"No."
Skylar stepped back from her mother.
It was the smallest step.
It looked like it cost her a hundred pounds.
Colton moved next.
He crossed the dance floor with the slip still crumpled in his fist, because I had given it back to him without noticing.
He stopped two feet from me.
"I yelled that thing at you," he said. His voice shook. "About a real dress. I ate for a month on your dad's money, and I never even knew his name."
"I'm sorry."
Then the tall girl in the green dress stepped out of the crowd, wiping her cheeks.
"R.D.," she said hoarsely. "That's me. Sixth grade."
A boy by the speakers raised a hand.
"A.B. Eighth."
"M.T.," said a senior whose date was still holding his coat.
They came in ones and twos.
They crossed the floor in their rented tuxedos and their satin shoes, and each of them stopped near me and said two letters and a grade.
