“Be a gentleman,” Mom said.

“Yes, ma’am.” He smiled and saluted her, and then he was gone. She turned to me with parental nostalgia written all over her face.

“My babies are growing up,” she sighed.

I rolled my eyes, and then Steven was knocking at the door, come to whisk me off, to prove that yes, once upon a time, we were young.

I can’t recall a lot of the dance, but I do remember that when we arrived in the commons, which was set up with silver streamers and blue and white helium balloons and strobe lights, Steven took my hand and twirled me in a circle so that he could take in my dress. I was wearing a sleeveless belted A-line that came to my knee, black lace over green satin, that I’d splurged $79 for at Macy’s.

“You look like Euler’s equation,” he murmured as he looked me up and down.

Nerd translation: Euler’s equation is said to be the most perfect formula ever written. Simple but elegant. Beautiful.

“Thank you,” I said, blushing, and I tried to think of a similar compliment, maybe general relativity or Callan-Symanzik, but instead I went with, “You look hot. Seriously.”

Steven smiled. He’s a good-looking guy, with brown eyes and golden-brown hair and straight, orthodontically enhanced white teeth, but the people around us don’t usually see that. They see how excited he gets about physics class. They see the calculator in his back pocket. They see his glasses.

He raised my hand to his lips and kissed it. “Come, my lady,” he said, “let us dance.”

We bobbed awkwardly on the dance floor for a while, and soon Beaker and Eleanor came over with their dates, and we quietly poked fun at the girly girls with their poufy hair in their poufy dresses. Then we hypocritically admired one another’s dresses, and got our pictures taken for the sake of posterity, and danced some more.

And then there’s this part I remember so clearly. I was dancing with Steven to a slow song, and I let my head drop onto his chest, where I could feel his heart beating. The song was Christina Perri’s “A Thousand Years.” We’d laughed at how cheesy it was, how over-the-top sentimental, and made a couple of Twilight jokes, but then we’d fallen right into dancing. It’s a good song for dancing. Steven had his hands at the small of my back, his face in the crook of my shoulder, his breath heating my skin, and I had this moment of sudden euphoria. We’re right together, I thought. We fit.

It felt like Euler’s equation.

I lifted my head, and he lifted his. Our eyes met. Our legs brushed as we swayed slowly back and forth.

“Darling, don’t be afraid, I have loved you for a thousand years,” crooned Christina Perri. “I’ll love you for a thousand more.”

Wait, I thought. Hold on.

I had this whole big life ahead of me, college and a career and adulthood, and this was no time to be “falling in love” with anyone. We were too young for that. Hormones, I could understand. Dating and messing around and finding out what it was to kiss and be kissed, all of that made sense. But this—the way I felt in Steven’s arms right then—it felt like more than hormones.

It felt like so much more.

I tightened my arms around Steven’s neck and lowered my head again. His heart, when I laid my cheek against his chest, was beating fast.

So was mine.

Randomly I glanced over and saw Ty about 10 feet away, dancing with a girl—Ashley, I assumed. I didn’t see her face, just the back of her pale pink gown sweeping the floor and her golden hair tumbling in deliberate waves down her shoulders. But I saw Ty clearly. His eyes were closed, his fingers spread against her hip as he moved with her. He wasn’t smiling, but there was a quiet contentment on his face. A stillness.

He looked as happy as I’d ever seen him.

Then, as if he could sense me watching, he opened his eyes, spotted me. Grinned.

Bitch, he mouthed.

I grinned back, then pointed to the space between my eyebrows. Are you wearing makeup? I mouthed.

He subtly gave me the finger.

I laughed out loud, which made Steven pull back and ask, “What’s so funny?”

“Nothing,” I said, trying to contain my giggles. “My brother’s a goofball.”

Steven turned and gave Ty the what’s-up-bro nod, which Ty returned.

Guys and their codes.

“I like your brother,” Steven said.

“He likes you.” I smiled because it was true—Ty thoroughly approved of Steven as my boyfriend. “That guy’s all right,” he told me once. “He gets you.” And back then it was true. Steven did get me.

The violins swelled to their final crescendo and then faded. We stopped dancing and looked at each other.

“What now?” Steven asked me.

“Now we drink the lame punch,” I quipped, and away we went.

I don’t remember the rest of the dance. It’s lost along with all the other insignificant passing seconds of my life. Me. Steven. Ty. Ticking away. I didn’t know to savor that moment on the dance floor, to understand how beautiful and rare it was, how fragile, how ephemeral, when Ty was happy. When we were all happy, and we were together, and we were safe.

I didn’t know.

I didn’t know.

4.

DAVE’S OFFICE IS LOCATED in one of those nondescript commercial centers downtown—you know the type of place I mean, where you walk the halls reading the names of lawyers and accountants and realtors on the identical plaques outside their identical doors, until you reach the nameplate that reads DAVID HARRINGTON, MFT, NEW HOPE FAMILY COUNSELING.