“Oh God. I’m so sorry, Ally.”
She waves her hand nonchalantly. “No biggie. Collin hosed off the sidewalk before he came inside, otherwise someone from the H.O.A. would have had a field day this morning banging on our door.”
“Well, I think it’s safe to say I had a good time. I just wish I weren’t suffering from the aftermath right now.” I roll over and attempt to sit up before reaching for the cup of coffee, blowing on the liquid before taking a sip, still scorching the tip of my tongue.
“Do you remember everything that happened though?” She eyes me over the rim of her cup, studying my face as I try to decide why she’s being so cryptic.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, on the drive home I couldn’t help but stew on that guy you bumped into and spilled his Coke in his lap.” She laughs, but her brow is furrowed. “And the more I kept thinking about it and his comment about you being valedictorian of our class, the more I got to thinking …”
Visions of the man in question pop into my brain like a highlight reel, complete with a montage of all the attributes I admired about him last night. The guy was the essence of dark and mysterious with an edge of bad boy, the complete opposite of the type of guy I’m normally drawn to, or rather should I say, the type of man that is chosen for me.
Ally reaches on the other side of her, picking up our high school yearbook from senior year. “I wonder if we went to school with him?”
“Seriously?” I mock, pulling the book from her hands as my head pounds. My fingers find my temple as she stands and reaches for something on the nightstand. I look to see her holding a glass of water and two aspirin. “Thank you,” I say, throwing the pills in my mouth and then washing them down quickly, returning the glass to the table and picking my coffee cup back up.
“I got you. Now, humor me. Let’s see if we can find him.” We adjust our seats in the bed, both of us leaning against the headboard as we flip through the pages, scrolling back through memories of a time that seems like another lifetime ago.
Prom, football games, pep rallies—photos that captured awkward teenage years and social circles that unfortunately followed many of us into adulthood. Many of the faces of people I knew back then have long since moved on from Newberry, Texas, only a few choosing to remain in the town we call home. Most of those people who I thought were the most important people in my life back then don’t even function as a blip on my radar anymore, except when my family is involved in something around town and I have to smile and play nice.
“Cheer Captain, Sydney Matthews, leads the Varsity Squad to a first place trophy at nationals,” Ally says in a high-pitched whine, poking fun at the caption of a picture of the group of girls that I lead, but ultimately hated. The bickering, the gossip, the pressure to be the best, the waste of time caring about what they thought of me is all I see in that photo.
“Prom Queen, Sydney Matthews, and Prom King, Blake Marks.” Ally points to the next page, focusing on the moment I was crowned prom queen. But all I remember that night was wondering what would happen if I came home without that crown, how my mother would look at me with disappointment for not earning the ‘honor’ her and my father deemed I deserved. Now that crown sits in a box, collecting dust, serving no purpose except as a reminder of the persona I was expected to uphold.
“Oh my God, look at us!” Ally shifts the pages ahead where the headshots are lined up for the senior class, her picture just a few down from mine. Ally’s maiden name was Nelson, so we were always next to each other for anything alphabetically.
“Dear lord. Why didn’t you tell me that I wore too much black eyeliner?” I wince, studying my picture and how different I looked then, even though I still feel like I’m eighteen some days—living up the same standards, pressured by the same morals, afraid to truly go after what I want.
“Um, hello? Mine’s not that much better,” she says through a laugh. “But hey, let’s see if we can find that guy? He had to have gone to school with us.”
I nod and then flip back to the beginning of the alphabet as Ally and me both hunch over the book and study each guy’s picture, dragging my finger along each row as we narrow down the search. Finally we arrive back on the page with both Ally and myself, pausing between our photos as a scrawny face in the middle of ours looks eerily familiar.
“Is that him?” I squint and pull the book closer to my face, tilting my head to the side as I try to picture the man from last night, my drunken memory playing tricks on me as I decide if it’s the same guy.
“I think so. Javier … Montes,” she reads the name to the left of the row, making sure it correlates with the picture in order.
“Javier Montes,” I whisper, letting the sound of his name roll off my tongue and hit my ears, wondering why the exotic slur of the letters heats up my body.
“The boy definitely grew up if that was him,” Ally drawls. “Do you remember him?”
My head shifts back and forth in admission. “No. I don’t.”
“But he definitely knew who you were.”
“Well, a lot of people did,” I counter.
“Yeah, you were quite the popular
