This is from prom.

Yes, I know, we weren't going to go, but we happen to have Mikayla on our side, and there's only one real lesson to take from the unrestrained whirlwind of chaos that has been the last few months of my life: don't fuck with Mikayla. (Even the government can't fuck with Mikayla. I missed a lot of school over the last few months, but let's just say that little of that has anything to do with suspension.) Mikayla and Arthur took care of all the barriers to entry, most of which were really some tradition built up around the last few years, supplemented by the fact that the grades above us all had two Extras apiece that hadn't switched schools or been sent into deep hiding. We'll all be sticking around, except Brittany, and that's her choice. She and Arthur are definitely keeping in touch.

Couples.

Lucky shits.

The night's almost over, with the strobe lights winding down and everyone absolutely glutted with garbage food. Okay, so it's high school, so the mediocre snack food only got taken because most people are high or drunk, but a surprising amount of us aren't about that life. You'd expect with all our mental baggage that we'd take to intoxicants like depressed creative types or something, but Maris just shakes her head when I mention it and says, "I'm not allowed to do that in either of my religions."

"You're not afraid that you'll turn into a firecracker and kill all the electronics in this room? Or the people?" I ask.

Maris runs her hands through her hair. "I'm always afraid of that, Derrick." She's wearing a slim black dress with a back that's almost entirely open, revealing her long purple scar. I remember it from the rift, but it looks better, if possible, in real life, where almost everything about our otherworlds is either ridiculous or silly. She stands with me in a line of wallflowers, better known as us, broken only by Olive, who is drinking her twelfth cup of punch with a cookie in her hand, and Arthur and Brittany, who are dancing with Arthur's friends and the SCA. Leave it to them to actually dance at prom. The madmen.

Arthur stops past usand plants a crown on my head. No, better you ask, he didn't actually win prom king, but someone had to make the joke, and he was like, 'hey, might as well'. He drops the crown on me. "Hold this."

"I've always wanted to be prom king. How'd you know?" I ask, dryly.

Maris laughs. She elbows me in the side. "They don't usually give it to wallflowers."

"I'm kind of waiting to be asked out to dance. They have to do one more slow dance before the night ends, right?" I ask. "Right...?"

"Don't ask me for advice," she says. "I'm just hoping someone asks me."

"That's kind of what I'm doing," I follow. "Do you think Mikayla's ignoring me on purpose?"

"You're a coward, Derrick," Arthur says, plucking his crown back. His tuxedo is still spotless, and despite having danced in a hot room for the last four hours, he's pristine. Immaculate. His gold hair falls in wavy curls and his tuxedo flatters him, even though it's not like he needed it. "I'll be having a good time. Portal-classes, two, everyone else... zero."

I frown.

"Need help with something?" asks Olive, with the cookie. She's wearing green, a forest color that accentuates her finger hair. She's also put on a flower crown, which fits around her ears. Look. I'm not checking anyone out, but I do, respectful want to acknowledge that women spend a lot of time on their attire, and everyone deserves to feel pretty after all that work. Mr. Harring let me borrow a suit, which we had to get adjusted, but I sure didn't have to put on make-up or go dress shopping or, you know, try at all. (Please shut me up now. I'm so sorry.)

"Mikayla has been in the corner talking to Finn all night," I complain, waving thoughts away.

"And you haven't been over there?" Her head tilts.

Mikayla weaves across the dance floor and begins talking to the DJ, hands on her hips. "She's scheming," I say. "Definitely scheming."

I expect slow, soft music to come on, but it's even worse. It's slow, it's soft, and it's Crash Into Me by Dave Matthews. I had this record before... well, no use thinking about it now.

Alya swings up to Maris. "So, I'm missing a girlfriend."

Maris tenderly places her fingers over Alya's outstretched hand. "This definitely isn't allowed in either of my religions."

"The restrictive one your parents forced on you that says you're a witch, or the one with your terrible thunder-god parent who made you kill seven brothers to prove yourself? Funny, I don't really like either of those religions."

Maris takes her hand with a soft smile. "You've got me there." As she runs past, grinning from cheek to cheek with Alya at her side, she whispers, "Good luck, Derrick."

"What do you mean, good luck?" I ask, but Mikayla is already there. Half our class is lined up, all knowing, and a few people start clapping to the beat. She grabs me, insistently, and drags me out onto the center of the dance floor. I can't dance, which she can probably feel through my sweaty palms, because she leads. We do a quick, easy box step, which culminates on me stepping on her sandals several times. The song winds on around us, rippling with tension, and it's not that she's a bad dancer, and it's not that I didn't ask for this, but I need to breathe and I'm not going to breathe until this ends. She spins me around so hard my head spins, and I find myself twirling her in turn, her silver dress catching all the available light. When it settles, I'm holding her with her feet hardly scraping the ground, our faces inches away.

"You had to put on a love song," I say.

"You said you were a fan," she says.

"I don't think I'm ready for this," I admit. "I don't know if I'll ever be, but right now? Mikayla, it's way too soon."

"No, I agree," she says, pulling herself out of my arms. She stands up just as the song ends, and club music overturns the moment of quality rock. Oh, my bleeding ears. My poor, poor non-human hearing. I don't even think animals have an ear for music and I can tell you the difference. "We should ditch."

Alya and Maris are kissing in the middle of the room. They're a beacon of light, illuminated by Alya's arm glow sticks, which are more at-home than you'd think at a supposedly formal event.

"Roll out, squad. We have an afterparty to get to," Mikayla says, and we fall into line. It takes a little longer to drag Arthur away, and Lilith and Endina are in the bathrooms getting higher than a kite (uh, not that I went in there, but I could see the smoke from out in the hallway), but when we assemble, we look like a proper gang. I think my tiny homeschooled heart might implode at the sight of it.

The sky is a dark and calm sea overhead. The moon is full, shining benevolently down at the front doors of the school to spotlight us, and I think of you curled up against the columns that line the front entrance.

For a second.

Lately I've been thinking less and less about the past. It's not that there's less to relive, in fact, every second you're alive you have more past to sift through than ever before. That's probably why it's so tempting. There is a finite amount of past with you in it, though, and until this period of my life ends, our time together and everything prior to it will always be 'the past' to me.

For both of our sakes, imagine me saying all of this to you through a wall--these are my new stories, and I guess my new family. We're like this--tight. Imagine me talking for hours about them, between battles and fitful periods where the mutation overtakes us, imagine both of us stilling down until we get lost in the memories, until they make us more human than we'd ever been.

Just like old times.