Prom Ch. 15: Catharsis

"Becca!?"

Rebecca spun back around with a start and smiled. Rachel bit her lip nervously and spoke.

"Um, so, tomorrow at school. Um, are we like-?"

She didn't know how to get it out but she desperately needed to know where things stood. Maybe Rebecca didn't hate her anymore but she still wasn't ready to be her friend again. Rachel prayed that wasn't the case and she held her breath waiting for Rebecca to respond.

Rebecca smirked and squinted her eyes back into the early-evening sun. She remembered what she'd said to Rachel that day in the parking lot. It was the last thing she'd ever told her, outside of a few snarky comments in passing. She pursed her lips and repeated them, this time with a twist.

"Well, um, you know how you've been avoiding me?" She paused and lowered her voice with a nervous smile of her own.

"Well, maybe, you can, like, go ahead and stop doing that."

The girls' eyes met, and for another perfect moment, pure joy washed over them both. Rebecca's words had been like the undoing of her own spell and Rachel felt as if something evil and poisonous had just been sucked from her body. She was whole again and every cell in her being lit up in ecstasy. She knew in an instant that she would cry if she spoke so she simply smiled and nodded rapidly through clenched teeth.

Rebecca returned the look and gave her a gentle wave as she again turned back to her car. Rachel watched her pull out of the parking lot and disappear down the road. She felt warm and cozy as she stood in the late-spring breeze. Finally pulling herself away, she took a deep breath and turned towards the restaurant. There was only one more thing that she needed to do.

***

Kevin was indeed already seated at a table and he waved to her happily as she walked in. She flashed a genuine grin and joined him. He noticed right away that her eyes were red and he asked in alarm if she was okay. She reassured him that, actually, everything was really great and she rubbed her stomach playfully, telling him that she was starving so they better order quickly before she took a bite out of the table.

The pair enjoyed their food and laughed together for a long time. They were carefree and happy, but both were delicately aware of what had happened between them (as well as between Rachel and the other boys) earlier that morning. It hung over the conversation noticeably and Rachel knew that finally she needed to address it. It was why she had invited him out in the first place.

She firmly took Kevin's one hand in hers and steadied herself as she began to lay it all out. At first, Kevin had tried to stop her. He apologized for being moody and told her that what she did wasn't his business. But Rachel pressed on. It wasn't necessary to give him the gory details of each encounter but it was important for her to tell him what she had done and why.

Kevin sat frozen while she told him about Rob and Jeff. And even Tyler. She then spoke of the year she'd had at Pine Valley, especially the past few months. She talked about Rebecca and Matt and Brad (not explicitly, but in general terms) and the dark path that it had led her down. She tried her best to keep from wincing or tearing up as she took in his reactions to each of her tales. His face displayed a range of emotions, from shock to sadness to jealousy to even a touch of arousal. He wasn't naïve to the way she was, but Rachel knew it still had to be incredibly difficult for him to hear it all spelled out.

When she was done, she fought back a tear as she asked him for forgiveness for the way she had treated him that day. She knew it was hurtful and callous and she only hoped that him having some insight into where she had been mentally over this stretch would help him to understand. It was an explanation, not an excuse. And if he couldn't forgive her, then she'd have to live with that.

She eventually stopped speaking and looked across the table nervously as she awaited any kind of response. She released her grip from his hand and pulled her fingers back, sweaty and red. It was obvious that Kevin's brain was racing and he was desperately trying to process everything; the struggle was evident in his face. Finally, she swallowed as he cleared his throat and began to speak as evenly as he could muster.

He accepted her apologies and told her how sorry he was to hear about how bad things had gotten. He said that he wished he had been around more and maybe it would have all been different. He smiled warmly as he spoke but his face twitched nervously as he eventually addressed the thing that had been on his mind all day long: their moment together on Jeff's couch early that morning.

Kevin practically mumbled and his gaze shot everywhere except for onto Rachel. He told her that what she had initiated had been confusing to him, but still wild and incredible. And while it was no huge secret to either of them, he, for the first time, verbalized the idea that he had some feelings for her and hoped maybe what she had done meant that she felt something similar.

Finally, he managed to steady himself enough to clearly ask why she had done it and what it meant for them going forward. Rachel had swallowed hard as he stammered through his words. She had known it was coming. And this would be the hardest part. She trembled and sucked her breath in deeply as she prepared to give him her answer.

Kevin felt his ears ring dully as he listened to her response. His stomach (already in knots) twisted deeply as she gave him the answer that he had always known was coming, but that he had briefly allowed himself to consider might have changed.

It had begun positively. Rachel told him that she did indeed have some feelings for him and that she had come to realize this throughout the day as she had poured over a year's worth of memories, good and bad, distant and fresh. She contrasted him against the types of guys she had been with and knew deep down that he was a better person than most of them, if not all. Kevin had allowed his heart to flutter momentarily, yet he knew there would be a "but."

And there was.

Rachel finally let a tear squeeze from her eye as she shakily told him that now simply wasn't the time for them. A bright ray of light had just sliced deeply through the blackness she'd been consumed by for months and it was giving her a second chance. She needed to focus on digging out of the mess she'd carelessly made of her life while she had suffered in silence. School. Friendships. Her future.

Herself.

