They’ve taken everything else from us this year, but they aren’t taking our prom. Ashton found her sister’s prom pictures in the closet. For two weeks now, all she’s been doing is posting them on Instagram.
Max tells me his girlfriend, Piper, is just as depressed, so I think, fuck it. Let the world be scared, not us. We’re taking this back. They’ve shut us in and locked us up and made us scared of everything.
Not anymore.
I send out a group chat and tell everyone my idea. We’re going to dress up, sneak out, and do this. All the girls have dresses they bought before Christmas hanging in their closets, waiting to be danced in.
When March came, and this all started, it was no big deal because it would only last for two weeks. Just give us two weeks, the adults said, and the hospitals will clear out, and everything will be back to normal. And now they wonder why we never believe them.
Everyone is in, and I decide we’re going to do it on a Wednesday night, because I figure who is going to expect us to revolt midweek? But really, does it even matter what day we pick? They’re all the same. We stay in the house, go online, pretend to do school work, and fight with our family because everyone is cooped up and no one can go anywhere.
I know exactly where we’re gonna do it. There’s an old water tower on a dirt road just outside of town. It’s not far, and it’s where my brother used to party after football games. I had to come up with a place close enough to ride our bikes to because driving is going to get us caught. Even if we can get out of the garage without waking up our parents, we’d never make it without the cops stopping us. That many cars this late at night, wouldn’t get far.
Wednesday night comes, and no one backs out.
Five girls peddling in bare feet, holding their shoes while gripping handlebars, make it to the old water tower. Us guys raid our parents’ liquor cabinets and bring what we can carry, which isn’t much, but at least it’s something.
We debate if we should bring our phones, since all our parents have nothing better to do than stalk our locations, but since we’re not sneaking out till 2am, I figure we might as well take them. If they wake up while we’re gone, we’ll get caught anyway. We might as well have our phones to take all the pictures we can. Bring some normality to this.
My girlfriend, Ashton, looks hot in her purple dress with a slit all the way to her waist. I couldn’t go out and buy a corsage, so I make one by rolling up an old necktie to look like a flower.
We play songs from our phones while we dance and drink. The moon is out, and the old water tower casts a shadow as we party. Ashton takes a million selfies, and the cold, crisp night is perfect. Couples make out, sitting on logs that surround a makeshift firepit. One that my brother and his football team built when they partied here on Friday nights.
We dance with no signs that the world is ending.
It stays that way until the red and blue lights of a police car appear down the ravine. I stop the music, and we stand and wait. The cruiser pulls to a stop, and out steps Ethan, pulling a mask over his nose, slamming the door.
“Could be worse,” Max says. “Could be the old man.”
“I dunno. Ethan’s kinda a dick,” Ashton retorts.
“What the hell are you all doing out here?” Ethan asks, voice muffled.
“Having our prom,” I say. “You wanna join?”
“Do you know how dangerous this is?” Ethan asks, pointing at all of us.
I move closer.
He takes a step back, hands raised. “Stop right there.”
“Are you serious? Come on man, you played football with my brother. You guys drank up here all the time.”
“That was different. I can’t believe how stupid you all are. We’re in a pandemic, and you’re out here risking your lives, for what? A fake little prom?”
“You’re being so dramatic, Ethan,” Ashton says, putting her arm around my neck and nuzzling into me. “How many people do you know in Rarity Mountain that are sick?”
He doesn’t answer.
“You know what,” I say. “It’s easy for you to tell us not to do something you’ve already done. You had your prom, now let us have ours. You’ve already taken everything else away. We get one senior year, and this is it.”
A barely audible voice crackles from the patrol car. “Fuck,” Ethan mutters as he goes to the car, opens the door, and reaches for the radio.
He looks us over. A line of guys in suits and girls in dresses, out here drinking like post-prom parties of the past. Like his post-prom party. But, this isn’t the past. It’s a different world now. One that adults are afraid of. One they want us to be dissociated from.
Ashton’s friend, Luna, sits down on a log in her silver mini dress. She crosses her legs. “Maybe if I give him head, he’ll chill.”
Ethan doesn’t hear this or pretends not to. He responds to the garbled voice coming from the radio. “It’s nothing. I don’t know what that old lady is talking about. No one’s up here.”