He listened whenever I panicked about exams.
He brought soup to my house when I got sick.
And whenever he laughed — really laughed — I couldn’t help laughing too.
Eventually, I fell in love with him.
When we started dating, though, the entire school seemed to think that made me a joke too.
“Why are you dating him?”
“You know you could get a normal boyfriend, right?”
“I guess she likes feeling tall.”
At first, those comments crushed me.
Later, I tried pretending they didn’t matter.
Elliot handled it better than I did. He’d spent years learning how to ignore cruel people.
Still, every now and then, when someone thought he couldn’t hear them, I’d notice a flicker in his expression.
A tiny crack.
Like he was exhausted from constantly proving he deserved basic respect.
That was why prom mattered so much to me.
I wanted him to have one perfect night.
