Everybody Needs Somebody To Hate

[MurderWeasel]

It was all Misty could do to keep from pacing. She needed to not do that, though. Nothing would be gained by it, and something would be lost: her balance, the feeling in her feet, or both. Misty didn't wear heels a lot. There were a lot of reasons for that, but mostly it was that they were impractical, more expensive, and there was only so much they could do for her anyways.But sometimes, on special occasions, she wanted to look her best, and then a bit of lift was just what she needed.

Tonight, her heels were silver. She'd considered ruby, briefly, and were she going alone that's probably what she would've gone with. Misty had kind of expected to be going to Prom alone, and had really been considering playing her role to the hilt in striped socks and something black and bulky, riding in on the broomstick that was her mom's beat-up old sedan, but then the theme had been revealed and it had inspired her and she'd decided she wanted to actually look decent, and then not too long after she'd found herself with a date and had discovered she wanted to look good.

Her dress was not entirely handmade. She hadn't had the time, and besides, she'd lucked out at Goodwill. It was a short, sleeveless, lacy white dress with a sweetheart neckline that flared out below the waist, and it hadn't been a perfect fit but she'd fixed that right up and now it was as comfortable as anything she'd wear to school. White was a bit of a gamble, because it looked maybe a bit more bridal than the situation called for, but it was a necessary concession to her modifications.

Misty had embroidered her dress with glow in the dark thread, picking out the shapes of constellations, tracing the connections between the stars. It was the sort of thing that would be unbearably tacky if obtrusive, but the thread was white in normal circumstances and so blended in with the patterns of the lace. It let her turn from normal attire to in-theme at the flick of a light switch, and she was very proud of that. The best part was, she'd probably spent less on it than most of her class had wasted to look like freaks.

Her hair was loose. It cascaded down her back. She'd curled it, and that had been a real pain but she thought the result was worth it. There was just something about the evening that suggested a little waviness would be appropriate. She was wearing dangling silver star earrings, and a subtle silver necklace. Her makeup had taken ages to achieve that not-really-wearing-much-makeup look. She was ready, and it was almost time, and she was so nervous and excited that staying still was taking all her willpower. Her mom had sent her to the front of the apartment to wait by the window just because she was becoming intolerable around her parents, checking her phone again and again to watch time march on. They were happy for her, though, both her parents. Her mom was glad to see her bubbling with enthusiasm over something normal for once, and her father had listened to her talk about it all with a little smile and had said her date was a lucky guy.

Cars passed by. Misty watched, waited. Then, there it was: a limo, pulling up in front of her little apartment. She had never ridden in a limo before. She would've shot to her feet, but the heels helped her patience, and she rose slowly. Elegantly, she hoped. She wasn't sure if she was visible through the window, but she wasn't taking any chances.

[MethodicalSlacker]

The gaudy interior of the limousine looked like something out of a science fiction novel, he observed. Multicolored lights illuminated the reflective paneling on the ceiling in hues of blue and purple as lights underneath the seats softly shone on the gray carpeted ground. He sat in the sideways facing seat, ready to climb out and show his date whenever they pulled up to her house. It hadn't been easy convincing her to come to prom with him, but it hadn't been easy either. The television panel screen was off, and would likely stay that way. He was unconvinced of the need for such a device, but figured that larger parties would want some entertainment other than each other for their ride into town.

It had only taken a few moments after he told his parents that he had found a prom date for them to book the limo service. They didn't care whether or not he was rolling in with a party of fourteen or the company of just one other—they were going to make his senior prom so special that he'd maybe say something to them other than "It was alright" when he came home from school and they asked how his day was. The windows were tinted, and the exterior was painted a clean white. He had only spoken to the driver briefly to tell him Misty's address, but he seemed gentlemanly enough. Not that he was feeling picky tonight, though. He expected baseline competence, and to not spill water on himself and his date because they hit another car.

Though he internally detested the idea of such a tacky theme, he had managed to get it to work in a classy and appropriate way. For the dance, he had acquired a black tuxedo with a white pocket square. When the lights went off, that pocket square would glow. Subtle. Classy. He expected that his date had made a similar adjustment to her dress, that she wouldn't be wearing something so ghastly as a full glow in the dark gown, or something similarly hideous.

