Finding You

chapter 60

It's been close to an hour since he left. Dasia has been sitting with me the entire time, comforting me and just being there. I'm sure I would still be sobbing my heart out if it weren't for her.

The emptiness I feel isn't any better, but at least I'm not drawing confused looks anymore. My eyes feel puffy, I know I look a mess.

"I'm going to the bathroom to fix myself up," I tell Dasia.

"Want me to come with?"

I shake my head. "I'll be fine. I need a couple minutes by myself."

Gratefully she nods so I don't have to insist further. I exit to the back of the main area and search for the bathroom. There's a glass window that shows an outdoor patio that I hadn't noticed. Small groups of people are out there dancing to different music and some are walking down a path lit up with mini lights.

I wish Zay and I had the chance to find this and walk together.

I find the bathroom, and cringe at the sight of my face. My eye make up is smeared and mascara is smudged on my cheeks. I go to reach for a towel when I realize I'm not alone in the bathroom.

Sitting in the far corner of the  bathroom with her head in her hands, is Lola. She's quietly sniffling, oblivious to my presence.

I stand there, not sure if I should bother her, and not really wanting to either. But guilt settles in at the thought of leaving her like this without even trying, so I call out to her quietly. "Lola?"

She whips her head up, and I try not to notice the unusual sight of her unmade face. It's blotchy and red, looking just as bad as mine.

She desperately tries to wipe her tears away, only succeeding at smearing her makeup more. "If you're here to rub losing in my face I don't wanna hear it."

"I'm not. I mean look at me, we're both pretty emotionally wiped right now," I point out.

"Why? Your best friend won prom queen, shouldn't you be totally happy for her."

"There's always more going on than what meets the eye."

She just looks away. I sit next to her and for a moment we just sit in silence.

"It was supposed to be me," she speaks quietly. "Everything was supposed to work out, and I was supposed to come home to my dad saying I was the queen and he was going to be proud."

I nod. "But you still are a queen. You don't need some silly high school label to prove that to anyone. You prove it by being yourself."

She grunts. "If only everyone else in the world thought like that. I don't even know why I'm talking to you, you don't even like me."

"I think maybe if I actually got to know the real you that would change."

A genuine smile, although very small, makes an appearance on her face. I stand back up and take her hand to pull her up with me.

"Let's ignore our differences for the night and just enjoy ourselves. We only get to go to prom once," I say.

She nods in agreement. I get some towels for the both of us and wet them with water. Together, we both do our best to clear our faces, and for a second I allow myself to forget why they were there in the first place.

"Keep your head up okay?" I say to her for my last words before leaving the bathroom.

We walk out together and almost bump into Roman. "Amber, I was looking for you. You just disappeared."

"Yeah. I needed a breather, it was pretty crowded in there."

"Oh yeah, I get that. Wanna go on the patio? There's less people out there, but it's probably still fun. Could take a walk maybe."

"Sure. Some fresh air sounds nice," I agree.

Lola speaks up from the side of me. "When you're done Roman, you wanna dance with me? I'm sure there's still a few good songs left."

He gives an uninterested nod in her direction and mumbles, "Yeah catch you later."

Roman and I go out to the patio and easily spot the trail that people are using to walk. There's a nice breeze out, and the fresh air really does feel good on my face.

"Are you alright?" Roman asks me after we've been quietly walking for a bit.

"Yeah. Everything fine."

"Not to be blunt or anything, but you look like someone told you the worlds about to end," he says, being completely blunt.

"Something like that happened. But I'd rather not talk about. Wanna chat about what happened to your face? It was looking a little less beaten yesterday."

"I had a disagreement with someone. I probably shouldn't have started the argument at all, but I did, and this was the outcome. I really do wish it had ended differently."

"Well, if it was about something you believed was right then it was good of you to stand up for yourself."

"Lot of good it did. It's always easy to tell when you've lost a fight though."

"Put some ice on it, it'll make the swelling go down."

He nods and we walk for a while longer in silence. The night air is a quiet looming aura, but it envelopes me in a wave that pushes me forward. Each step gets more numb the more I think, so I don't think at all.

Roman looks up at the dark sky. "None of the stars are out. I used to think as a kid that the stars went away whenever they were mad at the world. Turns out it was just the clouds hiding them."

"I give the stars full permission to be mad tonight," I say sadly.

"Yeah. They have a few reasons to be mad," he says as if he too has a deep pain in his soul. "I hope this walk made your night better. I should be doing way more to help."

"No, this was exactly what I needed. Thank you."

A pang goes through my heart as I try to ignore who I'd rather be walking with. I now notice how far we've actually walked. The lights are kinda dim in the distance and the music is muffled.

"We're pretty far out from the hall, we should probably turn back," I say.

"Yeah, we should," he says but doesn't move. I wait for him to start to follow me, but he doesn't. Instead he walks up to me and hugs me. "I'm so sorry."

I hesitantly hug him back, unsure why he's apologizing. "For what?" I ask.

He pulls away and looks deep into my eyes for a few seconds, and then lets go.

"I didn't want to do this," he says quietly never looking away.

His voice is full of regret and pain, and I don't even have a chance to ask any questions before his hand comes to my face. The quick, sudden movement surprises me and I don't have time to move away. There's a cloth in his hand smothering my nose, and after a few moments everything goes dark.