Good Housekeeping “All About Love” memoir SS contest entry: Prom

Prom
a true story by L.T. Bradley

This the story of how my life changed forever — of how, unexpectedly, I fell in love.

My name is Laura.
All my life, I have loved to read. Even when I was very little, I would rather have my mother read to me than watch television (although there was plenty of that, too). I found that the stories I liked the best were always the ones about love. Not love in the romantic sense, but in how it can see beyond such petty things as outward appearance, how it can heal wounds that no one can see, how it can be a force from which someone may draw their greatest strength.
Love can move mountains, break curses, and find the goodness in all things. Love can change the world.
Growing up with these stories, I felt so eager to find my Prince and live our happily ever after. Even through the bruises, the yelling, the pressure to perform, I continued on under the delusions of grandeur that had been placed in my head — that I was just a lost Princess in need of her Prince, and that if I was patient and kind and true that eventually I would find him.
When I was little, and boys would bully or tease me on the playground, I would run, sobbing to my mother. Every time she would tell me the same thing. “Don’t worry about it, honey. That boy probably just likes you.”
I remember wondering why she would say something like that. If you like someone, you’re supposed to be nice to them, right? Even when I was in the sixth grade, I watched my best friend fawning over a young man who was so cruel to her he made her cry with everything he did. It never made sense to me. The world was in complete contrast to the stories I grew up reading.
As the years went on and I transformed from a child into a young woman, I found the same thing again and again: abuse, neglect, emotional constipation. The boys I was with always seemed to have an agenda that ended with them trying to get into my pants. I wasn’t ready for something like that. I didn’t want something like that yet.
When they were cruel to me because of it, people would keep telling me the same thing: “He just doesn’t know how to show his true feelings for you. He must be in love with you!”
How can this be love? I thought, This isn’t what was promised.
Eventually, I met someone who I thought was different. He was older than me. A little too much older than me. My parents didn’t want me to have anything to do with him, but I was convinced he was the one. He was kind and generous. He didn’t once hit me, or call me names. For the first time in my life, I thought I had finally found my Prince.
I was wrong.
In my last two years of high school, I attended an ROP school called C.A.R.T. It was basically preparation for college life — extra homework, extra classes, extra credit. As an academic over-achiever such as myself it felt like heaven.
At the time, one of my friends was old enough to drive, so every day we’d pile into his pick-up truck and drive to the mall to get food before class. The person I was seeing at the time also happened to work at the bookstore in the mall, so while my friends were chowing down on discount Chinese, I crossed the mall to the bookshop and found Alan. Loving books as I did it was so great to have a doting boyfriend who gave me discounts and free books and was always around.
He hugged me tightly because we never kissed in public. I was still in high school and he was already in his twenties, so we didn’t want anyone to see us and tell the police. Or, worse, my parents.
As we slipped out of our embrace, I heard a woman shout Alan’s name. The next thing I knew, my cheek was on fire from the lash of her hand. Tears welled in my eyes from the pain and surprise. When I managed to get my feet under me, I looked up at Alan and the girl who was slapping him, screaming, “I knew it! I knew it!”
Alan kept trying to fend her off, but in the end she took a step back, tore a diamond ring off her finger, and spat on him before storming off. It hurt because that was how I discovered he’d been cheating on me the whole time. It hurt because I had allowed myself to think that I had finally met someone who was different.
It hurt because he chased after her without so much as looking back at me.
I went to class like a zombie, dutifully taking notes as I cried silently to myself, trying to make as little noise as possible. I didn’t want anyone to see me like that. I didn’t want anyone to see how ashamed I was because of what had happened. My friends never asked me if I was okay, or why I was crying. I was so glad they hadn’t noticed.
He did.
I met Alex through a mutual friend. We both happened to go to C.A.R.T. — though we were in different classes — and our friend, Bryan, lived close by. After school, we would walk to his house and hang out, play video games, or do homework until it was time to go home.
Alex was waiting for me in the lobby when I got out of class. I smiled, hoping my face wasn’t too red or tear-stained, and we headed out. For a little while we walked in silence, but pretty soon the obligatory pleasantries began: “How was your day? Any plans for summer?”
