Side Effects May Vary

Hughley High’s prom was always held inside the ballroom overlooking the golf course. Glass doors stretched from the floor to the ceiling, and girls in tacky dresses and boys in matching ties spilled out onto the ornate terrace.

I took a few steps closer and sat down on the ground. “Here. This is perfect.”

Harvey sat down next to me, with his leg pressed against mine. “I’m kind of surprised that your mom let you go out tonight.”

“Why? What am I going to do? Die?”

He turned his head away from me.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “You know what I mean.”

Touching my leg, he said, “Don’t be sorry.”

I wish I could say that I said something profound, but that didn’t happen. We sat there and watched the juniors and seniors of Hughley High fall in and out of love, say no and say yes, let go and hang on. A few couples tripped off into the darkness together while others stood on the terrace, yelling back and forth as the tension brought on by prom and graduation slipped between the crevices of their cracking relationships. There were groups of friends too, posing for pictures and dancing in circles. Peppered throughout each scene were a few loners, looking for a place to settle for the night. All these people in one room, sharing this same event, while each of them would carry a completely different memory of this one night.

Harvey and I sat there as spectators, watching a show that felt like it had been put on for us alone.

“Thanks for being my prom date,” he said after a while.

I smiled. “No way. This isn’t a date. This is just a warm-up for when you really go to prom.”

Music pounded from the dance and the sound of girls shrieking echoed all the way down to us.

“Yeah,” he said. “I think this is probably as close as I’ll ever get to prom.”

I lay back in the grass. “You have to go to prom, Harvey.”

“When did you join the prom committee?”

“If you don’t go, you’re going to be sitting on your porch with your wife when you’re old and gross, talking about how you should have gone to your prom.”

Still sitting up, he continued to watch the dance. “If you hadn’t gotten sick, you wouldn’t say that.”

“Yeah,” I said, “but I am sick, and aren’t you supposed to get some life lesson out of the whole thing?”

He didn’t answer.

I propped myself up on my elbows. “What’s that big banner say?”

Harvey squinted. “Heaven on Earth. It’s the prom theme.”

I laughed. “That’s depressing.”

“Seriously,” said Harvey.

I don’t know how long we sat there before he asked, “What did Celeste do to you?”

I draped my arm over my eyes. I could still see Harvey. I didn’t have anything to hide from him, but I’d gotten so used to keeping secrets. “She was hooking up with Luke.”

“Oh. I think I heard about that.”

“And she rubbed it in my face.”

He turned, facing me. “But that’s not what you were getting back at Luke for?”

“No,” I said. “He saw something I didn’t want him to see and told Celeste about it.” He was probably in there. Both of them probably were. I hoped they were miserable. From inside the dance, the music transitioned into a softer song that I couldn’t quite make out the words to.

Harvey leaned in closer. “What did he see?”

I didn’t want Harvey to know about my mom. He loved her so much, and I didn’t want to ruin that for him. And part of me also felt foolish. Harvey only had one parent, and here I was, bitching because one of mine had slipped up.

I sat up and turned to Harvey. “Dance with me. Please.”

He stood and held his hand out for me. I took it and let the warmth of his skin travel through my veins.

“You want to get closer?” he asked.

“No, this is good.”

He placed his hands on my hips and I looped my arms around his neck, sinking into him as I did.

This part of dying felt good, the letting go. It made everything easier. Watching his throat, I said, “You can kiss me.”

I looked up and his lips met mine. It was soft and quiet.

We danced, and when my body got tired, he held me up. I wanted to dance every dance with Harvey. And no one else. For the first time, that didn’t scare me.

Harvey. Now.

It had been twelve days since I told her she had to choose. Talking with Debora had been a nice reprieve from this ache gnawing at my gut, but I couldn’t make that feeling last on my own.

There was one blind spot in Dennis’s backyard—a small space behind his parents’ shed—and it had taken us years to find.

Dennis popped the top on a beer and handed it to me.

I took a sip. And immediately spit it back out. “Oh, gross! This is warm!”

“Well, it’s sort of hard to steal a six-pack right off the refrigerated shelves, you freakin’ ingrate. Billy will only slip me beer from the stockroom, so suck it up.” For the last year, Dennis had been saying he could get us beer from the Grocery Emporium, but this was the first time he’d actually come through. Everyone had always said that Billy, the stockroom manager, sold damaged six-packs to under twenty-one employees, but I’d never had the guts to ask.

I rolled my eyes and took a swig, making no effort to hide how shitty the beer tasted.

“You talked to Alice?”