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.**Pre-med." Almost smiling, she nodded.*'We did it."Logan thought over what Elena had said.She didn't accept help well because she hadn't often been offered it.But the truth was, she'd have a blocks-long line of men queued up to fulfill her slightest fancy if she wished it.She was that beautiful.But she scared them all off.She hadn't scared him.Not eleven years ago, anyway.Logan closed his eyes, guilt tasting metallic in his mouth.**Elena." He opened his eyes.'*We need to talk about that night."Her gaze flew to his, surprise and something almost fearful on her face.*'That night?" she echoed.'^Senior prom," he clarified, and saw her relax a little.He knew why.He didn't want to talk about the night they'd first met either.It had been a week before the senior prom and of all the things that were between them, that was the one he'd never examined or tried to explain.Maybe because he knew he couldn't.Shouldn't.Whatever.He reached out to put his hand over hers.Her fingers stilled, but she didn't look up at him.'*You don'tknow how much I wish I could redo everything about the senior prom," he said.She kept her eyes down."Everything?"She meant the fact that he'd invited her that night.**Maybe," he said, knowing he had to be honest.**Maybe if I could, Fd take that back too."She nodded once.He scooted his chair closer so that he could lift her chin with his free hand.*'Not because I didn't want to share that night with you.But because I hate myself for the way it turned out, for hurting you."As he'd expected, her gaze jumped to his.**You may have humiliated me, but you never hurt me."*'Cc«ne on—"*'You come on.Come on to the fact that I'd just lost my mother and been forced to start a new high school nearly at the end of the year.Come on to the fact that I was sixteen, new in town, and the hottest boy at my new campus invited me to his senior prom.Me."*'When I met you at that party—"'*We're not talking about that other night!"'*—^I thought you went to the Catholic girls' school across town.I thought you were a senior too.I think you know that."Her face flushed, though she pretended she hadn't heard him.' 'I bought a new dress and shoes with the babysitting money I'd brought with me from L.A.My grandmother curled my hair and Gabby painted my fingernails.They both helped me pick out a bouton-niere for your lapel.Then the three of us waited for you to pick me up."Logan looked away, coward that he was.*'I was wearing my tux.I'd washed and waxed my car, refusing to let anyone else touch it.The wrist corsage I bought you was in the refrigerator in the butler's pantry.Annie's mother was our—"**Housekeeper, I know."**She saw it and said the white baby roses I'd picked out were perfect.They were tied with a gauzy blue ribbon that I thought was the exact color of your eyes.'*'*You said you'd pick me up at seven o'clock," Elena reminded him."And then it was seven, and then seven-thirty.At eight o'clock I thought maybe I'd mixed up the plans and I was supposed to meet you at the high school.My grandmother thought I should stay home and wait, but I couldn't believe you would have stood me up.So our neighbor drove me to school and I waited outside the dance for you.I realized right away that people were whispering about me, but I pretended not to hear."**You know that I eventually made it to your grandmother's."**You know that I eventually made it back there myself."**But we missed each other again when I went to school looking for you." Logan studied the way his hand covered hers and smiled a little.**Do you think if we'd had cell phones then that today the prom would just be a hazy, happy memory?"He looked up and met her eyes.He even laughed.'*You're right.'* No matter what, he would have remembered each moment with her in vivid detail.**But we went over all this that night, when we finally managed to be in the same place at the same time," Elena pointed out."It was about 10:15 I believe.You gave me that wrist corsage and it was perfect."**You didn't give me the boutonniere.You crushed it in your hand—pricking yourself with the pin as I remember—^then threw it and the corsage to the ground.You looked pretty perfect in that dress and those new shoes, by the way, even when you were using them to grind the flowers into the sidewalk [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]