Note: This story was inspired by a need to write an article for the senior edition of the school newspaper. Once I thought about graduation, four months of little snippets of dialogue and images all culminated in this fun little story.

“The Masquerade”

At graduation, I certainly wasn’t thinking about my high school reunion. I spent those two hours of pomp and circumstance fuming, all because of the extremely infuriating guy to my left.

Jack Holland had to rub it in my face that he was the valedictorian and I the salutatorian, or first loser as he apparently thought of me. “Two hundredths of a point,” he quietly reminded me every so often.

I scowled each time and said nothing. Maybe I shouldn’t have been so competitive in class, but did I really deserve this tiresome taunting?

Obviously, Jack thought so.

I was ecstatic when it was all over. “See you in 2018!” Jack smugly called after me as I left the stage. I ever so gracefully made a gagging noise and put Jack Holland out of my mind for the next decade.

In March of 2018, I received an invitation to my high school reunion. My first thought was of Jack, and I frowned. “Why me?” I asked my completely innocent ceiling. I didn’t want to see him.

Wait, I thought. The reunion, I read halfway down the invitation, was a masquerade. A masquerade meant I could slip into the crowd, remain anonymous, and—most importantly—not be reminded that I had been two hundredths of a point short of being valedictorian. I dialed the number on the invitation and confirmed my attendance.

That fateful night, I got sort of nostalgic when I descended upon the ballroom filled with my masked classmates. Though we couldn’t reveal our names or faces to each other till midnight, the familiar voices were rather comforting.

No one knew that the salutatorian had arrived, and I planned on keeping it that way. I smiled and waved as I walked by the small groups of people who obviously had come together, but I didn’t stop to chat. I had come alone. Where was the sense of chatting when I couldn’t tell them who I was?

“Are you alone?” asked a jovial voice from behind me as I lingered on the edge of the swirling gowns and feet that were the dance floor.

I turned to find a man in a white mask smiling at me. His smile was sort of infectious, one of those smiles that almost gave me the feeling of truly being important. “It seems I’m the only one,” I remarked, doing my best to match his happy tone.

Waving his hands with a look around him, he returned, “You aren’t.” He held out his hand. “But what would you say to sorting out that little formality with a dance?”

“I would say…” I glanced at his outstretched hand, a grin tugging at the corner of my lips. “Yes.” As he swept me onto the dance floor to “sort out” our being alone, another dance began. This one was a waltz, and he took my hands so delicately that he seemed to think I was made of glass.

“So,” he said, looking me straight in the eye. “Did you escape this place after graduation?”

“I did,” I smiled.

He laughed at my quick answer. “You remind me of someone.”

“Oh?” I raised my eyebrow.

Shaking his head with a mischievous glint in his eyes, he said, “Nevermind, we’ll find out later,” as if both of us were unsure of my identity.

Did he gatecrash this reunion? I wondered to myself. I certainly didn’t remember him. “Sure we will,” I retorted with a confused smile. “What makes you think I won’t pull a Cinderella and leave?”

“I’ll just lock the doors,” he casually shrugged off my threat, looking to me for a reaction. I rolled my eyes and laughed. Who was this guy?

Wanting to find out just that, I spent the following two hours floating around the room with the mysteriously charming man. He kept saying the most bizarrely enchanting things to me, and half a minute till midnight crept upon us. “Worry not, Cinderella.” As the last song faded into an electric silence, he gave me a warm smile and murmured, “I doubt your carriage will turn into a pumpkin.”

As our former classmates began a countdown, I smoothly countered, “I paid too much for it to do that.”

He chuckled.

“Ten, nine, eight…”

My dance partner reached up and took the edge of my mask in his hand. Nervously, my hand hovered near his white mask. How would he react? More importantly, whose face would my trembling hand reveal?

“Four, three, two…”

His smile faltered. Oh no, I mused, there’s no dashing for the door. “One,” I finished for everyone, jerking the white mask away.

A visibly guilt-ridden Jack Holland stood before me, trying to string some predictably apologetic words into a sentence. I dropped the mask as if it was on fire. “Look, I-”

“What?” I snapped, glaring. “Two hundredths? Is that it?” People turned to look at us, and I realized I had yelled at him.

Somewhat mortified, Jack managed, “No. I-” My glare practically dared him to answer. Forgetting those around us, he said, “I never did find the right way to tell you…I had a crush on you.”

My jaw dropped in utter surprise. “You-”

“I had to wear a mask to do it,” he persisted, “and I’m sorry. If it’s worth anything, I’ve always thought of you as valedictorian.” He held out his hand hopefully.

I stared at his hand. Music suddenly began to play, as if attempting to prevent me from pounding Jack’s face to a pulp. I faintly asked, “You had a crush on me?”

“I still do,” he nodded, slowly taking my hand.

That almost explains things, I thought. Laughing incredulously, I said, “You really should’ve worn that mask in school.”

“Yes, Ms. Valedictorian,” he prodded, “I suppose I should have.”

Ms. Valedictorian. I shook my head. Somehow, the fact that Jack thought of me as valedictorian was better than ever actually being given the honor.

Then again, maybe it was just the mask.

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