Epilogue
"Smile!" my mom called as she held her camera in her hands, holding it up and pointing it at Leo, who was standing with his girlfriend, Yasmine. My mom continued to take photos and my brother was growing annoyed. Yasmine was giggling as my mom hopped around, capturing different angles of the couple.
"Alright, I think that's enough, mom," Leo blurted and my mom released a laugh.
"It's prom. There is no such thing as enough pictures," my mom responded as she glanced at them on her camera. "Next," she started, turning her attention to me and Phoenix. I looked at my boyfriend and sighed, shaking my head.
"Come on, she'll take a few pictures and then we'll be on our way," he whispered as he placed his hand on my waist, leading me to the spot where my brother had just taken his pictures. I had to lift the bottom of my red dress to keep it from getting dirty. I stood in front of Phoenix as he had his arms around me.
"Keep it PG," my father noted and Phoenix backed up a small amount, shooting my dad an apologetic glance.
"Wait!" a voice yelled from a few feet away and I turned to see Phoenix's mom running from the confines of her house with her phone in her hands.
"We're never getting out of here," Phoenix noted as he watched his mother jog over.
"Come on, give us a smile," my mother started.
"Say cheese!" Mrs. Carson encouraged as she held up her phone. I was suddenly blinded and she chuckled. "Oops, flash was on."
Once the photoshoot was over, I found myself following Phoenix to the car, listening as my father shouted from across the lawn. "Why don't you guys just ride with Leo and Yas?"
"Don't listen to him. He's just saying that so Leo can keep an eye on you guys," Avery called from the front porch where she was eating an apple. She was home from college and rather than staying out of state to spend time with her friends, she came right home to help me get ready for prom.
"Let's go," I muttered to Phoenix as he opened the door for me.
"You two have fun!" my mother and Mrs. Carson yelled simultaneously.
"I expect you home at 12:30!" my dad shouted as I closed the car door, rolling my eyes. "Keep an eye on them, Leo!"
"Whatever," Leo retorted as he got into his car with Yasmine, who was flaunting around in her orange dress.
As we drove to prom, Phoenix looked at me and smiled. "You look so beautiful."
"Thanks," I mumbled as I stared at him, shrugging with a sigh as I looked him over. "You look okay, I guess." His dark hair was brushed out so that it wasn't all over the place, like it usually is. His suit was crisp and clean and his bowtie was perfectly in place. He looked more than okay. He looked absolutely amazing, but I won't tell him that. He definitely doesn't need the ego boost.
"Okay?" he asked as he glanced at himself. "I look good."
"I guess," I trailed with a smile and he laughed, shaking his head.
"You're so stubborn," he told me and I shrugged again.
"You really don't need your head to get any larger," I responded as he grinned.
"So you're insinuating that I look good?" he asked and I rolled my eyes.
"Yeah, Phoenix, you look great," I admitted
"I know," he replied with a large smile on his lips. "Can you believe it?"
"If you say something about how good you look, I'm going to hit you," I threatened.
He chuckled, shaking his head. "We're seniors. In just a few months, we're going to be heading to college and starting our lives as adults." A few seconds later, he glanced at me. "At least I will be."
I rolled my eyes at him. He won't let it go that he's 18 now. "Shut up. You're barely 18," I retorted. He's been 18 for three months.
"I'm more 18 than you are," he responded.
"That doesn't even make sense!" I sighed in exasperation. I decided not to talk about the topic for too long. "So are you ready for college?"
"Yeah, I'm excited," he told me with a smile.
"Me, too," I honestly responded. We both opted for our state college, but not for the reasons you'd think. It had our desired majors and it had a good reputation. Our parents sat down with us (separately) and gave us a talk. Basically, they told us not to make our life decisions based on our relationship. Little did they know that we didn't even tell each other we'd applied for the college to begin with. I guess you can say that we may have made the final decision with a small amount of influence from the fact that we both got accepted, but we also decided that the school would be a good fit for the both of us.