That’s when he finally asked what had happened. I’d been crying for what felt like days even though it had only been a few hours, and didn’t think I had it in me to cry anymore. I broke down, sobbing, and I told him everything. He listened through the whole thing, holding me or rubbing my back to comfort me. I don’t know if it was because he was the first person to ask me, or if it was something else, but I told him everything. When I was done, I could barely speak, and my face, throat, and head hurt from crying so badly.
Alex lead to me to Bryan’s house and told him what happened as I washed my face and blew my nose in the bathroom. After that, they took me to the movies, and dinner, and the arcade to cheer me up. Along the way there was a lot of trash talking and offers to break Alan’s legs, and at some point I even started to feel better.
Afterwards, Alex offered to walk me home since I lived really close by. As we were walking, I gave a small chuckle and told him, “I guess I can return my prom tickets now that I don’t have a date. Hopefully I can get my money back.”
Alex laughed with me, then said, “Well, I missed my prom, so I guess if you need someone to go with you, I can do it.”
“You?” I asked, “That doesn’t seem like something you’d enjoy.”
“It’s my senior year, so I guess this would be my last chance.”
I shrugged. “Well, I guess since I already bought the tickets, it works. Thanks.”
“Yeah.”
By the time I got home, I didn’t look like the girl who’d had her heart broken earlier that day. I isolated myself in my room and opened my laptop to finish up some homework and then surf the internet. After a while I ended up on the social media site of choice last decade and informed the online community of what had happened. As I was busy deleting pictures of Alan and I together, a little box popped up saying that Bryan wanted to chat with me. What he had to tell me came as a shock, however. Sitting on my screen in polite san-serif letters were the words: Don’t tell Alex I told you, but I think he’s planning on asking you out.
I shut the laptop without turning anything off and curled into a ball on my bed.
I wasn’t ready for another relationship yet! I just — that day — found out that Alan wasn’t just cheating on me, he was engaged. I had been the other woman! I didn’t know what to do. I felt like a raw, angry nerve exposed to the chill air. I hurt. I remember screaming into my pillow for the rest for the rest of the night, then, at some point, falling asleep.
In the coming weeks before the prom, I felt like I was passing through some kind of dream. I was a part of this world, and yet I was not. I was floating through my days like a wraith. I felt detached from everything and everyone. Everything felt like some kind of play — everyone had their parts, including me.
I didn’t talk to Alan. I ignored his calls, his emails. I didn’t step foot in the bookstore in that whole time. I wanted nothing to do with him. Alan wasn’t the only boy in my life that was hounding me though.
Every day after C.A.R.T., Alex would be there, waiting for me. I hadn’t told him what Bryan told me. Even still, things felt…different between us. He didn’t flirt with me or try to make a pass at me, or give any indication that he wanted to be more than friends. After a while I began to think that maybe Bryan had just been playing a joke on me.
“He seems like a nice boy,” my mom would say, nudging me towards him. I knew she just wanted me to be happy, wanted me to move past Alan, but I wasn’t sure my heart was as durable as she thought it was. I’d been deceived by Alan and others before him. How was I supposed to trust Alex? How I supposed to know if he’d be any different than the others that came before him?
Then, finally, it was prom night.
My aunt did my hair up like a Princesses and wove baby’s breath into it like I was already a bride. My dress was long and chic with a plunging neck line and no back. I’ve always been a really top-heavy gal, and usually not being able to wear a bra made me uncomfortable. My mother and aunt and grandmother (who all felt it oddly necessary to be there) kept telling me I looked “beautiful” though. I put on my own make-up. I didn’t wear makeup often, but I tried to make it look tasteful. Afterward, the pictures our families took would show just how unsuccessful I was in that endeavor.
When Alex and his mom arrived to pick me up, he filled the doorway. Alex was very tall, and very broad shouldered, and muscular enough that it showed under his tuxedo. Maybe it was because it was the first time I’d seen him in something nicer than jeans and a T-shirt, but I felt this girlish excitement and embarrassment rising up within me. It felt, somehow, like seeing a celebrity.
The corsage was made of small white roses and baby’s breath, and fit around my wrist like a gauntlet. I felt like a small child trying to pin his boutonniere to his coat, even in heels he towered over me. Our mothers were taking so many pictures that the camera flashes seemed like they came from eight people instead of two. I wondered if this is what it felt like to be on the red carpet.
