13

                                    

                                          
Tyler
                          
        After a few weeks, Caley and I had passed the initial, slightly awkward getting-to-know-you phase and were good friends. Just friends. Still, I never got over the nervous feeling in the pit of my stomach that churned whenever I was close to her. So with April came one of my most daunting tasks: asking Caley Sloane to the Pine High Prom. 
                          
        Prom was the cheesiest, most cliche event I could imagine, which is why I didn't think Caley would be into the idea. I liked to think I was above the Prom idea as well, but I couldn't imagine living the rest of my life having never attended my high school prom with a girl like Caley. As friends, of course. Maybe I'd watched too many John Hughes movies, but I knew that when you're in High School, there are some things you just do, even if you don't really want to. You eat in the cafeteria, you go to the Homecoming Football Games, and you go to Prom. It's not that I really wanted to go to Prom; I had to.
                          
        The first obstacle in my mission to take Caley to prom was asking her to go with me. I knew I could never resort to balloons and a bad pun on a posterboard. It was far too much, and unnecessarily embarassing. I'd embarassed myself in front of Caley thousands of times already. No, this had to be meaningful but casual. The casual part was easier- Tyler Thompson had spent his whole life trying to appear as casual as possible. "Meaningful" was tricky. When I'd asked Emily Stephenson to homecoming my freshman year, I'd spelled "Homecoming?" in sprinkles on a pan of brownies. It was awful, I know. She said yes, but I wouldn't have if I was her. 
                          
        Brownies wouldn't do the trick this year. Caley wasn't Emily Stephenson. Emily was cool, but god...Caley was the coolest girl I'd ever met. She was so funny, and never, ever boring. The way she lit up when she talked about her favorite things made me feel like those were my favorite things too. I almost never wanted to drive her home because that meant I wouldn't see her until the next day. It was the weirdest, craziest feeling. I had to admit one thing to myself: perhaps one of the reasons I had to go to prom with Caley was so maybe she wouldn't want to be just friends either.
                          
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        It was a Friday night, and Caley and I were supposed to be studying. We had both agreed earlier in the year that PreCalculus would be the death of us, and had formed a study group of two. My parents were out for their weekly date night, and Kathy and Katy were upstairs doing Lord knows what. It was just me, Caley and our math homework...for about twenty minutes. Then it was just me, Caley and the Goblet of Fire playing on the television. I didn't know the unit circle, but I knew who Cedric Diggory was. Which was more important, really? Caley had trained me to be almost as nerdy as she was.
                          
        There are three cushions on the couch. I sat on the right, she sat on the left, and in the middle was a bowl of popcorn. Friends. When we got to the Yule Ball scene, I knew I couldn't put it off any longer. If I did, I would end up being Harry and Caley would be Cho, and I'd have to watch her dance with someone else at Prom. 
                          
"So at Pine, we have this muggle Yule Ball coming up," I blurted, eyes still on the TV. God.
                          
She laughed. "Like Prom?" she turned her head from the screen to me.
                          
"Well, yeah." 
                          
She reached for another handful of popcorn. "We have those in Arizona too," she said. "Not a foreign concept, really."
                          
I swallowed. "So...would you maybe-"
                          
"Are you asking me to prom?" She wasn't smiling, like I'd hoped she would. She looked more surprised, like she'd never expected me to ask something so ridiculous. This should have shredded my confidence right then, but it didn't. It enhanced it.
                          
"Yup. I'm asking you to prom. Will you come? With me, I mean."