“Yeah?” she said. “Why don’t you try it on?”
“I don’t know. I feel like I’d be wasting your money if I don’t go.”
“Phooey. Come on,” she said, pulling open the curtain to one of the dressing areas.
I took the dress from her hands and went inside, closing the curtain behind me. I pulled the dress from the plastic and stepped into it, pulling it up and slipping my arms through the holes.
“I found the perfect shoes!” Julianne said.
I tried zipping it up, but couldn’t maneuver my hands far enough up my back. “I think I need help with the zipper.”
“Can I come in?” she asked.
I pulled back the curtain, and she gasped. “Gracious,” she said quietly, lowering the shoes in her hands.
I looked down. “It’s nice.”
She took me by the hand and cupped my shoulders, facing me toward the three-paneled mirror. She zipped the back up the rest of the way and handed me the shoes.
“This is not nice,” she said. “This is spectacular.”
I caught Weston watching me dozens of times the rest of the week, always seeming like he was on the edge of saying something, but he never did. The green eyes that I used to long to connect with became a source of conflict, as I hoped to see them and dreaded seeing them at the same time. Finally, on Friday morning before class, he met me at my locker.
“It’s my last game tonight. You said you’d go.”
“We’ve both said a lot of things.”
He winced, and then he forced a nervous smile. “What…what does that mean? Are you really not going to go to prom after I told my dad about Dallas? It was a big deal. He yelled. Then he talked for hours about how much I’d grown up. After he accepted it, of course. I was scared outta my mind. But I did it.”
I kept my eyes on the back wall of my locker.
“I enrolled online for Dallas yesterday.”
I still didn’t speak.
“Please come to my game. I’ll make you a deal. Double or nothing. If we don’t win tonight, you don’t have to go to prom with me.”
I looked up at him. “Why? Is it really so important to you that you carry this out for Alder?”
His brows pulled together, and he shook his head. “Nothing is more important to me than you. I don’t know how to say I’m sorry. I would do anything to take back agreeing to Alder’s plan. I wanted to go with you. I wanted to spend time with you. The rest could have been avoided.”
“You want,” I glared up at him. “It never stops being about what you want, does it?”
“I guess so. I don’t want regrets. I want to hold the girl I love in my arms during the last dance. I want her watching my last baseball game. I want those last memories of high school, but I want them with you. But that’s all I want. I swear it.”
I shut my locker.
“Come to the game. If we lose, I’ll take back my tux and cancel your wrist corsage.”
“You ordered me a wrist corsage?” I said, dubious.
“And a white limo,” he said, his eyes hopeful.
I took my biology book and left Weston standing at my locker alone. As I walked to class, something close to nausea set in while I choked back the debilitating mix of emotions swirling inside me.
Chapter 10
THE TONE BUZZED ONCE AND THEN AGAIN. My hand felt sweaty against the cell phone in my hand as the BMW made its way to the baseball field.
“Hi, sweetie,” Julianne said when she answered.
“I’m…I’m driving to the baseball field. Weston’s last game is tonight.”
“Oh?” she said without judgment.
Her lack of surprise surprised me. “He asked me to come. He also reminded me that I promised to go to prom with him.”
“This is beginning to make more sense,” she said, trying to sound positive. “As a mother, I’m not sure I’m okay with coercion.”
“Tell me to come home.”
“You don’t want to go to the game?”
“No. But yes. But no.”
Her breath blew into the phone. “Can I come?”
“To the game?”
“Yes. Your Sam is here. I bet he’d like to go to Weston’s last game too.”
“Um…yes. Yes. Please come.” At least I would have someone to sit with.
“On our way in ten,” she said. “See you soon.”
I set the phone in the cup holder and turned the wheel to the right, into the baseball field’s parking lot. It was already full, with vehicles overflowing into the grass belonging to the fairgrounds to the north. A white, newer, high school bus that read CHISOLM LONGHORNS was parked on the south end of the parking lot, empty. People were still filing in to the gate, but by the scoreboard, I could see that the game had already started.
When I walked in, Weston just happened to be walking from somewhere near the dugout to home plate with a bat in his hand and a maroon helmet on his head. He looked up into the stands for a moment and then looked down to his cleats, tapping the bat against his left foot.
He took a step and glanced back one more time, seeing me walk in. He jogged to the fence, sticking his fingers through the holes and hanging on with a wide smile and relief in his eyes.
“Erin!”
I pulled my mouth to the side, my emotions torn between being embarrassed by the attention and being flattered by his reaction.
“Get going, Gates!” Coach Langdon barked.
He looked back to his coach, to me, and then jogged to his position. I watched him as I climbed the steps. He let the first ball go by.
“Strike!” the umpire called, holding his fist in the air. The crowd booed.
Weston leaned forward and twisted his hands around the grip of the bat. The pitcher hurled the ball at him, and Weston swung. The ball met the bat with a crack and then launched, low and straight, right past the shortstop, and bounced into left field, sending the outfielders sprinting.
The crowd cheered while Weston ran to and reached first base. He kissed his index and middle finger and held it in my direction.
“Erin!” Veronica called with a smile. She waved me over, and I sat with her on the fourth row, to the left of home plate.
Julianne and Sam joined us less than an inning later, sitting on each side of me. None of them had a clue how much was riding on this game, and I began to feel guilty about putting that extra pressure on Weston.