Leah shifted her weight around on the hard plastic chair, trying to get comfortable. She looked first at the pieces of paper she held in her hand, then at the bored faces of her classmates, all expecting her to drone through the assignment the same listless way everyone else had. Her classmates clearly just wanted her to hurry up. It wasn’t like she could make the teacher dismiss the class early by reading faster.

Leah cleared her throat and began.

Candice has had crushes. And she’s had people that went beyond crushes. She’s even had people she came dangerously close to loving. In her Junior year of high school, Candice had just come back from a summer of recovering from a breakup.

Leah looked up briefly, in time to notice the few students who weren’t texting or asleep rolling their eyes or shaking their heads. Obviously they had picked up on Candice being a substitute for Leah’s own name.

A year-long relationship had been lost. It hurt. For a while, she thought that Noah was the only one for her. All the other guys she looked at seemed like they weren’t special. Like they couldn’t possibly be The One as much as Noah had been The One.

This time, when Leah looked up, she actually saw a few of the texters look up at her with disgusted expressions. With faces that said “The One? Really? You’re so dramatic.”

But, in an effort to get back on the saddle, she asked a boy, Cullen, to Homecoming. They had just started hanging out at the beginning of that year, but they were pretty good friends. And that fact was highlighted, bolded, and underlined twice when Candice asked Cullen to the dance.

After a long pause… “Yeah, as friends. Sure.” And he walked away.

She didn’t look up. “Cullen” was present in the classroom, and she wanted to avoid eye contact. Nervous, she sped up her reading.

Candice felt kind of numb for a while after that. She stayed friends with Cullen because, honestly, what else could she do? She needed friends. She often liked to be alone, but that didn’t mean she liked to be lonely.

Another dance, another date. Candice asked another guy named Niall via PowerPoint presentation. (Candice wasn’t a stickler for the wait-for-guys-to-ask-first thing.) She knew that Niall had liked her since freshman year, so it wasn’t a big surprise when he said yes. They had fun at that dance. More fun than Candice has had at a dance ever since. He was handsome, and she started to like him. When he took her home, he walked her to her door. He told her “This was fun,” and smiled.

Four days later, Niall’s best friend told Candice that she wasn’t really his type. He was nice about it, but the message was clear—he didn’t want to date.

By this point, some of the faces in the audience had turned from kill-me-now bored to TV-watching blank.

Candice tried not to look at him after that, but she couldn’t not. She knew she had fallen into the ancient you-want-what-you-can’t-have trap, but there was nothing she could do about it. They didn’t have to talk, but they shared a lot of classes. And he was the kind of hot that most girls would brush aside. But Candice found his appearance striking. She liked it, it was unique—but she kept looking at him! She had to stop! The constant battle between wanting something and trying to ignore it was one of the most frustrating things she had ever experienced. But her resolve never broke, and she never made herself look foolish by trying to flirt with him.

Most of her classmates didn’t know who she was talking about when she said “Niall,” which was fine with her. She glanced up again, and saw the few who did know giving her little supportive smiles. Supportive. That was new.

Then came Prom. Oh, Candice was excited for Prom. And Candice new exactly who she was going to ask. Aaron Williams. Wow. She was a Junior, and he was a Freshman, but he was just…wow. He wasn’t hot, so much as beautiful. He had a face that any mother would love, it looked so non-threatening. But that didn’t stop it from being a work of art. He was smart, he was fit, he was funny, and they had been talking for a while. Candice liked him. REALLY liked him. She had even joined lacrosse half in an attempt to get to know him better.

“Aaron’s” sister was in the class, and she looked a little uncomfortable. For the most part, people had paused their texting. Gazes shifted away from the clock and towards the chair at the front of the room. Leah didn’t understand the change in mood, but she kept reading, encouraged.