As we pulled up to the prom location, we both got out of the car and started towards the building. A large fountain was in the middle of the lawn, spewing almost clear water from it's spout. The building itself was made primarily of glass and was lit up so that it seemed to be glowing. "They sure went all out," Phoenix mumbled as he pulled me to his side.
Leo and Yasmine were a few feet behind us and I heard Yasmine laughing loudly. They met a few months ago, through Cam, actually. Yasmine is her cousin who recently moved to town. She's nice, I guess. She's a bit blunt and can sometimes come off as rude, which makes her a perfect fit for my brother. The only problem is that she's returning back to her hometown for college and Leo, like me and Phoenix, is going to the state college. I'm not sure if they'll last but for the time being, they're working out pretty well. She's capable of making him smile and that's not something I see very often.
"Look," Phoenix whispered and I turned to see Alice and her date Veronica trekking towards the building. I guess they parked on the wrong side and now have to climb up a hill, giving me the impression that Alice was the one in charge of the directions. The story of how Alice met Veronica is a funny and sweet one.
The summer after our junior year, Alice got a job per her mother's request. This job happened to be in an ice cream shop a few blocks away from the beach. Veronica, who is a surfer and a volleyball player, would come into the restaurant every day with a few friends. She'd order the same thing- a strawberry scoop on a waffle cone with chocolate sprinkles. Alice formed a crush on the athletic girl with long, black hair, small brown eyes, and a large, upbeat smile. Because Alice is a nervous wreck, she would give the task of making the ice cream cone to whoever else was working. This was for two reasons; one being that she was too scared to even acknowledge Veronica, but also because she wasn't yet trained to use the ice cream machine.
One day, however, Alice's coworker was on break and it was up to Alice to make the strawbery cone with chocolate sprinkles for Veronica. Alice received a small amount of training but not enough to make her confident to take on the art of cone creation. So after taking Veronica's order, though uncalled for seeing as Alice had the cone sworn to memory, my friend decided to take a shot at making the sweet treat. As Alice was making the cone, she was lost in thought, struggling to think of something to say to the pretty girl standing a few feet away. This mental tangent resulted in ice cream overflowing from the cone's confines and splattering all over the floor. To make a long story short, Alice slipped on the ice cream and Veronica had to jump over the counter, turn off the machine, and help Alice up. The two have been talking a lot since and made the decision to go to prom together, though they remained without a title.
"They're cute together," Phoenix noted from beside me, pulling me back into reality. We were now entering the room where prom was taking place. Cam was waiting at a table with Elliot, her beau. I know what you're thinking- but what about Ramona? Well, in short, they broke up and Cam took on the task of helping him to get over her. A few months later, around Christmastime to be exact, I dropped by Cam's house to see how she was doing because she'd missed two days of school and was said to be 'sick,' but I wasn't the only one checking in. I'd entered her room to find the two playing tonsil tennis on her bed and sooner rather than later, they announced their relationship to our friends.
"Over here," I told him leading the way to the table where Cam sat with Elliot. Slowly but surely, Veronica and Alice arrived at the table, breathing heavily.
"You guys couldn't wait until after prom, could you?" Cam asked the two girls.
Veronica caught the innuendo much faster than Alice and offered a laugh, shaking her head. "No, we couldn't," she responded jokingly. Alice's eyes widened when she'd realized what had been said. She placed her hands on her red cheeks, shaking her head quickly.
"They're joking, Alice," Elliot whispered to her and she groaned as her face continued to redden significantly.
"I hate you guys," she mumbled and Veronica put on a fake frown.
"Even me?" she asked.
"No!" Alice responded a bit too quickly, earning a large grin from Veronica. This caused Alice to narrow her eyes. "You know what, I hate you, too."
"You don't mean that," Veronica teased.
"You guys look nice," Elliot announced as he turned to me and Phoenix, leaving the pair to bicker privately.
"Thanks," I smiled. "You guys do, too."
"If you couldn't tell, she chose the colors," Elliot responded as he looked down at his outfit. His suit was a lighter color gray with a white shirt and a pink bowtie to match Cam's dress.
