“Maybe they just improvised?”

“I guess.”

“What does it even mean?”

He shrugs. “No idea,” he says, then quickly looks away.

I don’t press on. I just flip the pages, ignoring the turning of my stomach when he moves closer again, his arm touching my back as he leans into me. I stop at the pictures of his senior prom and search the pages for any sign of him. There’s none of him. But there’s one of Heidi—his ex—with a crown on her head next to a guy who isn’t Dylan. “You didn’t win prom king?” I ask, eyeing him sideways.

“Nah.” He shakes his head slowly. “I think that was the year I put my foot down and told Heidi I didn’t care much for any of that shit.”

“That shit?”

“Yeah. You know… the whole arm candy thing and trying to get votes and making posters and pins and whatever.”

“So you just let another guy stand next to her, get these pictures, wear matching crowns and hold the title of king and queen on a night that was probably important to her?”

He leans back a little. “You make me sound like an asshole.”

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I guess I just see it differently.”

“How do you see it?”

“It’s just a night of memories, you know? High school isn’t forever.” I pause a moment and swallow the lump in my throat, the memories I speak of flooding my mind. My voice drops to a whisper. “Sometimes high school is as good as it gets.”

He takes the book from me and throws it behind us, then grabs the one from junior year. “I don’t know,” he says, flipping through the pages, most likely looking for me again. “I guess we had different experiences.”

“Oh, I’m sure we did,” I tell him, moving his hand away so I can flip to the page I know is mine. I point to my picture and add, “You and your circle of friends owned the school.”

“We did?” he asks, clearly surprised.

“Don’t act like you didn’t know that.”

“I mean, I guess. It was more my friends and Heidi, though. It wasn’t really me.”

I shrug. “Then you were popular by association. Still valid.”

“Maybe,” he mumbles, his mind elsewhere. “How do you even remember this?”

I roll my eyes. “Please. You and those guys you hung out with. All the girls knew you.”

He tears his gaze away from my picture and slowly looks up at me. “What?” he says, a half smirk pulling his lips. “Did you crush on Jake or something?”

“No. Not Jake. Logan though….”

He pushes on my arm until I fall to my side, losing it in a fit of laughter. “What? Are you offended?” I joke.

“Offended? No.” He drops his gaze back to my picture. “Jealous? Maybe.”

Butterflies are stupid.

He taps on the book. “You were on the swim team?”

“Yeah. All four years.”

He starts flipping the pages again. “Is there a picture of you in your swim gear?” His hand stops mid-movement as he looks from the book and straight ahead. “Wait. This is a little skeezy.” He throws the book over his shoulder and picks up the one from senior year. “You were eighteen at some point in this one, right?”

I try to take it from him but he won’t let go. His finger skims across the page of H’s until he comes across my picture. Then he stops. I watch his face as his eyes narrow and he chews the corner of his lip, just for a moment before he faces me. His throat bobs with his swallow. “Future Mrs. Walters,” he murmurs. It’s neither a statement nor a question and I don’t know how to respond so I don’t. I just keep looking at him. And when his body tenses and his eyes drift shut, I know he’s found it. “You were prom queen?” he whispers.

“Yes.”

“Now I really feel like an asshole.”

“It’s fine.”

He’s silent a moment before tapping the book and saying, “And this Jeremy guy… he’s…”

“My boyfriend,” I whisper.

He drops the yearbook onto the floor and slowly stands up. Facing me, he rubs the back of his neck. “Was your boyfriend? Or is?”

“It’s irrelevant.”

He shakes his head. “How is it—”

“Because he’s dead, Dylan,” I cut in. I ignore the dropping of his jaw when I pick up the yearbook from the floor, along with the others on the bed and place them back in their spot on the shelf. “He died the summer after senior year, the day before we were meant to leave for college together.” I feel the lump rise to my throat, feel my heart drop to my stomach, killing the butterflies that were once so prominent. My eyes fill with tears—tears that I let slide across my cheek and over my jaw. Then I face him, giving him everything I am. Because what’s a little truth amongst the chaos we’ve created? “He’s dead, and that’s why it’s irrelevant.”

He licks his lips—his sad, dry eyes on my wet ones. “I’m sorry,” he says, taking a step forward, and I take a step back because I hate that look in his eyes—the one that warns me of what’s coming next.

So I beat him to it. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Okay.”

“Okay? Just okay?”

He shrugs and sits back down on the bed, his head lowered. Then, after a long moment of silence, he speaks. “I enlisted because I wanted more out of my life. I followed a girl I loved, who I thought loved me back, all the way to college because it’s what she wanted. I wanted her. And there was no either/or for us. Then things started to fall apart, things she was oblivious to—which I guess is a sign of what our relationship was like. I wasn’t happy. Not happy enough, anyway. I wanted to make a difference, serve a purpose, you know?” He looks up and my legs lead me—as if on their own—until I’m standing in front of him. “I ran away. I ran because I wanted to avoid the truth, and you—you’re doing the opposite. You’re facing it head on. Every day. And if drinking is how you do that, then I can’t tell you it’s wrong, or that you shouldn’t be doing it.” He tugs on my hand until I’m standing between his legs. “I got shot by a kid, Riley. A kid no more than twelve. And now he’s dead because of it. He’ll never go to high school, never dance with a girl he thinks he’s in love with, never follow his heart and learn from the mistakes of doing so.” Then he looks up, his eyes right on mine, and he says something that brings a sense of peace to my once fear-filled chaos. “You got to stand with a boy you love on a night you’ll never forget. You were his queen and he was your king and no one can take that away from you.”