At the graduation dance, Nora Henson asked me in front of everyone if she could have her first dance with Jayden Morton.
I didn't argue. Didn't make a scene.
Just quietly stepped aside.
Nora froze for a second, surprise flickering across her face as she looked at me.
But in the end, she still took Jayden's hand.
The music started. The two of them glided across the floor.
I turned and left.
I'd barely made it past the school gates when my phone buzzed.
“I told you, Jayden's shy. He just learned ballroom dancing and he's too nervous to dance with any other girl.”
“Can you quit it with the jealousy thing already?”
“If you keep this up, I won't even dare tell people you're my boyfriend once we're at Lakewood!”
I laughed.
She didn't know that just one day earlier,
I'd changed my college application from Lakewood University to Northfield Institute of Technology.
Opposite ends of the country.
Never seeing each other again.
……
Nora had worn a floor-length white dress to the dance, the hem threaded with fine silver stitching.
Under the lights, she looked like something that had stepped out of moonlight.
When she walked in on my arm, every pair of eyes in the room followed us.
A few guys even gave me a thumbs-up, saying things like “Damn, Daryl, you lucky bastard”.
But I couldn't feel any of it.
From the moment we stepped into the hall, Nora's attention wasn't on me.
She kept checking her phone, opening it and closing it, over and over.
I handed her a glass of juice. She took it but didn't drink.
Just set it on the nearest table, eyes still on the screen.
I knew who she was waiting for.
Jayden Morton.
The boy who'd transferred into our class a year ago.
His family had nothing. His mother was chronically ill; his father scraped by on odd jobs.
Somehow Nora had volunteered for the school's student-aid mentorship program and gotten herself assigned as Jayden's mentor.
At first it was just helping him apply for financial aid, dropping off study materials.
Then it became meals together, study sessions together, walks around the track together.
Classmates had warned me. Said the way Nora treated Jayden had crossed a line.
I told them it was fine. She was just kind.
But the line between kindness and something more is sometimes thinner than paper.
Ten minutes before the dance started, Jayden finally showed up.
He was wearing a navy suit, nothing special fabric-wise.
But it was clean and sharp, his hair carefully styled. He looked different from his usual self.
The moment Nora saw him, her whole face lit up.
I knew that smile too well.
Not politeness. Not courtesy. The kind where her eyes actually shone.
“I thought you weren't coming.”
She went to him, a slight whine threading through her voice.
“Sorry, got held up on the way.” Jayden smiled and pulled a small box from his pocket. “This is for you.”
Nora opened it. Inside was a bracelet.
Pale pink cord knotted into a simple braid, strung with a few white beads.
The kind of thing you'd find at a street stall for a couple of bucks.
She loved it.
“It's so pretty!”
She looked down and started unfastening the Givenchy bracelet on her wrist.
The one I'd given her.
Platinum chain, small dark-green enamel pendant.
For her sixteenth birthday, I'd had someone bring it back from overseas and clasped it on her myself.
That day she'd said something I still hadn't forgotten.
“Daryl, I'm going to wear this forever. I'll never take it off.”
Now she took it off.
Easy. Casual.
She held up her wrist, admiring the cheap handmade bead bracelet under the lights, the corners of her mouth curling up.
