JAMIE: Hungry?
SHAY: I’d wanted attention my whole life, but I was also scared of it. Then everything fell together senior year. I was going to be valedictorian. I won Miss Texas, and suddenly I was giving speeches to girls in elementary schools, judging 4-H competitions, cutting ribbons. Kids even started talking to me at school, inviting me to things.
JAMIE: Suddenly I was sharing you with everyone.
SHAY: I was so happy. It felt like I was carrying around a tiny sun in the center of my rib cage. The day I got nominated for prom queen, Anderson Thomas walked up to me in the cafeteria and asked me to be his date. He’d barely talked to me before that. I was living a fairy tale.
The night of prom, when I was getting ready in the bathroom, I thought about that lock-in right after my dad left. How I’d felt so alone, watching other people be happy. It was finally my turn.
JAMIE: Right.
（Rustling.）
SHAY: I know I wasn’t actually alone at the lock-in, because you were there. It’s just how I felt.
（Silence.）
JAMIE: Of course. And… It’s a stupid detail, but for historical accuracy, I asked you to prom, too.
SHAY: Oh. I’d forgotten. You were being nice, since no one had asked me the year before.
JAMIE: Mmm.
SHAY: Even my mom was proud of me. She came into the bathroom after I got out of the shower and gave me her face mask, the expensive one. We hadn’t been close since Mr. Trevors, so for a while, we just stood there awkwardly, looking at our reflections in the mirror. She used to say I was the spitting image of my dad. As I stood there, my heart started pounding, because I never knew if looking at me made her happy or sad. Finally, she broke the silence and said, “I used to dream of being prom queen.”
Her voice was soft, and I realized she was looking at herself in the mirror, not me. Then she said, “You already have a better shot than I ever did.”
I said, “At winning?”
And she said, “At all of it. At life.”
JAMIE: And you did win. That’s the thing, Shay. You have this picture of yourself in your head that I don’t understand, because you won so many times. You became the prom queen. Slow-danced in the gym in front of everyone.
（Silence.）
JAMIE: What?
SHAY: The dance was the last good part of the night.
JAMIE: You’re talking about the after-party. If you’re worried I’m still mad, I’m not. Everyone gets wasted and does things they regret. Besides, I was probably being overprotective.
SHAY: I can’t remember, to be honest.
JAMIE: You remember what happened with Anderson, though.
SHAY: That’s the thing, Jamie. I don’t.
JAMIE: You’re saying…
SHAY: I was so excited to win and be Anderson’s date, be at that party as queen, that I made a stupid mistake and drank too much. People kept passing me shots, and I felt so grateful to be there, I just kept accepting. The last thing I remember is all of us dancing in Anderson’s living room.
JAMIE: Do you remember climbing on top of the coffee table?
（Silence.）
SHAY: In front of everyone?
JAMIE: You were wearing your crown, and it seemed like…you wanted the attention. Like you were onstage.
SHAY: I don’t remember that.
JAMIE: Which means you probably don’t remember Anderson picking you up and trying to carry you upstairs, and me yelling at you.
SHAY: What did you say?