MARCH 15
2 MONTHS BEFORE PROM NIGHT
Jane was losing her mind, and her sisters were loving every single second of it. While they cheered for each dress she tried on, Jane rolled her eyes dramatically. She didn’t really do dressing up, and prom was bound to be the bane of her existence, yet she was here. This tiny boutique had little words of encouragement everywhere, and Jane kept drawing hockey plays in her notebook between dresses. Her group chat was blowing up with each picture she sent Steph, PK, and Sam, but she couldn’t bring herself to check what they were saying about the dress. No doubt something about how beautiful she looks, and how not-awkward prom is going to be.
Yeah, right.
Sam, apparently, was on her way to the boutique to help Jane’s mom critique every dress in the store, but she had yet to arrive. There was only two dresses left in the room with her, blue and orange (Islanders colors, her hockey obsessed brain told her), and they were the ones she’d liked the most on the rack. Orange first, she resolved, and grimaced as she stepped into it.
She finally squeezed herself into the dress, and stepped out to the looks of horror on the faces of her sisters. Apparently, this dress wasn’t the one. She walked around, and saw how horrible she looked in the orange monstrosity of a dress, and booked it straight back into the dressing room. That left one dress, a deep blue with a thigh-high slit that Jane hoped looked as good on her as it did on the rack. She slipped it on as quickly as possible, and it zipped all the way up the side.
Sam was standing there when she walked out. A gasp escaped Sam’s mouth, as her hand came up to cover it. Wolf whistles ensued from Jane’s sisters and the shopkeepers, and Jane guessed she’d found a keeper before she even got to the mirror. Stepping up those steps and looking at the way the dress almost made her muscled frame look delicate, she knew this was it.
Jane had seen the movies, and all those girls having their moments in their dresses, but she never expected it to be like this. Where everything clicked into place and you felt like a dress was made for you, but Jane felt it in that moment. Jane cracked a smile at Sam, the first one she’d given anyone that day.
APRIL 19
1 MONTH BEFORE PROM NIGHT
Sam’s mother was in a frenzy, hunting down a dress for her prom. The two had argued over weather Sam had to wear a dress for two weeks, Sam insisting she could wear her gameday suit, and her mom insisting it was her one and only chance to go all out for something. The deciding factor was Jane getting that damned beautiful blue dress, leaving Sam out in the cold after losing that argument to her mother. They were at their third boutique in downtown Toronto, Sam was trying to disappear while her mom piled up dress after dress in her dressing room. She texted the address to the group chat, but she knew only one of her friends would even consider coming.
Jane was there by the time she got the first dress on, and Jane hated it.
“Orange just isn’t your color.” Jane told her, just as her mother said something along the same lines. Sam got rid of four more orange dresses, quickly, and Jane helped her mother return them to the racks. Blue turned out to not be “her color” either. Red, though, was a whole different story.
She tried on the dress that had shorts built into it as a joke, but it turned out to be the best dress there. Sam had plenty of layers of tulle to make her mother happy, and a way for her long legs to breathe, which made Sam happy. Jane snapchatted the whole experience on her story, and Sam thought it was a bit strange that Hilary Knight, Olympic medalist who is currently Jane’s best friend on Snapchat, was going to be seeing her prom dress. When she voiced this, Jane just cackled for a few minutes, before sending more snapchats to “Hils.”
Sam doesn’t know why the idea of Jane snapchatting Hilary Knight constantly makes her stomach turn like that, but she doesn’t like where this is going, not one bit.
APRIL 23
2 WEEKS BEFORE PROM NIGHT
Jane was losing her mind, and her sisters were enjoying it thoroughly. First things first, Steph had invited her to a wild party this weekend and Jane had actually gone, which was a miracle in itself, but Sam had shown up, too. They were inseparable all night, matching each other shot-for-shot in their weirdly competitive best friend way, and yelling the whole time. By the end of the night, both of them had had way too many shots and three beers on top of that. They ended up crashing in Steph’s guest bedroom, but not before Sam managed to ask Jane to be her prom date.
That’s what’s been sitting in her mind ever since. She’s not seen Sam since then, unless they were on the ice or in class, and it’s eating Jane alive. Jane goes from hockey practice, to working on homework with PK, to gossiping with PK, to trying to get PK and Steph to guess what’s going wrong with her life, to storming out of the library and hiding in the plaza as a new routine every day.
Jane needs to know what else she said that night, she needs to know what Sam remembers of their drunken encounters so that she can apologize and they can go back to their easy friendship. One day, when they co-captain a team in the NWHL together, they’re going to look back on this and… laugh, right? Oh, god, did Jane plan a future for them before she even realized she was in love with Sam? If she could just remember Sam’s reaction to her plan, this would be totally all right.
