The wig looked wrong. Too shiny. Too loud. Absolutely, unmistakably Lylah’s. Her mom had dropped it off in a shoebox the week after the funeral, wrapped in tissue paper without a note. On Lylah, the lilac waves had looked like a dare. On me, they looked like a costume.
I sat on the edge of the bed and pulled the bangs down, pushed them back, then tilted them crooked the way she used to wear them. My left leg rested on a pillow on the bed. In the birthday video Nessa had sent me, Lylah wore that wig and a paper crown in the coffee-shop parking lot, grinning while Nessa laughed behind the camera. Lylah had looked ridiculous on purpose. I was still trying to decide whether I could pull that off.
The navy dress was easier. Noelle had sent nine screenshots at two in the morning until I agreed to the tulle skirt scattered with silver stars. The sheer sleeves covered my shoulders, and the neckline kept my port out of sight. I had two matching black flats, though my left foot would spend the night on a wheelchair footrest. The shoes didn’t need to know they were decorative.
Lylah’s bracelets slid down my wrist when I reached for the zipper. The sun charm knocked against a silver chain. I still expected to look up and see Lylah adjusting them.
“Pops? Can you zip me?”
Pops came in and stopped when he saw me. I smiled down at my skirt while he moved behind me to help with the zipper. It caught halfway, and he eased the fabric loose before trying again.
“There you go, Sunshine.” He smoothed the fabric beneath the zipper before stepping back.
Dad was watching from the doorway, his phone in one hand and the other hidden behind his back. I warned him not to cry before he’d even come inside.
“I haven’t done anything,” he said, blinking much too hard. “Fiorellina. Look at you.”
The mirror across the room showed the stars on my skirt and the crooked lilac bangs. I looked ready for a school dance, even if getting there had involved considerably more phone calls than it used to.
Dad came closer and straightened my bangs. I told him they were supposed to be crooked, and he immediately put them back, one side a little lower than the other. Then he revealed what he’d been hiding: a clear box holding a wrist corsage, two pale pink peonies tied with white ribbon.
“I didn’t know if anyone was getting you flowers,” he said. “I didn’t want to find out at the door.”
Peonies in December. I didn’t ask what that had cost him. Pops held my wrist while Dad slipped the elastic over my hand. Dad straightened the ribbon, then loosened it when I flexed my wrist. Neither of them commented when Lylah’s bracelets chimed against the corsage.
Pops caught Dad’s hand before he could straighten the ribbon again. Dad looked up at him and smiled. “I’m done.”
“Are you?” Pops asked, but he leaned into the kiss Dad gave him. I waited until they’d stopped looking at each other before holding up my wrist. “Can I have this back?”
From the hall, Stetson yelled that Noelle was waiting in her electric-blue Kia Soul and we were going to be late. He’d been ready for ten minutes and had forgotten every time we’d waited on him.
Pops rolled my wheelchair closer to the bed. Dr. Giacherio had cleared me for forty-five minutes at Saturday’s formal after checking my latest blood work. I had to stay fever-free, wear a mask inside, and leave sooner if I felt unwell. The wheelchair was nonnegotiable.
“Call if you need us,” Pops reminded me as he checked the footrests.
“I know. I was there for the treaty negotiations.”
I transferred into the chair without letting my left foot touch the floor. Pops kept the tulle clear of the wheels while Dad helped position my leg on its rest. Uncle Jake appeared in the doorway and took Dad’s phone when he held it out.
“Look at you, baby girl.” He backed into the hall to fit all three of us into the picture. “Nick, move in. You’re not taking a mug shot.”
Dad put an arm around Pops and leaned closer to me. Uncle Jake took several pictures, then waited while Dad checked them. I looked up at Jake instead.
“Is the wig too much?”
He considered the lilac waves. “You’re asking a man who had frosted tips at nineteen.”
I looked at him. His hair was sandy at the temples now, and I couldn’t begin to picture it. “You did not.”
“We have pictures,” Pops said.
“You were supposed to get rid of those.” Uncle Jake crouched beside me and turned Dad’s phone around so I could see the screen. “You like this one?”
Dad was looking at me instead of the camera. Pops had his arm around him, smiling. I liked the wig better in the picture than I had in the mirror.
“Send it to me,” I said.
Uncle Jake sent it, then bent to kiss the top of my head before helping me into my coat. Dad tucked a spare mask into my clutch and kissed my forehead beneath the crooked bangs. “Have fun, Fiorellina.”
