Before It Rains

We were sitting at breakfast on Friday morning when I asked Shane about the dance. “So who’re you going to the dance with?”

I knew everyone else had someone to go with. Kai was going with that girl Lina, the one who’d asked him. I’d ended up convincing Max to ask Shannon, one of the girls in the play. Will had asked Isobel, some girl he knew from who-knows-where and Shane…

“No one… if you’d said yes to me instead of yes to Austin we wouldn’t have this problem,” he complained.

“You wouldn’t have this problem,” I corrected. “It’s not my problem. But since I’m so nice…” I slid my chair back from the table.

“Wait, Sam, where’re you going?” he asked, sounding a little panicked. I marched over to the table next to ours where four girls were sitting. They were all pretty… not to the extent of some of the girls here, but still…

“Hey,” I said. They all looked up at me. “Do you all have dates for homecoming?” I already knew the answer. They all did except the one with the big brown eyes and honey colored hair. I’d overheard her talking with her friends five minutes earlier.

“Umm… I don’t. Thanks for reminding me,” she said.

“Sorry,” I told her. “Yeah, so, I’ve got a friend without someone to go with. You interested?”

She turned and looked at the table where I had come from. All of my friends were laughing and practically rolling on the floor. Shane looked bewildered. “Which one?” she asked me.

“Does it matter? I’d go with any of them!” one of her friends said giggling.

“Blond hair, blue sweatshirt and jeans…” I trailed off.

“Okay,” she said smiling. “I’m Alexa, by the way.”

I smiled back. “Nice to meet you. I’m Sam. And that’s Shane,” I said pointing. “He’ll meet you outside A dorm at, like, ten of eight?” She nodded and I walked back over to my seat, hearing Alexa and her friends giggling and whispering behind me. Shane just looked at me.

“And now you, my friend, have a date,” I said, picking up my fork and digging into my eggs.

“You sooo did not just do that.”

“Yeah, I sooo did.”

“I don’t even know her!” he whined.

“Oh, sorry, my bad.” I stood up and waved. “Alexa!” She saw me, hesitated, and then came over.

“Sorry, I probably should’ve introduced you guys. Shane, this is Alexa, Alexa, this is Shane.” Shane said a quick ‘hey’ and Alexa just waved shyly. “Okay, everyone, y’all can go back to your breakfasts now!” I announced, and everyone did, still laughing.

“But Sam!” Okay, now he was just trying to be difficult.

“Shane, I could’ve picked one of the ugliest girls in here, but I didn’t. Alexa is pretty. Alexa is nice. But if you don’t want to go with her, then I’ll go tell her right now.” And that was the last I heard out of him.

**************

Early Saturday afternoon, Asia and I went to the mall. The guys had said they wanted to come with us, so Asia and I invited them. Obviously they didn’t take us up on the offer.

I didn’t have tons of money to spend on a dress, and well, I didn’t have tons of money in general. Asia knew that, though, and dragged me right into a store in the front of the mall.

“This store has awesome dresses and stuff, and they aren’t expensive,” she told me, already going through the racks. “I’ve gotten my dress here for the past two years. We’re bound to find something.”

I suppose I won’t bore you with all the details, but we both came out with dresses in the end. Asia’s was purple, dark purple, like eggplant-y and it went with her dark hair perfectly. Mine was pink and went down to right above my knees. Pink had never really been a color I’d been prone to wearing, but this was more ‘salmon’ anyway, and both the saleswoman and Asia insisted that it matched my complexion and that I looked great in it. So I ended up buying it.

We window-shopped for a little while after we’d found our dresses and by the time we headed back to Asia’s dorm, it was close to four-thirty. The dance didn’t start until eight, and Ruben and Austin were going to meet us outside five minutes before. We’d find everyone else later.

We went and got an early dinner at the cafeteria and I went back over to the boy’s dorm to take a shower and we decided I’d go back over to her room at six-thirty.

No one was in my room when I got there, so I just took a shower, tied my hair up in a towel, and put on jeans and a sweatshirt, since I’d just be changing again later. I pulled out my laptop and attached Ruben’s camera. As the pictures from the game were loading on, I suddenly heard a shout from across the hall.

“Will, you suck!” I walked over to Will and Austin’s room and pushed on the unlocked door. All the guys were sitting in a circle on the cluttered floor playing Monopoly. Kai’s back was the only one not facing away from the door.

“Oh, hey Sam.” Everyone else looked over.

