Shift

Two weeks later…

“Why don’t you come with us? It’ll be fun,” Tommy says, though he knows it won’t. Being a third-wheel date with your brother and some girl you barely know for prom is pretty much the bottom of the barrel. Even Bailey has a date. And her dad is letting the guy pick her up and take her to di

Milestones are happening left and right, and I’m wearing the same sweatpants for a fourth day in a row, along with Dustin’s old Checkered Flag T-shirt that he won at a race in Nevada.

My mom has quit begging me to get out of my funk. I caught her crying two nights ago, and though she played it off as allergies, I knew better. She misses Dustin, too. And she is probably torturing herself over the way she treated him in the weeks before he left.

“You’re sure?” my brother asks one more time, leaning over the sofa and staring at me upside down. I reach up and pretend to grab his nose, the way our parents did when we were little kids.

“I’m positive. Now, go on and get out of here before Mom makes you let her take more pictures in front of something else,” I joke.

My brother laughs, and we smile at each other with mouths that don’t quite stretch the distance. Our emotions haven’t reached our eyes in days, not since Dustin left. He took our lights with him when he left, and it’s going to be a while before they burn again.

I notch up the volume on the TV as my brother dashes out the door with his date, and settle into the nest I built on the couch for my next TV show binge. My dad’s been working on a new case, and while I suspect it has something to do with Dustin, I don’t let myself pry. If he’s helping him, good. But if Dustin is talking to my dad and not to me? I also don’t want to know. I’d rather go along with the terse answer my father gave me the first time I questioned the folder stuffed with pages he closed the second I entered the kitchen.

It’s just a bunch of pain-in-the-ass paperwork. Story of my life.

That paperwork seems to be reaching its end. He just headed out the door after Tommy left to drop one last filing in the mail.

“You sure you don’t want company?” my mom asks, hovering over me the way Tommy did a minute ago. I force a smile on my face.

“No, Mom. I’m happy. I promise.” I don’t bother crossing my fingers anymore. She knows I’m bluffing, but calling me on it will only make me mad, and then we’ll fight. We’ve all fought way too much lately. We’re all tired from it. I’m tired.

“All right,” she says, grabbing her tablet from the side table to binge read while I opt for the more passive form of entertainment downstairs.

I start the first episode of some show about killer squids taking over a ship, and let my eyes glaze over and focus on nothing but the vapid dialogue and terrible casting. There are six seasons of this thing, and it’s so popular they’re mass printing T-shirts with quotes from the show. I don’t get it, but after a full weekend with nothing but Mr. Squid and the couch, I intend to.

I make it through about thirteen minutes of Episode 1 before I slap the remote and hit the pause button. I don’t think a squid shirt is in my future. Maybe massively fattening snacks will make it better.

My stomach a bland container that’s barely processed anything over the last two weeks, I let it growl at the thought of popcorn and decide that might be the key to making it happy. I pull one of the packets from the box and toss it in the microwave, then spend the next two and half minutes walking in circles around my kitchen and downstairs.

I play a game with myself where I’m not allowed to step on cracks, which gets harder as the tiles get smaller in the hallway. I close the bathroom door behind me and prepare myself to feel everything I tend to when I’m in this room. The plastic wrap draped over my prom dress behind me catches me off guard, though. I spin and pull the hanger down from the spring stop at the top of the door.

“Oh, you beautiful dress,” I whisper to myself.

Without hesitating, I pull the plastic from the hanger and slide the straps free, letting the slinky fabric wind through my fingers. Closing my eyes, I imagine the way the silkiness feels on my body, how it would have felt to have Dustin’s hands roaming over the skirt, the top, his fingers sinking into the open back.

I pull my shirt over my head and kick my legs free of the giant sweatpants, slipping into the perfect dress. I spin and look down at the skirt as it splays out into a bell shape. It sways when I make a hard stop, and I run my hands down the bodice and gather the soft folds at my hips, clinging it to me. I lift my head to take in the full picture in the mirror. I’ve never felt more beautiful in a piece of clothing in my life. Even now, as hideous and empty as I am, this gown somehow makes me feel like a princess.

“Why?” I hum. My fake smile falls fast, the weight of heartbreak dragging it farther. My eyes dim and I let my attention fall away from the mirror to the beaded glitter decorating the front of my body.

Why did you leave, Dustin? Where did you go? Why aren’t you here?

The questions never seem to stop. I don’t think they ever will. And I’m so damn afraid the day will come that I will want them to. I’ll pray for the thoughts to leave. I’ll beg myself to quit caring. It hurts so much, but that hurt, it’s what I have. It’s him. If I don’t hurt from missing him, then he’s really gone. He’ll be gone for good.

The microwave beeping echoes in the kitchen, snapping me out of my indulgence. I take off my gown and hide it under the plastic sheath where it belongs, safe and guarded, ready for next year, when Dustin comes home and takes me to my prom, and proves to everyone how wrong they were about him.

About us.