We went out through the front door, Uncle Jake holding it open while Pops pushed my chair. No dramatic staircase descent for this princess.
In the Kia Soul, Noelle twisted around from the driver’s seat so fast her hair clip flashed under the dome light. She declared herself a genius for finding the dress, then spotted my corsage and faced forward before I could catch her crying. Stetson climbed into the passenger seat and wanted to know why Dad hadn’t asked him about flowers.
“Did you get Noelle any?” I asked.
He looked at her, then at the dashboard. “I didn’t know we were doing flowers.”
Noelle caught my eye in the rearview mirror. “Neither did I. You’re fine.”
Stetson turned to look at me again. His gaze lingered on the wig before he smiled. “You look good.”
He kept checking on me over his shoulder the whole drive. At a red light, Noelle reached back and squeezed my hand. I squeezed hers before she let go to drive.
The gym smelled like popcorn, fruit punch, and a hundred and fifty boys who’d discovered cologne that afternoon. I pressed the wire of my mask closer to my nose, which did absolutely nothing to help.
Midnight Snowfall was the theme, and for once student council had delivered. White lights hung above the dance floor, the walls glowed blue, and projected snow drifted across the far wall. Someone had even covered the basketball hoops with silver fabric, though one corner was already coming loose.
Stetson wheeled me through the accessible entrance. Heads turned toward the lilac waves. Some people smiled; others looked away so quickly they might as well have pointed. A girl from French gave me a full-arm thumbs-up, which was somehow worse. I wanted everyone to see I’d made it here. I also wanted to disappear behind the nearest frosted branch.
We stayed near the bleachers, clear of the crowded center. Noelle came back from checking her coat in pale blue satin, pulling her phone from the tiny bag tucked beneath her arm. I’d kept my coat over my lap in case I got cold. She leaned close enough that I could hear her over the music.
“He said I looked nice.”
“You do look nice.”
“I know. But that was it. Just nice.”
“He stared at you the whole drive here.” I glanced at Stetson, who’d become very interested in the nutrition label on a bag of popcorn. “You could tell him he looks nice and see what happens.”
Noelle looked over at him, then tucked her phone away. “Maybe.”
Maekynzie appeared in a red dress with her twist-out piled high, filming as she walked. She stopped to exclaim over the wig and leaned down to hug me.
“Not on your story,” I said, glancing at her phone.
“I know.” She lowered it. “You look so good.”
Before I could say anything else, she turned toward the speakers. “Oh, I love this song.” She squeezed my shoulder and hurried onto the dance floor.
I watched her go. She’d canceled lunch on Tuesday with a family thing we both knew wasn’t one, and she’d barely checked in afterward. Now she was here, already halfway across the gym, and I didn’t feel like calling her back.
Tinsley leaned against the bleachers in a black slip dress and an oversized leather jacket. Her cinnamon-red hair brushed her jaw when she tilted her head to look at my wig. “Lilac. Bold.”
“It was Lylah’s.”
Tinsley nodded once. She didn’t ask whether wearing it made me sad or brave or whatever else people expected me to be. Instead, she pointed out the accessible side doors near the trophy case. They opened onto a covered area outside if I needed a break.
Noelle eyed the jacket. “Whose is that?”
“Borrowed,” Tinsley said, and refused to elaborate.
Across the gym, Chandler stood beside Emory in dark pants and a white shirt, his strawberry-blond faux hawk looking suspiciously neat. Emory was talking with both hands. Chandler wasn’t listening. He was looking at me.
He lifted his cup a fraction. I lifted my clutch in return.
On Friday, I’d told Chandler we needed to talk to Stetson. Then I’d decided it should wait until after the formal, because Noelle had been looking forward to tonight and I didn’t want to ruin it for her. Chandler had asked what exactly I thought we’d be ruining. I hadn’t had a good answer, but he’d agreed to wait until Monday.
Noelle and Tinsley stayed with me at the edge of the dance floor. I danced from the waist up while Emory performed something involving his elbows that probably violated several laws of rhythm. For a few minutes I forgot to check whether anyone was watching. My left leg stayed supported on its rest while I moved my shoulders to the music.
Then the ache began, deep in my thigh. The wig cap grew damp against my scalp, and the noise seemed to press harder against my temples. I kept smiling because I’d spent too long getting here to admit I was tired after twenty minutes.
When the DJ put on a slow song, Stetson finally approached Noelle. He held out a hand and said something I couldn’t hear. She laughed and put his hands on her waist for him. He said something that made her laugh again, and I wished he’d stop staring at his feet long enough to see it.
