeze until I feel her exhale a breath. It’s not right that something this good, this perfect, can cause so much trouble.

She backs out, and as her car moves farther and farther away from me, all I want to do is scream and scream, until my voice shears into ribbons and disappears completely. I have done nothing but achieve, jump through hoops, and put on smiles. And it’s not enough. The blue ribbons and first-place trophies, my extracurriculars and my Sunday school class—I have done every single thing my mother wanted . . . for nothing. Because she’s never going to stop wanting me to be perfect Alyssa Greene, and I’m never going to actually be her. Never. Slumping against the hood of my car, I cover my face with my hands and start to cry. The one thing that was mine, the one beautiful thing that I chose, that made me feel whole and human and alive, just drove away. And I let her.

I mentioned a while back that I am the worst person in the world, and the last two days have done nothing to change my opinion on that.

No, I don’t.” Her voice has no edge to it; it’s defeated. “I’ve had a lot of time to think, and I’m like . . . maybe I’m just an experiment to you. Or maybe you’re trying to piss off your mom, I don’t know.” Stung, I step back. “An experiment? What else, Emma? Are you wondering if this is just a phase?” Emma’s eyes flash. “That’s not what I meant and you know it.” “It’s what you said.” I let go of her.

Deep inside, I almost wish that somebody would walk by and call me a name. Because that? That would be normal. I expect that, not kindness.

I let go of my guilt—because I’m not a perfect daughter. I let go of my fear—because I can’t change who I am, and she’s going to find out sooner or later. And I let go of my responsibility—I’m the kid here. She’s the parent. It’s not my job to take care of her; she’s supposed to take care of me.

It hits me in a sudden wave. In a crashing of thunder. I wobble on unsteady legs, gathering my senses and my balance at the same time. My mom knows. The secret is out. No more lying, no more pretending. From here on out, when she looks at me, she’ll see who I really am. She doesn’t have the words yet, but she knows. And—somehow, improbably—she still loves me.

I’m not the perfect student, I’m not the perfect daughter, and I’m definitely not the perfect girlfriend.

I see her fighting to keep it together. To look perfect, be perfect. She fights for a smile and whispers at me again. “Alyssa, that’s quite enough.” Shaking my head, I say, “No. I’ve put this off for way too long. And I’ve hurt someone so precious to me, in a way I can’t ever expect her to forgive. I was Emma Nolan’s date to the prom, Mom. We were supposed to go together, and I let her down.” Now my mother starts to cry. “Stop it. Just stop it. Alyssa, I’m sorry, but this is not who you really are. Whatever you’re feeling, it’s not real. You’re young and you’re confused.” “I’m not confused. I’m in love.” Mom stamps at the ground, jabbing an accusing finger at Mr. Glickman and Ms. Allen. “This is their fault. They’re putting ideas into your head, and they’re forcing me to be someone I don’t want to be. You are young, you are impressionable, and I’m sick of this. This ends now.” For the first time since my mother appeared, Mr. Glickman speaks. “If you don’t let her be who she is, you’re going to lose her.

Mom, I love you. And I’m so grateful to you, for all you do for me. For all you’ve done for me since Dad left.” “Alyssa!” she whispers, scandalized. I’ve spoken it aloud, the truth we don’t discuss. But I go on. “And I know this is going to be another thing that’s hard on you. But, Mom, I’m gay. I’ve always been gay. And to answer the questions I know you want to ask, nobody did this to me. Nobody hurt me. You didn’t do anything wrong. This is who I am; I’m proud of who I am. You know everything about me, and it’s been so hard keeping this from you. Too hard. I can’t do it anymore. Mom, I’m gay.

The explosion of music didn’t startle me, but hands suddenly around my waist from behind do. Relieved, I sink back against Emma to anchor myself and look over my shoulder. “You’re not supposed to be here,” I tease. “It’s bad luck to see the prom before prom night.” She presses a kiss to my neck and hugs me close. “I promise, I’m not looking. But I don’t need to see it to know that everything looks fantastic.

Throwing my arms around her, I kiss her. I kiss her hard and fast; I kiss her softly. I kiss her until our lips are sticky and my windows are fogged. She tastes like bubble gum and electricity, a sweet summer storm that rolls through me and rumbles on and on.

Call me selfish; maybe I am selfish. But I’m selfish and afraid. I’ve done the research. Forty percent of homeless teens are queer. A quarter of queer kids get kicked out when they come out. It’s a long, long summer before college starts in the fall. I mean, at least I have a car. The title’s in my name. She can’t take that from me. Wow. That’s my silver lining. I have a car I can live in when my mother inevitably kicks me out. Because I know, in my heart, that Mom didn’t soften up about the gay issue and prom. She changed her mind because she didn’t want me to miss my prom. And, based on the increasingly desperate hammering on the bathroom door, I’m about to miss it anyway.

My mom’s not going to pleasantly surprise me with her reaction. I know her. I know how this goes. At night, when I put my hands together and try to think of something to pray for that isn’t selfish, I ask for peace of mind for my mom. For acceptance. Or even tolerance. I sit with this huge secret, praying for divine intervention, because I know I haven’t misjudged her.

Somehow, I end up in a cloud of my mother’s hugs. I hold on for so long; I don’t want to let go. I know what happens next, and I want this moment—when she still loves me—to linger just a little longer. These are the arms that taught me to ride a bike, and comforted me when I had nightmares. These are the arms that lifted me up when I fell, and pushed me toward things I wanted but wasn’t quite brave enough to grasp on my own. One last time, I gather my strength in her embrace. Mom pulls away, swiping at her eyes. “You’re the most beautiful girl in the world.

You don’t want to be a messiah,” Shelby adds. Jaw dropped, I hear myself correcting Shelby instead of processing what they’ve just said. “You mean pariah.” Cheerfully, Shelby links arms with Kaylee and shrugs. “Whatever. It’s prom. It’s our night. Let’s go and have fun!” “No, wait,” I say sharply, staying them with a hand. “What do you mean you know?” Kaylee rolls her eyes. Her thick, spider-leg lashes flutter as she shakes her head. “Anna Kendrick and John Cho? Two mysterious dates from other schools, one for the town lesbo and one for the student council president who thinks she’s subtle when she holds her hand in public? I mean, come on.” “Plus, you’re always standing up for her,” Shelby notes casually. “And you let those weirdos from New York come to our meeting. It’s kind of obvious.” “Why didn’t you say anything?” I ask, feeling faint and slightly sick.

A kiss is yes,” Alyssa warns me. Warning taken. That’s why I engulf her in my arms and lift her off the ground, just an inch, and kiss her until we see nothing but the two of us, the edge of forever, and the end of the world.

Well,” she says, shyly, a little coyly, “there’s this prom coming up . . .” Fireflies light up inside me. “Uh-huh.” A question doesn’t come; she doesn’t even finish that sentence. Instead, Alyssa, with her reedy voice and uncertain smile, sings to me, “I just want to dance with you, let the whole world melt away and dance with you . . .

This is the girl who flirted with me at a church picnic. The girl who texted me pictures of otters in the middle of the night and whispered love in my ear. This is the girl who was brave enough to kiss me first, when I was still desperately trying to figure out if she liked me or if she liked me.