Like it’s any help at all, Jane remembers saying yes. She guesses that Sam’s her prom date now.
MAY 1
1 WEEK BEFORE PROM NIGHT
Sam figures this is all her fault, as she stands in line to buy a corsage for her new prom date, her best friend and longtime crush, Jane Tavares. She can’t believe that’s a real sentence she can say. Two weeks ago she was sulking and hiding from Jane, hoping the other girl wouldn’t remember what she’d said.
Samantha Gagner, the people’s champion (as she’d once called herself when she was too drunk and playing her ninth round of consecutive beer pong), didn’t deal with this crazy forgetting the whole night shit. She remembered bits and pieces, like Jane saying the words “co-captain” and her asking her best friend to the prom.
This was all Steph’s fault, Sam had decided hours ago. All Steph’s fault that Jane had been guilted into going to prom with her, all Steph’s fault that Sam got that drunk, all Steph’s fault for hosting the damn party in the first place. It was obvious, Steph could be blamed for everything if Sam had to run away to the Canadian wilderness and was never seen again. Steph would have to deal with Kelli Stack knocking on her door and asking about the prospective hockey star.
Finally, Sam gets the corsage ordered and smiles at the florist nervously. The florist winks at her.
This is going to be a long week.
MAY 6
1 DAY BEFORE PROM NIGHT
With a huge and very fake smile on her face, Jane faced her sisters out on the basketball court behind their hour. Lots of yelling and several slam dunks later, Jane returned to her house to catch a snack in the kitchen. Her mom was seated at the table with her father, and they looked concerned.
“Um, what’s up?” Jane asked quickly.
“We’ve heard you’re going to the prom with Samantha Gagner, and we just want to let you know that we, um, we,” Jane’s mom starts to stammer a little bit.
“We support you, kid. No matter what. Unless you quit hockey for a stupid reason.” Jane’s dad tries to joke, and even though it falls flat, the tears she cries because of it are real. She managed to not even have to come out to her parents and they’re still supporting her.
“Maybe this prom won’t be the worst thing ever…” she texts PK as soon as she’s about to sleep.
When she wakes up she has about 900 texts on her phone, most of them pictures of Dobermans that are labeled “JANE LOOKS LIKE THIS RIGHT??” in the group chat, and most of the answers are “HOLY SHIT YES.” Sometimes, Jane loves her friends, they know exactly how to cheer her up.
MAY 2
PROM NIGHT
Sam gets ready at a slower pace than most girls, starting off in the morning with a hair appointment, and ending her time at the makeup place about twenty minutes before pictures start. She’s nervous, she knows it’s not a real date by any means, because both parties have to want to be on a real date, but she’s guessing this is about as close as she’s going to get to a real date with Jane, ever. So she’s planning on savoring the moments she’s allowed.
Their dresses may not match, but the corsages do, and their mothers coo at them over and over again until they finally get fed up of posing, and Jane starts doing that weird lip curl thing she always ends up doing in hockey team pictures. Sam makes fun of her for a few minutes, and Jane’s smile morphs from strange grimace to actual joy. Sam decides in that moment that this whole mess was worth it.
“I came out to my parents by accident yesterday.” Jane tells Sam in the limo, her face stony. Sam’s jaw drops, literally, and she finds herself gawking at her best friend.
Jane came out to her parents yesterday. Jane came out. Jane.
Jane likes girls, too. Jane could, conceivably, think Sam is girlfriend material. Sam is considering passing out.
“Sammy, please say something. I’m getting nervous over here, I just realized that my coming out was too low key.”
Jane turns her face to stare out the window, all signs of her former happiness missing. Sam is silent until they arrive at the event center where the prom is being held. PK and Steph try to wave them along, but Sam grabs Jane’s hand before they can go inside.
“You know I’m gay too, right?” Sam asks, smiling at Jane. The other girl’s eyes look hopeful, and Sam doesn’t even care about the makeup she’s going to ruin, she has to kiss Jane’s beautiful face. Jane kisses back so quickly, Sam loses it into the kiss, forgetting they’re in front of half the student body until PK’s catcalls get loud enough for them to hear her.
“Why did we make friends with her?” Jane asks into Sam’s shoulders.
“She sends the best pictures of dogs, what are you talking about?” Sam responds, quickly, like it’s a no brainer.
“Oh god, you’re right. What would we do without her?”
“Well, if we’re talking about right here, right now, a lot…”
Jane puts her head in her hands and laughs, really laughs, for the first time that day.