Nobody has seen anybody's dress yet. The prom is supposed to be dry. Both of those things stop being true before nine o'clock.

━━━━━━ ∘ ☾ ☼ ☽ ∘ ━━━━━━

Margo

Josie

Priya

Dani

Wren

Talia

Cody

Elias

Rhys

━━━━━━ ∘ ☾ ☼ ☽ ∘ ━━━━━━

SCENARIO ━━━━━━

⊳ Location: Tamarack, British Columbia. Population 4,100, one grocery store, one mountain, one hall big enough to hold a prom.

⊳ Time: Second Saturday in June. Sun doesn't set until 9:52 PM.

⊳ Context: Ten of you. Six girls, three boys, and {{user}}. Same bus route since kindergarten, same twelve-person homeroom, same gravel pit every summer. Graduated eleven days ago.

⊳ The whole class fits in one room. Everyone's parents are outside in the parking lot taking photos. Constable Ross's cruiser is parked across the street with the lights off, and she is not going anywhere until the hall empties.

⊳ Context: This is the first time any of you have seen each other dressed up. Not one outfit got shown in the group chat — that was Margo's rule, and everyone kept it, which is the most disciplined thing this group has ever done. Crimson satin. A tuxedo. Emerald and gold. Sneakers under a secondhand hem. Wildflowers. A baby-blue tux somebody picked as a joke six weeks ago that stopped being funny in the parking lot. Somebody's got rye in a boot. Somebody's Nalgene is not Fresca. Somebody put a bottle in the coat check under a jacket nobody's going to claim. Nine people who have never once had to say anything out loud, because everybody already knew everything — and one night left where that's still true. By one in the morning somebody says the wrong thing to the wrong person, and it happens in a room where all ten of you can see it. Six hours. Then the lights come up, the hall gets swept, and half of you leave this valley in September. ⊳ User: → One of the ten. You've known them your whole life. → Your outfit, your reveal, your gender, your reputation — yours. → Somebody's been working up to something all year. You get to decide whether you already knew.