For the next two weeks, my son changed.
He bought a navy suit with money he’d saved from working weekends at the bookstore.
He asked me whether a blue tie looked too serious.
One evening, I came downstairs and found him watching a dance tutorial on his phone, moving stiffly across the living room when he thought nobody was looking.
When he saw me, he froze.
I tried very hard not to laugh.
“I’m leaving.”
“Mom.”
“I’m already gone.”
His ears turned red, and I walked upstairs smiling.
But beneath that happiness, something worried me.
I hated myself for thinking it.
Maybe it said something ugly about me too.
Still, I couldn’t stop wondering why Celeste Monroe, after almost four years of barely speaking to Tobin, had suddenly chosen him.
I had heard stories about prom pranks.
Kids inviting someone as a joke.
Someone secretly filming the reaction.
A group waiting to laugh.
The thought of Tobin walking into that gym full of hope only to discover he’d been made into someone’s entertainment made my stomach hurt.
A few nights before prom, I tried to approach the subject carefully.
“Tobin, you know you could call me anytime that night, right? For any reason.”
He looked up from his laptop.
“Mom.”
“I’m just saying.”
“You think she’s going to embarrass me.”
There was no anger in his voice.
That somehow made it worse.
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to.”
He looked down at the screen for a moment.
Then he said something that stayed with me.
“I know what people think when they look at her and then look at me. I’m not stupid.”
My chest tightened.
“Tobin—”
“But maybe, for once, somebody just wants me there.”
I had no answer.
So I walked over, kissed the top of his head, and told him I hoped he had the best night of his life.
Prom night arrived on a warm Saturday in May.
Celeste pulled into our driveway at seven.
She was wearing a pale gold dress, simple but beautiful, and her hair fell loosely over one shoulder.
When Tobin opened the door, she smiled at him in a way that seemed completely genuine.
Still, I watched everything.
How she spoke to him.
Whether she looked toward anyone hiding in the car.
Whether she exchanged some secret glance with a friend.
Nothing.
She thanked me when I took their picture and even asked me to take another because Tobin had blinked in the first one.
Then they left.
I stood in the driveway long after the taillights disappeared.
For the next three hours, I accomplished absolutely nothing.
I turned on the television and didn’t follow a single scene.
I folded the same basket of laundry twice.
At ten fourteen, my phone rang.
Celeste Monroe.
My heart dropped.
I answered so quickly that I nearly knocked over my tea.
“Hello?”
“Mrs. Hale? It’s Celeste.”
Immediately, I heard music behind her.
My mind went straight to disaster.
“Is Tobin okay?”
“Oh! Yes. He’s completely fine.”
I closed my eyes.
“Then why are you calling me?”
There was a pause.
“Because I think you were worried about why I asked him.”
I didn’t know what to say.
Apparently, my face had been easier to read than I’d thought.
Celeste laughed softly.
“It’s okay. My mom would’ve thought the same thing.”
Then her voice changed.
“Do you know my brother Milo?”
I knew Celeste had a younger brother, but that was about all.
“Tobin has mentioned him once or twice, I think.”
“Did he ever tell you what he did for him?”
I sat down slowly.
“No.”
Celeste was quiet for a moment.
Then she told me.
Two years earlier, Milo had started freshman year at Willow Creek.
He was small for his age, painfully shy, and struggled badly with math.
Within months, his grades collapsed.
But that wasn’t the worst part.
Milo had also become an easy target for a group of boys who liked making jokes at his expense.
Nothing dramatic enough to bring teachers running.
Just enough to make a fourteen-year-old dread school every morning.
They took his seat at lunch.
Mocked the way he spoke.
Called him stupid when he couldn’t answer questions in class.
Eventually, Milo stopped eating in the cafeteria.
One afternoon, Tobin found him sitting alone at the far end of a hallway with an untouched lunch beside him and a math worksheet on his knees.
Tobin sat down.
That was all.
