Chapter Thirty-Five•Stay With Me Tonight

I walked out of the Mall bathroom, I was walking then I saw these girls with teased hair, one of them looked at me in a way that I never thought one would looked at me, I'll be fairly honest here, I looked at her that way too and I went to my friends so we can head over to the store to shop for Prom Dresses, Juliet came over with a god awful looking dress,"Hey I found something for you" So that dress was for me and I wrinkled my nose,"I don't even like how Mustard tastes or looks, why would I want to wear a Yellow Dress?" She looked at it then laid the dress on top of me, she began having that same look on her,"Oh yeah now I can see it, ugh" She hangs it back up, this song by Bon Jovi was playing as we were browsing, then we walked out giving up on looking for dresses in that place,"Here's an idea, how about we all blow off our dates and go as a group together" Juliet said to all of us and Gretchen looked over at her,"As in a group date"

"Well when you put it that way, it more sounds like we're going to have an orgy" She says to Juliet and Yvonne puts in her opinion,"It's a great idea. We're going to graduate, might show that we can spend the entire night with our dresses on" We all smiled at her comment and eventually we did find our dresses, here's the thing, I never really had a Prom Date, no one asked me, but they just assumed that I had a date. When I got home, I gotta put my bag that has my dress on my bed, my mom was out then, so didn't have to deal with her BS.

It was day after day, but it was getting closer to my freedom. Prom was the hype for a couple months, even saw Danford with this other girl, she had brunette hair, frizzy though, but she made it work. She was beautiful, no doubt about it, he chose well, but did she? Every day for 2 weeks was.....the same, like nothing have changed for a while and it's sucking the life out of me then Prom came around and it was the one night that I want to remember, maybe. It was Saturday, I prepped myself, did some skincare work first before I put makeup on, curled my hair and when I finally put my dress, it was violet purple, it was conservative in a modest way. When I looked at myself in the mirror, I was able to no longer see that girl from Sophomore Year, it felt like she was gone for good and I can finally breathe and then I saw my mother,"And where are you headed off too?"

"Prom"

"Plan on keeping your dress on tonight?" I looked up and down at hers,"Are you?" I asked her and she comments,"Mine is nicer"

"Mine is more conservative Mom, I'll be back at 12" I walked out and waited for my friends to come pick me up, it was around 6:30 when they did. Gretchen brought the Champagne while Dani was driving us, it was a surprise for us and we had a plan then Dani had come down to pick us all up, we have told her before we went Prom Dress shopping, it was nice of her to do it for us. We made it and the line was crazy as hell to show our tickets, but it was all worth it. We danced the night away, we didn't care that anyone was watching us then the slow dance songs came on, we sat down and this boy came up. I didn't see who it was because it was dark, but the voice was familiar,"Want to slow dance with me?"

"I don't know, is your girlfriend okay with it?" He looked behind at her and back at me,"Please, I want to talk to you" I sighed and got up to dance with Jonathan,"What do you want to talk about?"

"Us, from how we were before"

"Jonathan, it took me a while to get over it and now I'm trying to move on from it. Why are you saying this now?" He sighed as we started slow dancing,"I want to apologize, I'm not that person anymore, I changed for the better and I don't want us to leave on a extremely bad note. You have been good to me when we were together, but I wasn't doing the same for you and I am very sorry" I felt a lump in my throat and my entire body was shaking,"We were younger Jonathan, we didn't know any better and we can't change that"

"But we can change for the future" I nodded as I looked down,"I became better because of Janice, she helped me understand everything and I want to start off by apologizing for everything and what I did and said to you" I slowly nodded and thought: Where was this Jonathan when I was with him? Why is it that guys become a better person when they're with another girl? I took a deep breath and said to him,"Thank you" We stopped talking and just enjoyed our last few moments together before we went off in our separate ways, I necessarily don't know what happened to him, that was the last time I've seen him. After the song was finished, he smiled and kissed me on one side of my cheek,"Thanks for this dance"

"No, thank you" I walked away from him and saw him go back to his girlfriend and I've seen how happy he was and it made me wonder if I'll ever have that, I turned around and saw my friends dancing, they pulled me in and we danced the rest of the night away.

Weeks following was Graduation, I woke up, it was a normal morning, my mother hadn't come back from her binge drinking the night before. I got myself ready and called Yvonne,"Hello?"

"Yvonne?"

"Hey! Are you ready for tonight?" I looked around the house accepting the fact that I was alone and I was a bit hesitant,"Hello?"

