Page 97 of Every Broken Promise
I had people screaming all this stuff at me, but now him too? I bit my lip to stop the trembling, and I blinked back tears.
All I wanted to do was help.
“Just because you couldn’t get a date, doesn’t mean you had to ruin our prom.” Sam’s words seemed to echo now that the noise had died down.
I couldn’t help but look at her. She never liked me, so I tried to tell myself her words shouldn’t hurt, but when I saw the other girls nod in agreement, that killed me.
“What the hell is going on?”
Tyler’s voice should have felt like a shield in that moment, but I was mortified that he heard what Sam said. The last thing I ever wanted was for my crush on him to bleed into his personal life.
“Astrid called the cops for a stupid prank,” someone else yelled out.
“Not surprising.” Carrie’s voice was full of the venom she barely contained when she spoke to me. “She’s ruining prom just like she’s ruined all of Ty’s relationships.
I briefly looked at Ty, but I couldn’t hold his stare because I was afraid of seeing the pity in his eyes. Instead, I looked around, hoping he would ignore the revelations and comments and come to my rescue like he had since we were kids.
At the end of the day, he was my best friend.
With that in mind, I forced myself to look at him, and when he took a step toward me, I felt relief sweep down to my bones.
He would make this better.
But then, he stopped, glancing at Sam, and he didn’t even hesitate to go toward her instead. When I blinked, a tear fell. I watched as he took Sam away from the chaos, and I finally realized that the only one holding on to this friendship like it was a holy vow had been me.
When the paramedics and police arrived, chaos broke out. I was too numb to care that all my peers were screaming obscenities at me. Prom was officially ruined, and it was all my fault.
The cops took me home because everyone was too mad at me to offer me a ride, and Ty had other things to worry about. As sad as I was, it cemented the fact that although he was still the center of my world, I had become nothing but a footnote in his.
“June bug, are you okay?” my dad asked once he opened the door for me, since I had been too distraught to put the key in.
In that moment, I broke.
I cried for all the broken promises that went to waste in that prom field.
“I-I-I want to g-go away,” I managed to choke out after what felt like minutes, but in all honesty could have been hours.
And in that moment, my parents promised me anything if it meant I would stop hurting.
I was glad to have a backup plan that allowed me to leave all of this behind.
THIRTY-FOUR
My phone was silent,and I was still in bed. I didn’t have the energy to go to work on Thursday. I mean, how could I when my eyes were puffy from all the crying I had been doing?
I tried to be quiet at night because I didn’t want my parents to see me, but after one look at me this morning, they knew.
“Oh, honey,” my mom said as she put her lunch box down. “What happened? Did you and Ty have another fight?”
“I saw Collin Rivers yesterday,” I confessed.
My mom came to hug me.
“Sweetheart,” she said apologetically. “That must’ve been hard.”
I leaned into her hug, basking in her warmth. She began to stroke my hair, and that made some of the tension I carried melt away.
“Teenage kids are dumb, June bug,” my dad finally spoke. “I bet if you went out more, you’d see how much things have changed.” My dad kissed my forehead, and then he left for work.
