The rain was pouring outside, spattering against the windowsill – it fell so hard outside, it almost sounded like it were tiny pebbles falling down against the glass. From where I sat, across the room, I could watch the drops of rain making their final resting place against the window; I sighed. The tears which fell from my eyes, spattering down onto the silk of my prom dress resembled rain – someone once told me it was bad luck to have rain on your prom night. I wasn’t sure where their logic had stemmed from – I had heard of rain being lucky on your wedding day, but nothing about it being unlucky on your prom night. Of course, that was before I actually made it to prom; had I known then what I knew now, I probably wouldn’t have even bought the dress, styled my hair – I would have hid in my bedroom closet all evening, pretending I didn’t hear the pretty hum of music. My house sat close enough to the school that as the music played, you could hear every word, and picture every person inside, dancing.

I never again will dance.

Before the evening had even started, before the rain had started to fall, I had looked so pretty in my prom dress, as my mother made a big fuss over me. She had pulled out the camera, snapping picture after picture of me – pinning my hair, putting on my shoes, sitting on the couch waiting for my date, Seth Horn, to show up and sweep me off my feet. He was more than just my date, he was my love, who had made my dreams come true the second that he walked up to me in school, and asked me to the prom. “Where is he?” I asked out loud, while mom was changing her film, looking down at the rhinestone-incrusted watch I was borrowing for the evening. It was quarter to eight; the prom started in fifteen minutes, and I couldn’t be late.

Ringing out across the living room, our phone was shaking wildly, and I jumped up to grab it. It had to be Seth, he was calling to apologize for being late, and that he would be here immediately – I knew it. I picked up the phone, breathlessly saying ‘Hello’, but as the other voice filled my head, my hopes sunk low. “Would you like to buy…” The telemarketer went on, explaining his product and I sighed, telling him we weren’t interested, and hung up.

“Who was that?” Mom walked back into the living room. But I couldn’t bear to tell her that it wasn’t anyone important. “Was it Seth?” She asked, smiling, and happy, and so I felt as though I had no other choice but to lie, if only to make everything better for everyone. I nodded my head, telling her that he was running late, and that we would just meet at the school, and then I smiled, and walked off to the prom – alone – looking like a princess. I opened the decorated doors – everything was covered in giant flowers and glitter – and looked around the gym. There was students bumping and grinding together, while teachers looked on with stern faces, wondering how they could call that dancing. My eyes darted around the room, from face to face, until finally I recognized a familiar one. There he was, surrounded in a sea of girls, wearing the tux that I should have seen him in first. There must have been some kind of mistake, I must have heard him wrong, and as I walked towards him, I kept that thought on my brain the entire time – he couldn’t have stood me up, there must have been some kind of mistake.

I tugged on his sleeve, and as he turned around, I still believed that there was no way that he would have ever stood me up. “Hi.” I was cheery and happy, and now that I found him everything would have to be okay – we would dance and laugh, and at the end of the night, after he walked me home, and up into my doorstep, he would kiss me passionately. “I guess I made some kind of mistake.” I giggled, hoping this would soften his otherwise stiff expression. “Sorry I’m late.”

And then, he started laughing – in fact, everyone in his little circle started laughing. And it carried, until I could swear that everyone in the gym was standing around me, circling me, and laughing at me. “Are you serious?” He asked, without asking me what I was serious about. “You actually thought I would go to the prom with you?” I looked around, and all the girls were pointing, and laughing at me – it sounded like it was thunder. “You loser – I was kidding. It was a joke.” I turned my eyes, which were beginning to fill with tears, and stared in his direction – his once sexy eyes were now filled with a hardness that made me wonder what I had ever saw in him. As I turned, running out of the gym, I could still hear them behind me, laughing at me, calling me a loser. Even as I ran through the parking lot – it had began to ran, covering everything in a wet film – I could still hear them laughing, loudly, out into the night.

There was no way I could go home – mom would ask me what was wrong and I couldn’t tell her. So I walked, I walked for three hours, glancing down at my watch until I knew she was asleep. My dress was soaked, but I didn’t change out of it. Instead, I surrounded myself with a blanket and crawled into the small space at the bottom of my closet – if I could, I would never come out, never face any of the laughing faces that had found humour in my pain. Seth Horn had never wanted to go to the dance with me, had never cared about me – he probably just wanted a good laugh on the last dance of the year, and saw me, and thought it would have been easy. And it had been easy, because here I was, crying and sobbing, which he was out kissing slutty cheerleaders, and drinking cheap wine.

My teardrops mixed with the outside rain, and I slept that night in the midst of my sadness, and the pouring rain outside.