He was already turning away from it, which he had learned was the fastest path to the end of it.
“He’s not going with somebody blind. He’s going with me.”
He turned back.
Charlotte was standing in the hallway in her cheer uniform. Calm, the way a person is calm when they have made a decision and are no longer deliberating. She was the head cheerleader and the prettiest girl in the
junior class by consensus, and every person in that hallway — including Tyler — stood very still.
He looked behind him to confirm she was addressing someone else.
She smiled. “No, Tyler. You.”
His face went hot. “Is this — is this a joke?”
She stepped closer. “My brother has Down syndrome. I know what it looks like when people decide someone matters less because they’re different. You’re kind. That matters to me.”
Then she did something that he had replayed more times than he would admit: she reached out and took both of his hands. Right there in the hallway, in front of every boy who had been making remarks a moment before, she held on.
She turned to them. “He’s my prom date. And no, I’m not looking for sympathy points.”
One boy studied the floor. Another became very interested in his shoes.
Tyler felt his eyes sting.
Charlotte squeezed his
hands once. “Pick me up Saturday at seven.”
He nodded like it was a condition of his breathing.
Prom Night in 2006, and the Sentence She Said on the Dance Floor That He Never Forgot
Uncle Ray drove them.
They had found the best suit they could afford at the formal rental place off Route 9. Uncle Ray had pressed his own shirt three times the day before, even though he was not the one attending. Aunt June had fussed over the boutonniere until the proportions were correct. They had treated the whole occasion as a family event, which was exactly what it was.
When Charlotte opened her front door in a pale blue dress, Tyler’s prepared sentences evaporated.
“You look really good,” she said.
“You do too,” he managed, which was nowhere near the truth but was all the words available to him.
From the truck, Uncle Ray grinned. “
The boy still has words! That’s something.”
Charlotte laughed and put her hand in his. It stayed there all the way into the gym while people who recognized her stared openly — some with confusion, some with the specific expression that jealousy manufactures when it’s trying to look like something else.