He thought well of Misty. She had her quirks, quirks that he occasionally found to be bothersome at best and objectionable at worst, but overall she was a fine person with a good head on her shoulders. She didn't look too bad, either. It had been a decent length of time since Max attended a social function, and he was expecting that his appearance would turn heads, and possibly elicit reactions of disgust and contempt. He was fine with that. They only proved him more right. Nobody worth following, nobody worth appreciating was ever understood or well loved by more than a few in their time. Socrates. Nietzsche. Chaucer.

Max knew of one other such person, but realized that comparing himself to Jesus Christ was probably, even internally, a sign of maybe going the wrong way. He quietly apologized to nobody in particular, and looked out the window.

The limo was pulling up in front of Misty's three-steps-from-a-tenement, and slowly coming to a stop. Max moved to the door. He would open it himself, a request made to his driver through his parents when they ordered the limousine. He was incapable of imagining the reaction of the driver when he received the order. Was that something normally done? What was normal to a couple in a limousine? The car stopped, and Max opened the door. The only input he had given on the make and model of the car, to his parents, was that the doors could not open upwards. He was conscious of the ire he received on a daily basis, and he did not want to fuel the flames.

He closed the door behind him, went over to the driver side window, and told him that he would only be a few moments. Certainly, he thought he heard, but did not listen for, as he was walking back around to the door of the apartment before he could clearly perceive a response. He strode up to the front door, looked for a doorbell, and rang it with a light touch, briefly pressing the button before bringing his arm back down to his side and waiting patiently on the front step for a response.

[MurderWeasel]

When the doorbell rang, Misty was already most of the way towards the entrance. Still, she paused for a five-count, just so it wouldn't be quite so obvious that she'd been waiting with bated breath for Max's arrival. She didn't want to come off desperate or clingy or unseemly. It's just, she really was excited for this.

She liked Max. Not necessarily like-liked him, but maybe. Probably. She'd figure that out over the evening, but he was off to a good head start. He was attractive, strong face, striking eyes, charming haircut. That was more than could be said for most of the losers she'd briefly dated in the past. Besides that, he was smart in both an academic and a worldly sense. He wasn't her perfect match in politics, but for a good reason: he was principled, while Misty understood the value of lesser-evil compromises and, okay, enjoyed a little bit of spiteful reveling now and then. That Max didn't so much was just further proof that he was too good for his own good.

Misty turned the handle on the door and pulled it open as her mom and dad made their way from the kitchen, presumably also keen to meet Max. She wasn't too worried about what sort of impression he'd make on them. She'd already been singing his praises. She doubted he'd disappoint.

Yeah, she liked to play coy sometimes.She liked to act like she had to think about whether she'd accept his invitation. She liked to act like she wasn't someone who cared about this stuff, like she would've been just fine going to prom alone in a goofy outfit and treating the whole thing like a big nasty joke, raining on everyone else's parade, but the truth was she was really, really happy to find herself in the situation she did. She was brimming with gratitude towards Max, not necessarily for asking her out so much as for being someone she'd be happy to go out with.

"Hello, Max," she said, dipping in a curtsy. She wasn't perfect at the movement; her parents had taught her but she hadn't had cause to use it for some time, and certainly not in heels. It felt alright, though. "You look dashing."

And he did. He could've been a young politician or an officer in the military, a spy or a scholar or a businessman. Misty was beaming as she stepped to the side, letting Max see into her home or enter if he was so inclined, as her parents also appeared, also seemingly struck by her date.

[MethodicalSlacker]

Max smiled too.

"Hi, Misty," he said, "you look very nice yourself."

His eyes darted behind her into the hallway just as her parents arrived. He was startled to find himself startled by their appearance. For some reason, this started to mean something to him. Misty had taken it so seriously, as was evident by the way that she dressed tonight, and, well, he supposed he had been taking this seriously himself. For a moment he felt very small. It wasn't a feeling that he knew too well, and that distressed him even more, as did the worry that his distress showed on his face. If Max knew how he did with parents, he would be more comfortable, even if he knew that he did not do very well.

Too many variables.

"Good evening, Mr. and Mrs. Browder," he said to Misty's parents, as warmly as he could manage without seeming, for lack of a better term, totally green.

