The Space in Between (12 page)

“So Emery
is
the reason you’re dressed like this!”

Nodding in confirmation, he laughs and it takes everything in me not to turn around and shove him. I don’t care how stupid I might look or that I’m going against what I agreed to do for my date when I said yes to her. All that matters is that Emery’s here and I can finally do what I should have done weeks ago.

Make things right.

She may have come here to take pictures, and I might be here because I’d stupidly said yes to someone when I knew damn well that no one but Emery would do, but I refuse to leave here tonight unless she’s leaving with me.

No more hiding and no more games.

Tonight, Emery is going to know how I really feel and there’s nothing anyone can do or say to stop me.

Emery

Zombies.

From the second I walk into the gym, all I see are freaking zombies.

Sure, they come in all different shapes and sizes, there being cheerleaders with half of their faces decayed, football players with visible bones showing and blood caked to their faces, along with a few actually looking like they’d survived the apocalypse, but it doesn’t change the fact that they’re still zombies.

I knew The Walking Dead had become the new thing, but I would have thought there would be a few people here that would have chosen to go for something a little less gory.

Or I don’t know, more original?

Well, other than the one girl I saw trying to walk around wearing a pair of cloth Ariel fins. But she doesn’t count and you wanna know why?

You guessed it.

We’re living in a world where the Little Mermaid has apparently been cursed by the flesh eating virus.

Since when are we corrupting Disney?

No…wait. Don’t answer that.

This is unbelievable. Someone needs to dig up Michael Jackson. My school is stealing his gimmick.

Taking everyone in, some dancing, others in the corner obviously plotting world domination or maybe how they’re gonna seal the deal with their dates later, I’m wondering how long it will take for the synchronized dancing to start.

Truth is, if that happens, I’m out of here. Jordan can take his own damn pictures.

Whoops. I’m doing it again. Judging. Picking costumes and the people wearing them apart and making fun of it because it just all seems so ludicrous in my head.

Basically, I’m doing the opposite of what I promised my mom I would do when I got here.

So in an effort to right that wrong, I turn my attention away from the teacher chaperones that I’ve been snapping a few shots of and do another canvas of the room, managing to find the few that stand out from the rest of the herd.

Crowd
. I mean crowd.

In just the time it takes me to do a quick run of the room, I’ve seen a ghost—who I might just be a little jealous of—someone dressed up like a planet of the apes reject and a couple of guys dressed up like rent-a-cops, but it’s none of them that I linger on.

 Freezing me in my spot is the guy who’s wearing a replica of the suit that just a couple of weeks ago I’d tried talking my best friend into buying.

He might have his back to me, but I would recognize his frame anywhere. Maybe it’s because I spent time with my body wrapped up in it that I know it so well, but whatever the reason, I really wish that I didn’t.

Christian’s here and he’s not alone.

Jonah, the guy that’s been nothing short of a pain in my butt all week, pulling me aside in class and pretending to talk to me about absolute nonsense, is with him and with the smirk he’s wearing, aware of my staring.

After trying valiantly for a week to get Johnny to change his mind and come to this thing and failing every time, I’d actually flirted with the idea of breaking my vow of silence with Christian and asking him. Willing to swallow the awkwardness that was still running rampant inside me after the night we kissed because the idea of coming here alone was infinitely worse.

I’d almost gone through with it too, until Jonah let it slip that Christian was going with Marissa. I gave up on the idea quick after that and well, here we are.  The guys together, and me completely alone and feeling as tortured as ever, trying to understand why he’s wearing the suit I specifically told my best friend to get and why no matter how hard I stare at him he doesn’t turn around and acknowledge it.

Who am I kidding? I deserve it with the way I’ve been acting.

Being here alone is the perfect punishment for running scared because for a split second in time, things may have gotten a little too real.

God, Johnny. Why couldn’t you be more atypical? I could really use your help right about now.

