is this love?

27

"you coming over today, y/n?" chris asks as we walk to 4th period. "probably not. me and laken are hanging out."

"wait, what? am i tripping or did you just say you and laken are hanging out?"

"you heard me correctly. we've made amends. i think i was just jumping to conclusions." i tell him.

"well, damn. sucks we can't go to prom together again now that i'm going with gabby."

"wait, i thought you were going with meghan?"

"that was last week, keep up."

i just laugh thinking that laken and so many other girls in this school want chris as a boyfriend.

"so i'm not invited?" he asks, referring to me and laken hanging out after school.

"nope." i answer simply.

"aw why?" we complains.

"she doesn't want you there." i tell him with a smirk.

"why do i find that hard to believe?" he says incredulously.

"chicks before dicks." i shrug before entering my math class.

"hey, i'm not a dick!" he calls after me, my teacher shooting him a warning look. well. that was embarrassing.

a few kids star at me as i find my seat. i look at my phone and see i have a snap notification from matt.

i open his snap and it's a picture of me and chris walking to class together and it's captioned: i didn't know there was someone else. i might beat him up.

a small grin tugs at the corners of my mouth at his joke and my friend beside me is looking at me suspiciously. i force the smile away and give her a what? look.

it's saturday. it's prom. the day that i'm going to walk into my high school with matt as my date and possibly get hate-crimed for it.

matt will be here any second to pick me up. i'm a little nervous. it's very rare that me and matt are alone without nick and chris. well, that is when we are not secretly making out in his room.

i hear a knock on the door and my mom opening it, greeting matt. i take one last look in the mirror before go down stairs with butterflies in my stomach.

matt is standing in the living room with his hands in his pockets, looking rather handsome. i hate that word but there is no other word i could think of to describe his current state of attractiveness. his grey suit complementing his complexion with a dusty-blue tie that matches my dress and brings out his eyes. he is casually looking around until his gaze lands on me. his face looked starstruck as i made my way gracefully down the stairs, keeping eye contact as if we were in the middle of some coming of age movie.

i smile awkwardly when i make it down the stair case, blushing when he tries to say something but stutters. "you look good," i break the silence.

he sighs deeply before breathing, "you too."

he suddenly snaps out of the trance we were both in and pulls out a corsage. i step closer to him so he can tie it around my wrist. it consists of white petunias, a single white rose and blue brunnera. it was perfect and i didn't even give him any guidance or suggestions about the corsage at all.

"thank you, kind sir." i whisper and he laughs lightly, "you're most welcome, my lady."

my mom then interrupts us, taking pictures and gushing about how great we look.

she had us pose in verious ways and tried to get different angles as if we were having a real photo shoot and not just in the living room with an iphone as a camera.

"okay, mom, we seriously have to go now. our shoot is in 15 minutes." i tell her, un-posing myself from the cliche and quite hetero normative pose of us standing diagonally with matt behind me, wrapping his arms around my waist. for someone who doesn't want me having a boyfriend, she sure is pushing these coupley poses.

"all right, i will let you go. just remember, no drinking, no drugs, and NO kissing!" she lectures.

'yeah, whatever' i think to myself as i drag matt out the door.

after our photo shoot it is pretty much time for prom. we play taylor swift on the way there because i refuse to let him play his stupid rap music.

we are a little early so we stay sitting in the parking lot of a while.

"i'm kind of nervous." i admit, staring out into the rest of the parking lot while a white honda pulls in.

"yeah, me too." matt replies, also looking out at the parking lot. i turn my head to look at him. he doesn't look back at me. i watch as his jaw flexes and relaxes and he keeps his eyes focused out at the parking lot. nothing was really going on out there. i rest my hand on top of his and only then does he finally look over at me. he looks.... sad. but i don't know why he would be. in this moment he just seems more reserved and melancholy than usual.

"hey," i say to him softly, "you okay?"

he smiles a little, getting rid of the depressed look, "yeah. just..... nervous." he replies, shrugging it off.

"well, it will be okay. besides, we're friends and it's completely normal for friends to go to prom together." i assure him. he has a far off look in his eyes but then blinks it gone. "yeah, it will be fine." he nods with an assuring smile. we stair into each other's eyes for a moment before i gasp when i hear This Love quietly play through the speakers. "i love this song!" i say, turning it up.

"this love is good, this love is bad, this love is alive back from the dead, ahahahh," i sing along.

"these hands had to let it go free," matt joins in, "and this love came back to me."

we were now both smiling like crazy as i turned it up even more and we started howling along with it, "this love left a permanent mark, this love is glowing in the dark, ahahoh."

when we got to the bridge we were theatrically singing to each other, "your kiss, my cheek, i watch you leave. your smile, my ghost, i fell to my knees. when your young, you just run but you come back to what you neeeeeeed."

we laughed after finishing our duet and we're interrupted by knocking on matt's window. it was chris yelling through it, "are y'all coming in?"

matt rolls down his window, "what?"

"are you. coming. in?" chris repeats sarcastically.

"yeah, i guess. is it packed?" matt asks.

"yeah, everyone's here." he tells us and matt sighs before getting out of the van as i do the same.

i walk up next to him and we trail behind chris and his date and into the high school.