Maekynzie pulled Emory onto the floor too. He stared at the ceiling, ears red, while she directed his hands. I caught myself smiling at both couples before another pulse of pain ran through my leg. Across the gym, Chandler lowered his cup when he saw me grip the wheels.
I checked the time. I’d been there a little over half an hour. I sent Pops a message before I could talk myself out of it.
Me: leg’s hurting. taking a break by the side doors. can you come get me?
His reply came almost immediately.
Pops: on my way, Sunshine. stay where you are. call if you need anything
I wanted to put the phone away and stay until the forty-five minutes were up. Instead, I showed Tinsley the message and told her where I was going. She offered to come, but I shook my head. “Just tell Noelle Pops is getting me. I don’t want her leaving yet.”
The side doors opened onto a covered stretch of pavement with a level path toward the parking lot. I rolled beneath the overhang, away from the snow gathering beyond its edge, set the wheel locks, and leaned my head back. The cold air felt good after the gym, but I put my coat on and pulled it closed. Inside, the music was a muffled thump.
Chandler came out a minute later carrying his jacket.
“Tinsley sent me.” He folded his jacket and laid it over my lap when I nodded. “She says I’m supposed to stand between you and any idiots.”
“Does that include you?”
“I didn’t ask.” He crouched beside my chair, his rolled shirtsleeves leaving his forearms bare in the cold. “You okay?”
“Pops is coming. My leg’s had enough of the party.”
I tried to make it sound like a joke, but Chandler didn’t laugh. He stayed beside me while another slow song drifted through the doors. Then he stood and offered his hand.
I stared at it. “Chandler, I can’t stand up.”
“I know.” He looked at the chair, then back at me. “Didn’t say you had to.”
Number four on Lylah’s list: Slow dance where people can see.
I kept looking past Chandler toward the glass doors. Anyone inside could see us. I’d just asked him to wait until Monday, and now I wanted to take his hand where half the school might be watching.
“Stetson could come out,” I said.
“Yeah.” Chandler glanced behind him. “He could.”
I put my hand in his anyway.
Chandler kept the chair locked and stepped in front of me, taking my other hand. He swayed gently to the music while I moved my shoulders, my skirt shifting over my knees. My left leg stayed on its rest. Snow drifted beyond the overhang, catching the parking-lot lights. My bracelets brushed his fingers every time we moved. It wasn’t the kind of dance anyone put in a movie. I didn’t care.
“Does this count?” he asked.
“If anyone asks, I was leading.”
He smiled and tried to match my much smaller movements without laughing. For one verse, I wasn’t thinking about how soon I’d have to leave.
Then I thought about radiation in January and the leg I couldn’t trust, and how this might be the last dance I attended for a long time. My smile slipped before I could catch it.
Chandler tightened his fingers around mine.
“Can I tell you something stupid?”
“You usually do.”
He looked toward the gym, where the blue light shone through the glass. “I wanted to come over when you got here. With everybody else.”
I looked down at our hands. I’d spent half the night wishing he’d come over, too. Then he had, and I’d checked to see who might be watching.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I keep doing this.”
“I know you’re worried about Stet. I am, too.” Chandler shifted his fingers between mine. “But Monday, right?”
“Monday.” I looked back up at him. “Can we finish the song first?”
He nodded, but before we could move again, the side door opened behind him. A wedge of blue light stretched across the pavement, and someone lifted a phone.
A flash burst between us.
I blinked. Chandler turned, but the door was already easing shut. Through the glass, I caught a sleeve and the edge of a phone, nothing that told me whose it was.
“Someone took a picture,” he said.
“Maybe they liked the snow.”
Neither of us believed that. He tucked his jacket around my knees, and I glanced toward the parking lot for Pops’ Silverado. The music kept playing behind the door as if nothing had happened.
By Monday morning, December fifteenth, the picture had made it around. Noelle texted that someone from student council had shown it to her, then asked if Stetson knew. I was still looking at her message when I wheeled into the kitchen.
Stetson stood at the counter in his soccer hoodie, eating cereal. He looked at me, set down his spoon, and turned his phone around. There we were under the overhang, my hands in Chandler’s.
“You and Chandler?”
I stopped beside the table. “Yeah.”
Pops looked from Stetson to me, then picked up his coffee and his keys and left for base. Stetson waited until he’d gone. “Since when?”
“November. The night Chandler came over after I got home from the hospital. After Lylah.”
“November?” He looked back at the picture. “How long in November?”