Composure. Max tried to contain his nervousness. He felt like he had missed a day of school, something that he did just as often as most other people by this point, but that the day he had missed was the first day, and everyone had gotten to know and understand each other before he arrived. The clumsiness with which his internal monologue handled this metaphor was almost as startling as the fact that he had arrived at it. Looking from parent to prom-date, he wonde—

The corsage.

He had left the corsage. At home? No, it was in the limo. He hadn't thought about it much, but his mother pressed it into his hands when he left the house and it hadn't left them except when he put it down to open the door getting out to meet her—

—right?—

so if he could just excuse himself and gulp down the lump in his throat and go back over to the limo and grab it out everything would be just fine and he could continue and pretend that little misstep hadn't happen and that he had managed to get everything right on his first and only try.

"Sorry," he said, smiling sheepishly, "you'll have to excuse me for a moment. I left, uh, something important in the car."

Max turned around and walked hurriedly back to the limousine.

[MurderWeasel]

"It's okay," Misty said as Max turned around and made his way back out for whatever it was he'd forgotten. She stood there, a smile fixed on her face, waiting.

"He seems nice," Misty's mom said, the second Max was probably out of earshot. She seemed to mull something over in her head for a moment. "He's handsome."

"He's nervous," Misty's dad said, and chuckled to himself. "Hell, I would be in his shoes."

Misty was doing her level best to ignore both of them, as well as the warmth rising in in her chest and cheeks. She focused instead on the slight breeze ruffling the ends of her dress, the way her shoes felt unusual on her feet and against the scuffed hardwood floor. This was okay. Everything was fine. She had no reason to be getting nervous here. He'd just left something and was going to retrieve it. She could've done the same, in fact maybe that was just the thing to distract her, a quick inventory of all her prom preparations, except she'd already run that inventory a dozen times or more in her head and she knew she had it all in her clutch.

Okay, there was a little part of her she was trying very hard to quiet that was really afraid right now. What if Max took a look at her shitty little home and that was strike one, and then he saw her Goodwill-bought, home-adjusted dress and that was strike two, and then her blue-collar low-society parents were strike three and so he'd made an excuse and beat the retreat and was even now telling the driver to spirit him away again? What then? She'd be crushed, and enraged, but who at? Could she really even blame him?

She was snapped out of this increasingly-dark spiral by a hand on her shoulder, a heavy hand that squeezed her gently. Her father could always tell, somehow, and he could almost always ground her a little.

"Don't worry," he said, voice low but warm, and it made Misty feel really bad and angry at herself that she'd been two thirds of the way to blaming him for her fantasized abandonment. "We'll take some pictures, and then you'll be off. You're going to have a great night."

[MethodicalSlacker]

Max opened the door to the limo, silently thanked the driver for leaving it unlocked, and peered inside. The corsage was sitting on the seat at the very rear of the limousine. Leaving the door open, he climbed inside, making a beeline for it, and picked it up, looking it over briefly in his hands. He hoped that the wristband, made of pearls, would be an adequate size for Misty's wrist. Spray roses, white in coloration, comprised the majority of the corsage, but they were accented with wax flowers that—and here was the ticket, the main gimmick—glow in the dark. Some artificial leaves adorned the edges as well.

He exited the limo and closed the door behind him, careful not to slam it too hard. Then, he made his way back to the front of the apartment. For some reason, the distance between automobile and front stoop seemed much larger to his eyes, though he moved at the same pace. Perhaps it was the expectant faces of the Browder family in the doorway that caused this change in perception for him. Or maybe it was the gift in his hands. He could have been holding a human heart, still bleeding, still beating, and he would have felt more comfortable.

"Here," he said once he finally reached her, holding the corsage out in his open palms, "for you."

The willpower it required to look her in the eyes while he said this, and not into the eyes of her parents, would not be known or appreciated by anyone but his future self.

[MurderWeasel]

Misty's dad was right. Max didn't run away. He came right back, holding, almost cradling, something in his hands. And then, he extended it to her, and Misty raised her hands, at first too far, like she was going to bring them to her mouth in an expression of shock or to stifle a squeal of glee, but she caught herself and forced her errant limbs back into order, down, reaching out to accept what Max was offering her.

"Oh my goodness," she said, "it's lovely."