It might be wrong to use the guy that a year ago wasn’t shy about having a thing for me as a buffer, but I’m out of options. There’s no way with how close he is, that I can go the entire night avoiding Christian.

Especially when it looks we stepped out of the same twisted calendar.

My pink and grey dress, if you can even call it a dress after I pretty much ripped it to shreds, plays perfectly off the softer grey tone of his equally as destroyed suit. And if the back of his head is any indication, even our mussed up hair, mine matted together with the help of hair spray and gel, matches.

It’s as if we were made for each other.

Enough Emery. It’s a fluke, that’s all.

Completely caught up in all things Christian, I nearly jump out of skin as a hand lands on my shoulder and squeezes. Squealing loudly before spinning around, ready to wail on whoever thought it was a bright idea to take a girl off guard, I come face to face with my best friend.

“Holy shit!”

“I was about to say the same thing to you.”

“What—why—”

“Now, that’s a first.”

“What is?”

“I made you speechless. I thought with the way you almost jumped out of your skin that you were gonna take my head off. This is a definite improvement.”

He wouldn’t have been wrong, but I see what he’s doing and I’m not having any part of it. The guy that spent the last two weeks blowing me off every time I begged him to come is here.

There’s no way I’m going to let him get away with that.

“I thought dances weren’t your thing?”

“They’re not.”

“Then why are you here?”

“My best friend is.”

There are tons of things I can say about Johnny. Things that in the four years I’ve known him, I’ve actually come to like, but him saying anything sweet is definitely not one of them. As nice a guy as he is, befriending just about everyone in the school at some point, he’s never been so overtly sweet.

Valentine’s Day debacle aside.

He’s also never dressed up like this either.

He’s in a suit, but where I would have expected it to match mine, it’s just a suit jacket paired with a dark pair of his jeans. I’ve gotta hand it to him. Showing up to a Halloween dance without a costume is probably the best costume of all.

Definitely one worthy of a snapshot, which the second he catches the camera starting to rise, he raises his hand in a weak attempt to block.

“No way, Ems. It’s bad enough that I’m here. You’re not gonna document it for the paper.”

“It’s not for the paper, it’s for the yearbook.”

“Same thing. It’s not happening.”

Sensing movement and turning just slightly, following the form that a few seconds before I had basically been staring a hole into, Johnny follows my gaze and laughs once he sees what, or who I’m staring at.

“I can’t believe it.”

“What?” I ask, confused. “What’s so funny?”

“He did it.”

Considering who we’re looking at, it’s pretty obvious he’s talking about Christian, but why, I can’t seem to put my finger on.

“You feel like cluing me in or just leaving me hanging all night?”

“Ems, I have a feeling that if you think about it, you’ll realize you already know the answer to that.”

Focusing all of my attention back on Christian as he stands flanked by not only Jonah, but Marissa and April, I study him, taking in everything I can with the way he’s standing, giving his body the complete once over, and willing my brain to come up with the answer. Which after a few minutes of intense staring, I finally manage to get.

It’s a setup.

“Did you do this?” Slapping him as hard as I can, and blocking as he tries to mount a comeback with a small shove of his own, he laughs and nods.

“Yes! And I have no regrets.”

“Why?”

“Wow, you really are playing dumb tonight, huh? You already know the reason for that too, but since I don’t want you actually punching me next time, I guess I can explain.”

“You better.”

“I don’t know what’s going on, because whenever I try to bring it up you blow me off, but it’s pretty obvious that something went down between the two of you. Going from spending every waking minute with the dude to avoiding him like he’s carrying some contagious disease, it’s weird. Even for you.”

“So you thought what? Go behind my back?”

“Pretty much, and look. It worked.”

“What worked exactly?”

“I told him what you were gonna wear and said that if he even remotely gave a shit about you, he’d go to the store, grab the suit I saw you eyeing, and he’d show up in it.”

I hate to break it to him, but just because Christian showed up wearing a costume matching mine more than his dates, doesn’t mean what he thinks it does. It doesn’t mean he cares.