And it totally worked! They talked a lot. Eventually, Candice got up the courage to ask Aaron to Prom…through song. She took the music to Dead Memories by Slipknot and replaced the lyrics with the following…

(Leah sang this part loudly.)

          You told me to sing it so I will

          Going to the dance with you should provide a thrill

          So when I go to Prom I want me there with you

          You said you know this band, OTHERWISE THIS WAS A BAD PLAN

          Most people only go twice, so don’t pass up free advice

          Well I think it’d be nice, if you’d go to Prom with meeeeee

          Go to Prom with me

Her loud, gravely rendition had woken up the sleepers, and there were a few seconds of applause—which was only slightly sarcastic—before she could continue. She bowed jokingly from her sitting position.

“I’ll think about it. That’s not a no, though, that’s an ‘I’ll think about it.’”—Aaron

An exasperated sigh from around the room. One student even voiced an “Awwh.”

Candice knew what that meant. It meant no. But of course, Aaron couldn’t say no, he was a freshman, he couldn’t go to Prom if it wasn’t with an upperclassman.

She looked up at her classmates and looked as many of them as she could in the eyes before continuing. What she saw was genuine interest. Leah was still baffled by the change in the attitudes of her classmates in just a few short minutes. In the back of her mind, she was afraid that once her story was over, they would go back to rolling their eyes and making faces at her Twilight-esque teenage girl whinging, and it would be even worse than before.

It was a no.

He was on the Prom committee, so of course he could ask whoever he wanted. He ended up asking another freshman, and a total b-word. Or at least Candice thought she was a brat. The worst thing was, he didn’t just ask her out. He baked her brownies with a note at the bottom of the pan, filmed her and her friends eating the brownies, and posted it on Facebook before telling Candice that he would not be going with her to prom.

“Aaron’s” sister gave an exaggeratedly blank poker face.

Later that day, Candice saw the guy she still considered to be the closest thing to The One she’d ever met, Noah, get asked to Prom. Without hesitation, he accepted…and started Frenching his asker-out.

It had taken Candice three dates for the smallest kiss, and another three before he would kiss her again.

Candice went home from school that day, giving up on trying to concentrate on homework. Her dad would be furious, but her dad was always furious anyway. She had long since passed the point of fear, and had just come to accept it as one of the facts of life. Dad was furious. At least he wasn’t always drunk.

Her classmates were silent; interested, but trying to be respectful of the serious nature of what she was reading.

Candice sat alone in her room, feeling rejected, unwanted, and unworthy. She hated it. And she hated Aaron effing Williams for making her feel it. Thick resentment, bordering on hate. There was a hint of attraction for him, even still. She wanted to be around him. This was a new high for her frustration. She couldn’t get an underclassman to go to a dance with her. Not even to a dance! “But I don’t want him!” She says angrily. But she does. She hates him, and she likes him, and she hates that so, so much. She wants to kiss him and hug him and hurt him and cry.

“It will get better,” Candice told herself, as she did every day, staring at peeling paint and cracked plaster. Sometimes she knew it was a lie. But at that moment, she believed it with wholehearted, unwavering conviction.

The class sat forward in their chairs, not wanting to say anything in case there was more to read.

In the weeks that followed, no one denigrated Leah for her petty high school dramatism. Four people independently contacted her to tell her that they liked her story.

“Aaron’s” sister wasn’t one of them. It wasn’t until two weeks later, when they were alone together in what was usually their five-person carpool, that it was brought up.

“Sorry about my brother.”

“Wh—? Oh, no, don’t worry about it, it was dumb.”

“It wasn’t.”

“Oh, well…thanks.”

“Yeah, hey…people who talk about teen angst like it’s a stupid trend are idiots. People under thirty have emotions too.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right. So I guess you liked my story?”

“I did. But I would change one thing.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Early on, you said something about how ‘Candice’ had come close to loving.”

“Yeah?”

“That’s bullshit. Leah, you dated that boy for a full year. You Loved him.”

“Yeah.”