It was. Her gaze slid back and forth, between the corsage and Max. She hadn't put a lot of thought into this part, hadn't really expected anything of her date. Yeah, it was tradition or whatever, but that really wasn't important to Misty at all. She was just happy to have a date who she really genuinely liked. And yet, here, now, she felt like a princess, like Cinderella without the midnight time limit ticking down. She was acutely aware that what Max was offering her probably cost more than her whole outfit had and even more painfully aware that it could've run him thirty-five bucks and still hit that threshold.

She took it, gently, solemnly. She was trying not to stare, either at the corsage or at Max, glancing back and froth from it to his pale blue eyes. The corsage was covered in little white roses and these other tiny flowers she didn't know, and those were fake pearls, right? Surely. She slid it onto her wrist, hoping she wasn't looking like a total loser, hoping she didn't look like she was about to cry through the smile she was wearing.

"Thank you."

[MethodicalSlacker]

Max bowed his head slightly. It was rather difficult for him to interpret the level to which Misty was taking her sincerity, but he supposed that he would find out, ultimately, at some time or other. Regardless, the corsage had been presented, and admiration had seemingly been won. It did not look like she had a boutonniere to offer him, but in all truthfulness, he did not mind. Really, the corsage had not been an invention of his own design. He felt her gaze lingering, and did his best to avert his own.

He did not wish to instigate conflict with her parents, so he averted his eyes from them as well, instead checking his cufflinks to make sure that they were in order.

"I'm glad you like it," he said, unable to fully suppress a grin.

For as much as he detested the constant misinterpretations of his work, Max Rudolph had to admit that George Orwell was a particularly gifted writer in his time. Politics and the English Language reached a couple of conclusions by its endpoint that Max disagreed with, but it was a thorough and well-researched piece of writing. But he was thinking, now, of Orwell's concept of face-crime, a word used in 1984 in his partial con-lang Newspeak. Given that he had no conception of how his countenance appeared, he could only assume that at any moment they—collectively, the whole Browder family—could turn on him, reading platitudes in his physiognomy, a phlegmatic look in his frontispiece. His thoughts would spiral, wrapped in a song of questions, if he were alone.

Standing in the doorway, he simply thought to himself, Do I look bad?

"I, erm," he mumbled, surveying his wrist.

He was not sporting a watch, and never had worn one in his entire life.

[MurderWeasel]

"I love it," Misty said, smiling wider.

"Come in," her mom cut in, enthusiasm somehow less restrained than Misty's, "come in. I just—before you go, I want to take a couple pictures. If that's okay?"

Misty looked at Max and raised her eyebrows, because really it was more or less his call. There was no clean way to refuse, granted, but if he did Misty was sure it'd be with class and grace. She figured they'd get pictures at prom, probably. She'd heard the yearbook brigade was doing something there, and they probably had actual equipment and expertise beyond what could be matched by Misty's mom and her cell phone, and Demetri was god-emperor of yearbook or something so probably wouldn't mess everything up just out of spite because he hated that Misty didn't believe in free rides.

But still, it would be nice, she thought, to have something a little more casual. It would feel more real, somehow, more like this was a thing they actually meant and were doing properly. She didn't really know that much about prom traditions and routines. She hadn't lived her life waiting for it desperately, had wanted it to be nice but had expected it not to be and prepared accordingly, and yet she still had this very clear idea that awkward family photos were a part of the process. Her mom was being embarrassing, but somehow that was exactly as it should be.

"Would you like anything to drink?" Misty said, the segue not feeling natural at all but what was she even supposed to say here? "I could get a glass of water. Or I think we might have some Coke."

[MethodicalSlacker]

Her forbearance was greatly appreciated. As Misty reveled in her admiration, Max felt quiet relief. Knocked that one right out of the park.

Her mother asked if he wanted to come inside and take a photograph, and Max became all too keenly aware of the fact that he had been awkwardly standing on the precipice of their doorway for far, far too long.

"Oh, of course," Max said, stepping inside, "that would be very nice, actually."

He had heard, of course, of the presence of a photography booth at the prom dance. Some of the friends he had were going to be working on it, likely operating the booth. But the privacy afforded by a nice, intimately taken photograph in someone's warm, well put together home was much preferable to a picture taken at the dance, where Max would be distracted by any number of inimical puerile people trying to get a rise out of him and his date.