The prom was taking place at a venue called Wolf Lakes. It was a much further drive than I expected, but it was very beautiful. The lakeside was cool, and between the shade of the many trees surrounding it, the wildflowers, and the music it seemed like we’d left the city and stepped into another land.
It soon became apparent that even with what I thought was an immodest dress, I was one of very few girls there covering herself. All through dinner and much of the dancing, Alex and I whispered unkind things about the other girl’s dresses, or the other boy’s tuxedos. For some reason, everyone seemed to be wearing sequins. We tried dancing, but Alex was very uncomfortable with the music and the people, and didn’t much care for dancing anyways. My feet hurt so badly from the heels I was wearing, that I didn’t much mind anyways.
“Let’s just go sit over here,” Alex offered, leading me off the dance floor and to a more secluded area of the prom.
As we sat on the grass, looking out across the lake in the dimness, I felt a sort of quiet surround us. Somehow, I imagined it like snow, bringing a gentle peace and comfort as it fell all about us. I must have shivered, or something, because the next thing I knew, Al was wrapping his jacket around my shoulders. It wouldn’t be for several years that I discovered he was actually just really warm, and wanted an excuse to take his jacket off.
I looked up at him and smiled. “Thanks,” I said. He smiled back, but didn’t say anything. That was when I noticed the stain on his shirt. His left shoulder was bulging and stained with red and green splotches.
“Oh my God, what happened to you?” I asked, touching it gently.
Al looked down as though he had forgotten what had happened there. “Oh, I got a tattoo,” he said, “There was a small staff infection though. Nothing to worry about.”
“Are you sure?” I asked, adding a little more pressure to the padding under his arm to see if he’d flinch. He didn’t. “Yeah,” she assured me.
I nodded. On impulse, I leaned over and gently pressed my lips to where his bandage lay beneath his shirt. When I pulled away, Al was staring at me, bemused. “You’re not like other girls,” he said. There was something about his tone I couldn’t quite put my finger on, but I liked it. I smiled, and didn’t care how much I was blushing. He probably couldn’t see it anyways.
I wasn’t sure if I was ready for another relationship yet, but Alex was making a surprisingly good case for himself. He’d been sweet to me for a long time, even before what happened with Alan. Maybe Bryan wasn’t lying after all.
I don’t want to hurt him, I thought, I’m not ready. I don’t want to hurt him.
He reached up a hand and cupped my face — no boy had ever done that to me before and suddenly I felt like I was in a movie, or a book. Every romantic scene I’d ever read about in a story, all my favorite love songs started running through my head. I thought about telling him no, about pushing him away, but for some reason I didn’t. Maybe I was just caught up in the moment or the atmosphere. Maybe it was just how close we were, or how kind and patient he had been with me — had his eyes always been so blue?
He kissed me then. It was to be the first and many, many similar embraces, but for as long as I live I will never forget that first time. No boy had ever cupped my face when they’d kissed me, they’d never looked into my eyes for this long before leaning down towards me, they’d never whispered my name just before our lips met. I remember his lips were warm against mine, almost feverish. I could taste his sweat as he trembled against me; hear, feel his exhalation as he opened his mouth to me.
All my life, I’ve had an active imagination. Thoughts constantly racing through my head, ideas always sparking. Some people I used to know even suggested I might have had A.D.D.
When Al kissed me, my mind went blank, silent.
All of the thoughts that had been racing through my head suddenly stopped, and there was nothing but a gentle, unfamiliar sensation — something between floating and falling. I don’t remember how long we kissed, or anything else after that really, except that one we finally pulled away from one another, I was breathless and dizzy. If Al hadn’t been holding me I would have fallen over.
I smiled sheepishly up at him, and he down at me, and I knew then and there that I didn’t want to kiss anyone else ever again.

It’s been more than six years since that night.
At first I thought maybe it was going to be the same as every time before — Alex would get tired of me and find some other girl, or he’d be upset because I wasn’t ready to go all the way and he’d try to force the subject. But it was never like that. Not once. For six years he’s been by my side, and I by his.
I never expected, especially at the time, that I would fall in love with someone the way I did, but I’ve learned that life has funny ways of sneaking in the greatest things that will ever happen to you right in the middle of some of the worst. Even though life enjoys throwing us some curve balls, we must be open to the possibilities of good things. Love, most of all.