happier ⇒ the summer i turned pretty

TWENTY-TWO

it felt like everyone in the room was staring at her, judging her.

she was asking around, trying to figure out if anyone had seen jeremiah.

the other debs and their escorts were starting to prepare for the dance. avalon started to panic. her hands were shaking and the room started sounding muffled. the noise was going in and out, and her eyesight started to disappear. everything was starting to go black.

conrad noticed something was wrong. all he wanted to do was get up and help her. he wanted to save her from this moment.

he stood up and started walking towards her. he felt that someone was running behind him. he felt a breeze, and saw jeremiah whip past him.

jere gently lifted avalon's chin so she was looking at him. they were both breathing heavily and anxiously. he cupped her face with his hands.

jeremiah had tears filling his eyes. his face was all flustered.

"jere what's wrong?!" she asked worriedly.

"don't worry about me, are you okay?" he asked her. he knew something was wrong, and he knew it had something to do with him disappearing out of nowhere.

she took a few deep breaths with her hand on her chest. "i'm- i'm okay."

"av i'm so sorry." he pulled her into a hug and rested his hand on the back of her head.

"jere what's going on?" she pulled away from the hug and cupped his face with her hands.

"don't worry about me." he sniffled his nose. "i'm here to dance with you." he tried to smile.

"jere..."

he wiped away the last of his tears, "av, i wanna dance with you."

she sighed and smiled lightly, "okay."

"just give me one second!" he stuck up his pointer finger and backed away. he went over to conrad who was still standing there by the dance floor.

"conrad, i need to tell you something!" jeremiah spoke frantically.

"now? dude you gotta dance with avalon." conrad told him.

"i know but, i really need to talk to you. it's about mom." his eyes started tearing up again.

"jere we can talk about it later."

"no! it's important." jeremiah pleaded.

conrad sighed, "it's okay." he put his hand on jere's shoulder to calm him down.

jeremiah was confused why conrad was so calm since he was clearly needing to talk to him.

that's when it hit him.

"you know, don't you?" jeremiah sniffled his nose.

conrad froze.

"you knew this entire fucking time and you didn't tell me?!" jeremiah said angrily.

"jere, i..." conrad trailed off.

before conrad could say anything else, jeremiah punched him in the face, causing conrad to fight back.

gasps filled the room.

avalon was taken aback by what just happened. she stood there with her hand over her mouth in shock.

susannah ran over to them immediately. "boys! knock it off right now!" she yelled.

the two boys were tackling each other on the floor. when they heard their moms voice, they both pushed each other away.