"Yeah, I couldn't tell," Phoenix retorted with a smirk.
As the night played on, I found myself drifting between the dance floor and the table with either Phoenix at my side or with my girls on my arms. "Have you slowdanced with him yet?" Alice asked as we made our way to the bathroom.
"No," I told her. "Have you slow danced with Veronica?"
"No," she shook her head as she rung her hands together. "I want to kiss her tonight."
"You still haven't kissed her?" I asked. My friend was very private about her relationship with Veronica. Though they're not official girlfriends, they're pretty much together, if that makes sense. If there's an event where a plus one is required or recommended, they go together.
"No! She's kissed me on the cheek before but I just haven't gotten up the nerve to actually kiss her!" Alice sighed as she stared at me. "What if she thinks I'm not interested?"
"She definitely knows you're interested," I told Alice, who gave me an annoyed look.
"Because you guys always make dirty jokes," she scoffed.
"You're so innocent; it's hard not to," I told Alice before entering the cubicle.
The night continued and I found myself anticipating a slow song. However, each one that played wasn't the right one. Either I didn't know it or I wasn't on the dance floor the second it began. It had to be perfect. "Maybe if we stayed on the dance floor instead of hopping back and forth, we'd catch a song," Phoenix complained as I dragged him to the crowd of dancing people yet again.
"Stop complaining," I retorted and he mocked me in an annoying voice. As if on cue, a slow song, one that I actually knew, began to play and I whipped around and grinned at Phoenix.
"Finally," he retorted.
"This is supposed to be a romantic moment," I told him. "I want it to be perfect."
"You want to go outside and find a nice, exclusive gazebo where we can be alone?" he asked me with a roll of his eyes. His hands found my waist as I slung my arms around his neck, grinning up at him.
"It'd be nice," I replied and he smiled at me.
"Too bad," he retorted, leaning down and kissing my forehead.
"Shh..." I whispered. "You're ruining the moment."
"I am the moment," he rejoined. I leaned up and pressed my lips to his before burying my face in the crook of his neck, smiling like a giddy idiot as I did.
Later on, Phoenix and I ducked outside into the late night to cool down from dancing. "They're about to announce prom king and prom queen," Phoenix responded as we left the building into the dimly lit parking lot.
"Oh well," I shrugged as we stood outside. "It's not like we're missing out on anything special."
"Yeah..." he started. "Neither are they." I slowly turned my attention to what he was looking at. Veronica and Alice were standing beside a tree kissing. I nodded with a grin. Good for her. I clapped loudly and the two pulled apart, turning to look at me while chuckling.
"You might want to get inside. You guys were gone for so long time that they sent out a search team," Phoenix replied as we approached them slowly.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Veronica retorted as she rolled her eyes.
"Go on, get inside," Phoenix insisted with a smirk.
As they were walking, I saw Alice slip her hand into Veronica's and I cooed aloud. "What?" Phoenix asked me and I sighed.
"They grow up so fast," I told him, listening as their footsteps faded.
"Wasn't that her first kiss?" Phoenix asked and I nodded. "Not to be judgmental, but people lose a lot of other things on prom night, if you know what I'm saying."
I rolled my eyes at him. "Don't be rude," I retorted and Phoenix laughed, grinning at me. I gazed at him as he smiled at me.
"What?" he asked as curiously.
"I'm happy to be with you," I told him honestly. Five years ago, if you'd have asked me who I wanted to go to my senior prom with, Phoenix definitely would not have been the answer. In fact, that would've been the answer to a question like 'who do you want to move a million miles away ?' But here I am standing right across from the guy who used to bully me and pick on me, at our senior prom, after a little over a year of being together.
"I'd rather be at home," he responded in a joking voice and I narrowed my eyes.
"You ruined the moment yet again," I responded as I turned around.
"I was joking!" he called from behind me. "I'm happy to be here with you, too!" I grinned as I kept walking, listening as he chased behind me.
So maybe he's not so bad.