Something to drink would be nice, too, but he would have to pass on the soda. Now was not the time to instigate a conversation about how much he cherished the whiteness of his teeth, though. Just to be polite.

"Just some water would be fine," he answered, "thank you."

[MurderWeasel]

"Alright. I'll be right back."

Misty darted off, feeling light on her feet despite the heels, almost unaware of the clacking as she made her way around the bend and into the kitchen at a pace less speedy than it felt to her, leaving Max to be ferried into the living room by her parents. They'd probably want to take pictures with the couple standing up against the wall, or maybe sitting on the sofa, or out on the patio. That was a concern for the future, though. Right now, Misty was getting Max a glass of water.

Of course, that was easier said than done, as what should have been a simple proposition ran into immediate complications. The kitchen wasn't in too terrible shape, but the dishwasher was running, and a quick glance in the cupboards revealed that the only cleaning drinking receptacles were a bunch of mason jars of varying sizes and an old mug with a big crack in the handle covered in faded images of bumblebees. Obviously none of those things would do.

Fortunately, there was a normal glass sitting in the sink, one item too many to fit in the dishwasher, which spared Misty having to decide whether or not to risk opening it mid-cycle and recreating the flood she'd unleashed when she was six. She was really glad at this precise moment that her dress was sleeveless. Gently, she removed the corsage from her wrist and set it on the counter, marveling at it briefly once again. Then she grabbed the faded yellow and green sponge from the side of the sink, squirted a line of dish soap onto it, ran the tap, and quickly scrubbed the glass inside and out. That done, she dried it with the hand towel hanging in front of the sink, which bore one of those ambiguous red and blue patterns she'd only ever heard described as "Americana."

Glass cleaned, she got the ice tray out of the freezer, broke free a few cubes of ice and dropped them into the glass (except for one, which she lost to the floor and promptly kicked under the refrigerator; her parents would forgive her—after all, it was prom) and then filled the glass with water from the Brita pitcher with the filter that had indicated it needed changing for about six months now. Throughout this whole process, she was careful—almost neurotically so—to avoid spilling even a single drop on her dress. The floor, of course, was a different story.

Finally, she went back to the counter, put the corsage back on, and thumped her way back towards where she'd left Max with her parents, glass in hand, ice tinkling against the sides. It felt like she'd been gone a year, even though it was probably three minutes maximum. Taught her to try to be a good hostess, though, that was for sure. Why hadn't she thought to set a clean glass aside earlier? A can of Coke would've been so much easier.

[MethodicalSlacker]

And Max was left with the parents as Misty went off to the kitchen to fetch him some water. He appreciated her gesture, but had quietly willed that one of her parents had gone to grab it for him rather than her. He required some guidance in conversing with parents he hadn't met before in this kind of circumstance. They were going to try and extract some information from him while they waited—information pertinent to their values judgement of him as worthy or unworthy of taking their daughter to prom, though if they wanted to stop her they could have already done so.

"So," her dad began, "how did you and Misty meet?"

Despite the outward simplicity and innocence of the question, Max acknowledged that this was not any ordinary query. His answer to this question colored their experience of him as a person from this point forwards—he would make an impression now that would stand unchangeable for the foreseeable future. Granted, this interaction was not the most serious—prom was, ultimately, a very lighthearted event. But if the two hit things off, Max might want to investigate the possibility of further contact a little bit closer. Would it be more convenient to lie, here?

"Oh," he replied, "I'm fairly sure we met in history class, freshman year, but it could have been longer ago than that."

He could have also gotten the years wrong. It could have been as sophomores that they first met, or in a different class. It was a nebulous conglomeration of likely times and places that suited his needs, though, and that took precedence over total truthfulness right now. He tapped his left foot exactly two times as Misty's dad nodded. Mr. Browder was smiling, but Max had little idea of whether that smile was meant approvingly or disparagingly. He heard Misty walking down the hall just in time to liberate him from any more parental probing. Something in him winced at a thought he didn't quite recognize.

"Thank you, Misty," he said, stepping over and reaching out to receive the drink once she entered the room.

