A Boy Asked Me to Dance at Prom Because No One Else Would Due to My Scars – The Next Day, His Parents and Officers Showed up at My Door
Then I grabbed my backpack and headed for the bus stop.
Because for the first time since that accident, I felt as if the truth about that fire was finally close.
And I needed to hear it from Caleb himself.
***
The bus dropped me three blocks from the spot. The place used to be an old factory site before the town shut it down years ago. Now it was mostly broken windows, graffiti, and teenagers trying to avoid adults.
I needed to hear it from Caleb himself.
***
I spotted a group of football players sitting near one of the buildings almost immediately.
The second they noticed me walking toward them, the conversations stopped. A couple of them exchanged looks. One guy laughed under his breath. I ignored it all and kept walking until I stopped right in front of them.
“Has any of you seen Caleb?” I asked.
Nobody answered at first.
Then one of the boys leaned back against the wall and smirked. “Why? Are you his girlfriend now?”
A few of them laughed.
A couple of them exchanged looks.
I should’ve turned around right then, but after everything I’d heard that morning, I wasn’t backing down.
“I just need to talk to him.”
Most of them avoided eye contact after that, but finally, another player named Drew spoke up.
“He might be at Taylor’s place.”
“I got scared and rode home. The next morning, when everyone started talking about the fire and what happened to you…” He swallowed hard. “I kept thinking if I told anyone, Mason’s life would be over.”
“So you stayed quiet?”
“I was nine.”
That made me stop for a second.
He explained that Mason kept getting into more trouble as he got older. Juvenile detention. Fights. Eventually, prison.
But Caleb never stopped thinking about that night.
Especially after starting the same school as me years later.
“I got scared and rode home.”
“Initially, I tried avoiding you,” Caleb admitted. “Every time I looked at you, I thought about the fire.”
But avoiding me became impossible.
Classes. Hallways. Football games. Group projects.
And eventually, guilt turned into something else.
Then Caleb told me something I hadn’t expected at all.
Before prom, he’d overheard some guys joking about how nobody would ask me to dance.
“I snapped at them. One of them almost punched me over it.”
“Initially, I tried avoiding you.”
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