“You guys are so loud! I can hear you in my room.” Everyone turned to look at Max.

“Sorry, my fault,” he said. “You wanna play? You can be the iron, the wheelbarrow, or the top hat.” He held the pieces out in his hand.

“That’s an iron? I always thought it was a balance beam!” Shane cried. I rolled my eyes and shook my head.

“I’ve got to send some emails and stuff. Then I’m going to Asia’s room. So I’ll probably see you guys later.” I turned and went back to my room.

I picked out the best pictures of everyone and sent them as attachments to Hanna and Layla. I sent one of Asia and I to my mom. Something told me she’d probably rather see that one. By the time I finished writing and picking out photos, it six-thirty five. I quickly closed everything down, grabbed my dress and what little make-up I had, and headed over to A.

When I got there, Asia’s roommate Elise was straightening Asia’s hair for her and Asia was putting on make-up in the mirror.

“Hey, Sam!”

“Hi, gals,” I said.

“You don’t mind if Elise joins us, do you?” Asia asked.

“Nope!” I said, popping the ‘p’.

“She’s so good with hair and make-up and stuff.”

“I can help you when I’m done with Asia if you want,” Elise offered. Thank God, I wasn’t going to have to do this by myself. Hanna always helped me at home. I nodded.

And by quarter of eight we were ready. Elise had done my make-up and had curled my hair really loosely, and I had to admit she had done a pretty amazing job.

“Hey, Elise, who’re you going with tonight?” I asked her, twirling around in front of the mirror.

“Jeremy Frasier. You might know him. He does drama.”

“The Jeremy?” I asked. “Like hit-me-in-the-head-with-a-soccer-ball-Jeremy?”

“I didn’t know about that, but my guess is yes,” she said laughing. “But you’ll find out soon enough. Let’s go!” she opened the door and we joined the flood of people heading outside.

Austin and Ruben were leaning against the wall of A when we got outside. It was a little cold for me, but it was probably warm for Connecticut at eight at night. “Wow, you guys look good,” Austin said as we walked over to them.

“You sound surprised, but I’ll take that as a compliment,” I told him. He looked a little embarrassed, but it was pretty dark out and hard to see.

By the time we had walked over to the Hall where the dance was being held, we’d met up with Shane and Alexa, which was probably a good thing, because Shane looked a little clueless. I talked with them for a while and gave him a ‘you better take it from here, she’s your date’ look. And he did.

We’d no sooner gotten into the Hall when I heard someone say ‘boo’ behind me, right next to my ear. It was really loud with the music playing, but I could still hear it and I jumped. Kai poked my sides. “Gotcha.”

He was with a dark-haired girl big dark eyes and a blue dress that fit her perfectly. I was pretty darn jealous, but then I reminded myself that I didn’t look half-bad either.

“Sam, this is Lina, Lina, this is Sam.” I waved.

“Hi!”she said loudly over the music.

I turned to Kai. “Where’s the rest of the gang?”

“Over here!” He grabbed my arm with one of his hands and Lina’s with the other and dragged us into the crowd of people starting to form on the dance floor. Everyone was there. Austin came over.

“Where’d you go? I lost you!”

“I dunno. I guess I stopped and then you weren’t there,” I told him.

We danced for a while. I danced with Austin, and with my brother, and with Max. I was having a lot of fun, and had decided dances weren’t actually that bad, but it was getting really warm and on the next slow dance, I told Austin I’d be right back and went outside.

No one else was outside and I breathed the fresh air in deeply, walking over to a bench to sit down. Not two minutes later, someone slid onto the bench next to me. It was Will.

“Hey, what are you doing out here?” I asked him.

“Just getting some air. It’s pretty damn hot in there.” I nodded. “Having fun?”

“Yeah, it’s actually pretty good,” I commented. “Ask Ruben… all the dances back home suck, and the guys aren’t even cool.”

“You think we’re cool?” he asked, grinning.

“No, I just hang out with you because I can,” I said sarcastically. “Of course I think you’re cool! Where’s Isobel, by the way? You didn’t just ditch her, did you?”

“Sort of,” he admitted. “She’s inside.”

“Will!”

“What? I didn’t really even want to go with her in the first place! She’s nice and pretty and all but… you know…”

“Then why’d you ask her?”

“Because the person I really wanted to ask was already taken,” he said.

I stood up. “I don’t care whether you wanted to go with her or not! You can’t just ditch your date!” Don’t guys know anything?

And I dragged him back into the Hall to find our group again.