Under the Same Stars by Libba Bray(109)

You look so handsome!!!!! Mama D texts quickly. She adds another whole row of happy faces and dancer icons.

I never should’ve shown you emojis, Miles texts back with his own laughing-face one.

Take lots of pictures? she texts.

Will do, he lies.

It’s killing me that I’m not there.

You are here, he texts, and she responds with one giant heart that takes up the whole left side of his phone.

Miles has made a playlist of songs both he and Chloe like and sent it ahead to her. And he’s saved one song for the end that he really hopes she’ll like. At 10:00 p.m., he clicks the Zoom link. There’s a wait screen. And then, there’s Chloe. She temples her fingers like a Bond villain. “Good evening, Mr. Campbell-dela Cruz.”

“So that’s the dress, huh? Suits you.”

“The finest thrift store.”

“You look really nice. Really beautiful.” Jesus. He is so nervous. He wants this to be perfect for her.

Chloe smiles and looks away. “Thanks. So do you.”

“Hold on just one … second…” Miles reaches out of frame and comes back with a homemade corsage—just some leftover Christmas ribbon looped through a yellow wildflower from the backyard and, with Mama D’s permission, the gifted acorn glued to the middle. “Don’t judge. At least it’s not macaroni art. Which was my second option.”

“I love it!” Chloe leans in closer to the screen. “Is that … the acorn from the Bridegroom’s Oak?”

“I’m gonna say yeah even if I have no proof.”

She does a big, showy inhale. “Smells amazing. Just like a really old acorn oughta smell!” They stare at each other through their laptop screens. “Uh. Should we press play together?”

“Sure. On three?”

They try to sync up but it doesn’t really work. There’s an echoey feedback that makes it feel as if they are attending two separate dances. Miles cranks the volume on his speakers all the way, which works a little better. They dance for exactly two songs before the self-consciousness takes over.

“This is super awkward. Like beyond accidentally-seeing-your-grandparents-naked awkward,” Miles says, disappointed.

“Yeah. It really is.”

“Wanna stop?” he asks.

Chloe wrinkles her nose in a grimace. “Is that okay? Sorry.”

“Please put me out of my misery.” It’s a bummer. All that prep for nothing. Kind of like senior year.

“Hey!” Chloe says suddenly. “Let’s pretend we hated prom so we ditched it for something more fun and everybody who stayed at the dance is jealous.”

Miles leaves the fairy lights up. They play songs for each other from their respective playlists, talk about stupid shit and non-stupid shit. Snacks are poured into bowls and eaten.

“How much longer do you think we’ll be like this?” Chloe asks.

He thinks she means the pandemic but he’s not sure. He wants to say that he wishes this particular night could last forever.

“I don’t know,” he says instead. “Hey, would you wanna watch a movie?”

They settle on a Miyazaki double feature: Princess Mononoke, which is Chloe’s favorite, and Spirited Away, which is Miles’s. When it comes to the scene where No-Face and Chihiro ride the Spirit Train in silence for two whole minutes, a fist clenches around his heart. In a way, he feels as if they are all on the Spirit Train now—a long ride toward something they can’t see, something they hope they will survive. They are together but they are also each alone with their private thoughts. The scene leaves him with an emptied-out feeling inside each time, as if he’d been crying for a long time and finally stopped. He tells this to Chloe. The hour is late and it feels safe for these sorts of confessions. She is lying on her bed, one foot dangling over the side.

“I don’t think anybody has ever put that into words for me before but…” Chloe nods thoughtfully.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Are they making a memory? He thinks they are. It’s not the one he’d tried to plan for. But if there’s anything he’s learned over the past few months, it’s that plans have a way of middle-fingering you. Sometimes, though, they also leave you a note that says, Look, something better will come along. Believe. Believe and adapt.

She smiles at him.

“What?” he says, self-conscious.

“You went to a lot of trouble to make this special. It’s like the Twenty-Eight-Dollar Panda of proms.”

He laughs, beach-day warm inside. More than anything, Miles wishes she were there with him, the two of them slow dancing, her head on his shoulder, the sketchy corsage tickling his jaw. Miles doesn’t want the evening to end but it has to sometime.

“So, I had one last song planned. Final dance?” He holds up his phone and wiggles it.

“Sure.” Chloe sits up. Her hair is flat at the back from her pillow.

“Great! I guess this is the final slow dance before the mic drop and getting vomit-drunk in the limo?”

Chloe laughs. “Yeahhhh. Let’s skip that part.”

“Agreed. If I vomit, it’s gonna be from eating Swedish Fish and popcorn together.”

“Time it for after our Zoom, Miles-y. So … how do we do this?”