Everything seemed to be back on the table and she knew that it would take every ounce of what she had to pull it all off. Even then, there was no guarantee there would be a happy ending for her. Plus, the directions they were going (at least at the moment) couldn't be further apart. Rachel would be fighting for her life to salvage her academic future, while Kevin was going off to college on the other side of the country in a few months. What sense did it make to try to start something now?

Rachel sadly watched the color drain from Kevin's face as she let him down as gently as she could. But she gripped his hand again and stared deeply into his eyes as she kept her voice firm. It wasn't just the awful timing. It was her. He might have this fantastical notion that he was the right guy for her, and maybe that was the case. But the simple truth was that she was not the right girl for him. It was trite and cliché, but he deserved something better.

Right now at least, Rachel was a mess. And even if she could dig out and regain herself, she still was who she was. A promiscuous, free-spirit who would certainly end up hurting him if she tried to change too quickly. The one thing worse than letting him down right now would've been to tell him what he wanted to hear, only to break his heart when she inevitably screwed things up. And to cheapen their bond by turning him into just another casual hookup? The lustful part of his brain might be sure he wanted that more than anything, but it wasn't right either.

Rachel thought back to her mental battle on the couch that morning when she'd been kissing him roughly and laboring over why she couldn't just make herself submit to him like she did with so many other guys. She knew now. It was because she cared about him. The roster of boys she'd been with over the past year? She liked a few, and was turned on by several more. And with almost all of them, she'd been aroused by the act itself. But she didn't truly care about any of them. And likely, none of them truly cared about her that way either.

Rachel didn't verbalize those specific thoughts as she spoke but she made her message clear. Kevin deserved more than what was she was right now, and if he pushed her, it would end badly for both of them. Maybe in a year or at some other point down the road when each of them had stepped into their new lives and hopefully found some normalcy, maybe then this could be something that worked. Rachel even found herself hoping so. She knew that ultimately a guy like Kevin would be the best thing for her. But who she was now, and likely who she'd still be for a while, would never allow that to happen.

When she finished speaking again, she wiped away a few tears and studied Kevin's face, as they both sat in silence. He was obviously dejected, but on some level he had to know that she was right. Maybe he didn't want to admit it at the moment, and it certainly didn't make the pain any less intense, but it was the truth.

After a minute or two, Kevin composed himself and finally smiled once again. He told her that he was disappointed but that he understood. He cared about her and he would be her friend in any capacity that she needed him to be. And that he hoped their talk didn't make things weird or prevent her from leaning on him if the situation so required.

In a strange way, he felt a little better knowing that what she had done that morning with the other guys wasn't truly what she'd wanted. Maybe some of it was, but he decided that he'd prefer to think that had things been different, that she never would've given into them like she had. He wasn't sure if that was true, but he would believe in it for now. He had to.

The pair started to joke again and the awkward tension eventually dissipated. Before long, they were on new subjects, and when they finished their dinner, they hugged warmly in the parking lot. Rachel promised that she'd keep in much better contact with him, and while she'd surely be busting her ass trying to save her school career over the next few weeks, she definitely wanted to hang out with him a bunch that summer before they went their separate ways. They parted with smiles, both feeling pretty good about what had transpired. There was a hint of dull sadness that stayed with each of them (especially Kevin) but in a way, things seemed more potentially hopeful for them than ever before, if not in the short term.

When Rachel got home, she finally debriefed with her parents about the prom night. She left out all of the unnecessary parts but regaled them with the good times she'd had with Kevin and old friends. When she returned to her room, the first thing she did was dig through her laundry basket to find her infamous yellow shirt. She smirked and cheerfully brought it to the laundry room and threw it in the washer. She took off the outfit she was wearing as well and tossed it in, even though she'd barely worn it.

She stood in her underwear and watched for a minute as the cycle began and soapy water poured all over the pile of clothes. Her shirt. The black shorts. Everything. She had decided on the way home that she no longer wanted to burn her yellow shirt and bury the memory. It was part of her. She was who she was and running from it wouldn't change a thing. She had gone through the darkness and come out finally into a brand new day.

Later that night, she took her fresh load of laundry back to her room and dug through them again. She'd fold everything in the morning, but for now, a few things needed to be dealt with. She fetched her yellow shirt and black shorts from the pile and shook them out roughly. The stain was gone, even though her brain could still plainly see it. She smiled and brought everything to her closet where she stood in the same spot where she'd cried and reminisced all day.

With another smirk, she grabbed a hanger and glanced around for the right spot. In the back of her closet, still visible but squarely on the periphery, she hung the outfit up. Right next to the low-cut sweater she'd worn the night she met Matt, and the white t-shirt and black yoga pants she'd had on briefly the morning she'd gone off the deep end in his basement with Brad.

She stepped back and stared at the three outfits. They were all so different from each other, but were woven together through their representation of moments that she so desperately wished had never happened, but that she didn't want to forget. She closed the closet door with a satisfied smile and tucked herself into her soft bed.

The events of the day flashed through her brain one final time, but she no longer saw them with dread. They were simply pages in a book and they formed a part of her story. She smiled warmly. She felt true peace for the first time all day, and maybe in months. As her eyes fluttered and sleep began to take hold, she was left only with the optimism that tomorrow offered. She had so much to do.

And in the morning, a new chapter would begin.

NEXT --- Epilogue