“The tenth.” I hated how long ago it sounded. “We were going to tell you the next day.”
“The night my light came on.” He set his phone facedown. “I heard voices downstairs. I told myself it was the TV. And then you just didn’t tell me, and I got this last night.”
“I’m sorry.” I pulled closer to the table so I wasn’t talking to him from across the kitchen. “I kept finding reasons to wait.”
“Were you ever actually going to tell me?”
“Yes. Chandler wanted to. I kept putting it off.”
“He could’ve said something, too.” Stetson leaned against the counter. “I’m not mad you like each other. I don’t love thinking about it, but whatever. I’m mad I had to find out from somebody else.”
“I know. You shouldn’t have.”
“Did you think I was going to tell you no or something?”
“I didn’t know what you’d say.” I looked down at my lap. “Chandler’s the one thing that’s still just yours. Everything else in this house is about me now. I didn’t want him to be about me, too.”
Stetson stared at me. “That’s not your call, Sloane. And you kept it from me for a month anyway.”
There wasn’t an answer that made that sound better. I made myself look at him. “I’m sorry, Stet. I should’ve just told you.”
He nodded once and picked up his bowl. I wanted to make a joke, but he wasn’t looking at me anymore.
“Are we all right?” I asked.
“Yeah.” He put the bowl in the sink. “I’m still annoyed with you.”
“Fair.” I moved my chair out of his way when he reached for his backpack. At the doorway, he stopped and looked back.
“You can tell me stuff, you know.”
“I know.” I waited until he’d gone before answering Noelle. Then, in the Suburban on the way to school, I opened Chandler’s message asking whether I’d talked to Stetson.
Me: he brought it up at breakfast. he’s hurt we didn’t tell him.
Chandler’s reply came before Dad pulled up to the entrance.
Chandler: I’ll talk to him after school.
I sent back thank you, then put my phone away when Dad came around to help me out.
Hall A was loud with lockers slamming and people comparing their weekends. I had my chair angled beside my locker and my Algebra II book halfway into my bag when Tahni stopped beside me. Her vanilla perfume was strong enough that I could smell it through my mask.
She leaned against the next locker, her platinum hair falling over one shoulder. Kleo and Gemma waited near the water fountain, pretending they weren’t watching.
“Cute dance,” Tahni said.
The flash went off again in my head, Chandler’s hand around mine. “Thanks.”
“So did Stetson find out from the picture, too?”
I stopped trying to fit my book into my bag and looked at her. She was smiling.
“That’s none of your business.”
“I was just asking.”
I closed my locker harder than I meant to. A few people turned, and Tahni glanced toward them before looking back at me.
“Wow. Somebody woke up angry.”
Number eight on Lylah’s list: Tell someone exactly what you think of them. To their face. I hadn’t planned to do it in Hall A with an audience, but Tahni had spent a year making sure I never got to choose the time or place.
“You slept over at my house every Friday in fifth grade,” I said. “You braided my hair before my first tournament. Then you made cheer, and suddenly you barely talked to me. I spent a whole year trying to figure out what I’d done.”
“Sloane, this is so dramatic.”
“You used to be my friend.” My voice shook, and I tightened my grip on my bag. “Now you’re doing this because you’ve got people watching. It’s mean, Tahni. And I think you know it.”
The people closest to us had stopped talking. Kleo wasn’t even pretending to talk to Gemma anymore.
Tahni glanced toward them, then back at me. “Feel better?”
I didn’t answer. I was breathing too hard, my hands trembling against my bag, but I hadn’t taken back a word.
Tahni pushed away from the locker and smiled again. “I’ll pray for you, Sloane.”
She took out her phone and walked away typing. I watched her go, still gripping my bag. Halfway to the stairwell, Kleo and Gemma went on ahead, laughing at something on Gemma’s screen, and Tahni stopped by the water fountain alone. Her phone hung at her side. She wasn’t typing anything. For a second she looked like the girl who used to braid my hair before tournaments, unsure where to stand. Then she squared her shoulders and caught up with them. People were talking again, and I couldn’t tell whether any of it was about me.
I set my bag in my lap and got my phone out of my hoodie pocket. For a second I wanted to tell Chandler what she’d said, but I opened Stetson’s messages instead. The last one was from Saturday, asking if I’d made it home from the dance. I’d answered yeah and left it at that.
Me: thanks for talking to me this morning. i love you.
I sent it before I could decide it sounded stupid. Then I put my phone away and wheeled toward the elevator, my book still sticking out of my bag.