"Yeah, yeah I'm ready, have my outfit ready and makeup also" I said as I was cooking my food and had the TV,"Your mom gonna be there?" Her tone was very disapproving when she said your mom,"I don't think so, not after what happened when I sent her boyfriend to jail"

"Cliff deserves it, what you did was justice and the evidence was undeniable. Your mom obviously is never going to be ready to be a mother, did she even put together a party for you?"

"Not that I know of"

"Hmmm typical"

"But it's okay, I'll take a trip to the City and grab Dinner with money that I swiped from her" I heard her scoff over the phone and I said to her,"I gotta get going, I need to clean the house before tonight, just to at least fill in the time I have left"

"Okay, so I'll see you tonight"

"Yeah you too" So that's what I did, I cleaned the house, washed my clothes, but not the nicotine and mixed-alcohol smell clothes that my mother has, washed the dishes but then my mind started wandering off as I was cleaning the dishes. I started thinking about,"Washing dishes?" I smiled and looked over my shoulder,"Something wrong with that?" He shakes his head as he plants tiny kisses as I leaned my head in the opposite direction to give him more access and reaches over my pants and unbuttons,"Absolutely...nothing wrong" Then the phone rang and I snapped out of it, I dried my hands and answered it,"Hello?"

"Is this Marcy?"

"Who?"

"We met at the Bar the other night, you had dark blonde hair and you wore a black tube top and a dark red skirt, looked really sexy as hell" I groaned in disgust knowing that is my mother wearing that,"No sorry, wrong number"

"Oh sorry"

"It's fine, it happens, have a good day" I hung up and I sighed,"So much for that fantasy" I finished the dishes, took out the trash and before you know it, it was time to get ready so I took a shower, blow dried my hair and got ready.

When I got myself all cleaned up, all I could was that after I get that diploma, I can clean myself up, get a good job and then maybe find someone who'll make me feel like I can do the impossible. That's something I could never find in High School, so I got out of the house with my cap and gown, I thought maybe I should've called for someone to come pick me up, so instead I waved down a taxi,"So you're graduating?"

"Yeah, my parents are meeting me there though, they're just working overtime so they just gave me cab money" The driver was creepy anyway, I didn't want to talk to him, but he kept talking, trying to get to know me so I gave him fake information, he wasn't going to try to find me, if he did, he'd be looking for someone named Janice Irvine, that's not my name. He dropped me off, I gave him the cash and thanked him, I made it in time for the lineup and saw my friends. When we started walking down the aisle, it became more real, like it feels like everything is going to change, maybe for the better and it seems like it's what I need at the time and I can finally move out of my house, change my last name maybe, sky's the limit when I move out. I've looked at everyone around me, anxiously waiting to get my diploma and call it, I completely spaced out and noticed that my row got up, so I walked with them. It seemed like everything around me was disappearing, but somehow being put into place, I just wish I know what's going to happen next for me.

Graduating didn't feel any different, but hey at least I'm almost legal enough to do some of the things that I've been doing. I walked across the stage when I heard my name, crowd applauding, I scanned across the entire stadium for my mother, but I never saw her, she didn't even try nor did I see after, but I did see Dani, the girls and I met up and Yvonne said to me,"Hey, my parents and I will drive you to the City, it'll be on us"

"What? Yvonne-"

"Can it, my parents already decided this and you are going to deal with it" I sighed and I got in the car with them, they placed a blindfold on me and I didn't know why, they pulled me out of the car after what seems like a while but it was enough time to go from Brooklyn to New York, Yvonne held my hand and walked me out of the car. Her younger siblings were snickering as they walked me in and when she took my blindfold off, it was a surprise Graduation Party,"Yvonne, you didn't have to do this"

"Hey c'mon, wasn't gonna let you enter Adulthood without a bang" She winked at me saying that and our friends were there, they just didn't tell me and after an entire night of partying, it was just our friends and us,"I would like to say" Juliet gets up with a glass of wine,"We have now gotten out of Hell" School was a Prison, it was either serving or turning it into a death sentence, I hated it but I was happy I finished,"We can move on and do whatever we want even though we have been doing it, we're just now almost legal to do it" We smiled,"But most importantly, I hope that we stay in contact. You guys were the best and hope our friendship lasts a long time"

"C'mon we all got nowhere to go, we're the Brooklyn Gang" Gretchen said to us and I groaned at that,"Please don't ever call us The Brooklyn Gang"

"Okay, okay I tried"

"Here's to Friendship" Yvonne leaked over and said to me,"If you still want to stay at my place, you can"

"C'mon you know I'm not turn that down"