[MurderWeasel]

"You're welcome." Misty smiled and handed Max the water, her lips twitching for only an instant as a droplet of condensation rolled down the cool glass and spread along her thumb. She'd dried it pretty quickly, and it was ever so slightly damp still.

Misty had a little trouble with how to react to being thanked sometimes. As a kid, she'd somehow picked up the habit of downplaying any gratitude, responding with "No biggie" or something of the sort. The older she'd gotten, the more childish that had seemed, and she'd also started to resent the way it seemed to make people actually believe her efforts to be minimal, especially given how increasingly infrequently gratitude was directed her way. She liked being thanked, liked when people appreciated what she did, but finding the proper response was tough. "You're welcome," felt overly formal, or else not entirely genuine. Here, now, she was using it basically only because she was wearing the dress and Max his tux. It was a formal occasion, but what she'd done really had been nothing. She didn't want Max to think she was uptight about this, but that was better than thinking her trashy, right? Why was this so complicated?

Before any angst could really take hold, though, her mom intervened.

"Alright," she said, gesturing towards the far side of the living room. "We can take these pretty quickly. I know you must be excited to get going."

Misty was, of course. Not just for the night ahead, but also to be free of this awkward interim stage, this extended launch process when she didn't yet know whether she was going to end up airborne or exploded on the runway.

[MethodicalSlacker]

Max lifted the glass to his mouth and proceeded to drink, letting the frigid water cascade down his throat. It was an oasis in a cup—parched, he had been, having not hydrated properly since early this morning. Nervousness had precluded that he avoid water, as there were other ideas occupying his head-space. Regardless, he made it a point to circumvent the necessity for water from his house's tap through other means, as the filter on the sink had broken all of a sudden some days in the past, but not many.

Not too soon after taking his first couple of sips, Misty's mother announced that it was picture time. Max nodded, put his glass down on a nearby table (making a mental reminder that he should return it to the kitchen himself after he finished with it), and went to stand over where Misty's mother gestured to.

"I know you must be excited to get going."

Excitement would be one way to describe the feeling, but currently the first thing on Max's mind was the deep exhalation he'd get to take once he placed himself and his date within the limousine and began to drive to the dance. The anticipation was getting to him, and he felt wary of that self-knowledge; usually, his intuition proved correct, especially when it came to self-knowledge, and right now his intuition was telling him that some mild catastrophe would strike tonight.

Quietly, Max reminded himself that those given to paranoia doomed themselves to self fulfilling prophecy.

[MurderWeasel]

Misty made a mental note to herself to retrieve Max's glass from the table and see it back to the kitchen before they departed. It wasn't that she thought her parents would hold it against her or him if it remained—it was prom, they were excited, oversights happened and it certainly seemed like everyone was suitably impressed so far with Max’s gentlemanly presentation—just, every little detail mattered, even if only as an infinitesimal part of some whole too big to comprehend.

She followed Max to stand in front of the wall, at a spot mostly unadorned so their pictures wouldn't be cluttered with background noise. Misty especially hated when a picture had another picture in it; the recursion wasn't clever and it drew too much attention to trying to pick out whatever the smaller image was.

There were a few pictures up in their place, but most of them were confined to the kitchen. On the refrigerator were images of Misty and her brother over the years, including some alright shots of her as a kid plus her absolute least favorite ever of when she was eleven, wearing a pale pink dress and a stupid party hat and caught with her face scrunched up mid-sneeze as her brother blew the candles out on his cake. She couldn't remember the actual day at all, but that picture had appeared soon after and she'd made halfhearted attempts to effect its removal ever since. Her parents loved it, and she hadn't yet figured out how to ritually sacrifice it without invoking their ire, and besides, they probably still had it on some computer somewhere.

She moved in close to Max, getting comfy but trying not to be pushy. She wasn't really totally sure exactly how familiar he was ready to be, not that she really minded one way or the other; she trusted Max, knew he'd be the model of civility and etiquette, so he could wrap his arm around her waist if that was what he felt like. She couldn't figure out how to telegraph that without it being awkward for her parents, though, so instead she reached behind him, gently resting her hand against his upper back, tentatively, ready to drop it if she sensed the slightest hint of resistance.

Her mom's phone flashed once, twice, and then yet again. Misty smiled, wide and genuine.

Why did this all have to be so nerve-wracking?