Maybe he just didn’t want to be a sheep like the rest of them.

They really are a herd.

“Still doesn’t explain what you’re doing here.”

“I thought that would have been obvious. I came to see if he would actually have the balls to do it.’

“So, you didn’t come for me?”

“Sorry, babe. I told you, as hot as you are in that dress, it wasn’t enough. Cayne on the other hand…now that was.”

“You’re a jerk.”

“And you love me.”

“I do, but I’m seriously questioning that decision now.”

“No you’re not. As much as it annoys you, me going behind your back, you’re happy I did it.”

“Wrong.”

“Ems, we’ve been through a lot of shit together, right?” He asks. “Known each other a long ass time, can pretty much read each other’s minds and finish each other’s sentences. Am I right?”

“You’re right, but what does that have to do with this?”

“I know you well enough to know that you wanted to be here with him. I’m willing to bet that you’ve been wanting to be with him since the night you and Thomas went to the movies, but you’re just too damn stubborn to say anything. So when you can’t, I will. And as you can see, I did.”

“You shouldn’t have.”

Watching as Marissa slips her hand into Christian’s, the both of them walking away from Jonah and April and into the middle of the gym as the beginning notes of a slow song begin to play, I point, swallowing down the flash of jealous rage that rears its ugly head as she wraps her hands around his neck and they began to sway to the beat.

“See? What you wanted, getting him to show up here dressed like me, it failed. He’s still with her.”

Moving around him, having seen more than enough, the burst of rage now turning into a nice stomach dropping pang of regret and loss, I shove Johnny’s arms away as he reaches out to stop me and take off, moving around the couples dancing, desperate for the exit and the release of emotion that will come once I’m as far away from the scene unfolding as I can get.

Pushing my way through the doors and bumping into people that are trying to make their way through as I’m lost in my dramatic exit, I start running once I’m out and I don’t stop until I’m all the way down the darkened hall with the music room in my sights.

If I’ve got to stay here all night and take pictures, all the while pretending that what I just saw between Christian and his date isn’t destroying me, I need to let off some steam and not just any kind. The musical kind.

Trying the door and shouting out with joy when the door clicks open as I turn the knob, I clamp my mouth shut as I slip into the room, double checking before I completely shut it behind me that I’m not being followed.

Flipping the light on, I make my way slowly to the back of the room and pulling the acoustic guitar down from its secured spot, slide one of the chairs out and throw my body down onto it.

Running my fingers over the strings, I strum the first few bars of the song we wrote together, and despite knowing that I’m getting what I deserve and I have no reason to act jealous, much less care at all, I can’t stop the overflow of emotion that hits me the second my eyes close and I start to sing.

As the first tear slips out, the warmth of it quickly turning cold as it makes its way down my cheek, quickly followed up by another until I can hear the droplets hitting the stained wood of the guitar, I pause my fingers movement and that’s when I hear it.

The click of the door and what will no doubt be the end of the perfect seclusion I’d been hoping to find when I snuck in minutes before.

Looking up, expecting to see the annoyed face of my best friend, it’s not Johnny’s eyes staring back at me. 

It’s the soft blue that no matter how much I tried to distance myself from and put of my head all together, I can’t seem to let go of.

Christian’s.

Chapter Eleven

Christian

“Broken, lost, and desperate to be found.” I hear her singing softly as I quietly enter the room, not daring to make a sound or take another step and ruin the raw acoustics and angelic sound that fills the normally loud room. “I’m still here all alone, missing pieces.”

Letting go off the door as her voice wavers on the final line of the chorus, it clicks closed louder than expected and the eagerness for her to continue mixed with the anxiousness to hear how she sounds without me accompanying her falls away as her head swerves up, her hand pausing mid stroke and I see her expression.

She’s been crying.

Damn that door for ruining everything. If I had just kept my hand there a little longer, I wouldn’t have her sad eyes staring back at me now.