My birthday weekend left three scars. My birthday was the 24th of April, and prom just so happened to be the next day; it was the worst weekend of my life. I had been planning on going to prom for months; even though I was just a sophomore, my boyfriend was a junior, and we had been talking about it for awhile. I was so excited that my sweet sixteenth birthday and prom were so close together.
My mom and I drove to Denver to go dress shopping. We walked around for awhile and came across a store called “XOXO.” The store was filled with all kinds of fancy dresses, some short, some long, and in every color. But only one dress really caught my eye; it was a dark blue, silky dress with beading on the top. When I tried it on it fit me perfectly, I tried on a few other dresses but nothing compared to this one, so we immediately bought it. For the next couple of months, the big dance all anyone chatted about at school. I wasn’t worried about not getting asked to prom because my boyfriend and I had been dating for almost a year. But weeks went by and he still hadn’t popped the question. About two weeks were left and I was looking at the clock tick slowly in my last period class. I thought I would be in there forever. All of a sudden Cal, the Campus Supervisor, walked in and called my name. Cal is like the “father” of the school; when he yelled your full name you know you’re in trouble. I walked over anxiously, thinking of every possible scenario he would have to talk to me about. He began to talk in a deep, stern voice, “Lancer you weren’t in your third period where were you,” he yelled with a straight face. I replied quickly, “At a doctor’s appointment.” But he didn’t believe me and started to write my name down on his clipboard for detentions. I could feel my hands get sweaty, and my temper rising. In front of my whole class I started yelling back at him saying I was in class, and he could even call my parents if he wanted to. He put me back in my place, demanding me not to talk to him that way. I could not believe this was happening. I was getting more enraged for having to do detentions for something I didn’t do, and my classmates’ glaring wasn’t helping. Suddenly the door opened again. My boyfriend walked in holding a pink bouquet of flowers and asked, “Will you go to prom with me?” My face immediately turned beat red and the entire class broke out in “awes.” Of course I said yes, and felt a sudden relief when Cal had a grin across his face, put the clipboard away and slowly stepped outside.
Now I couldn’t be more excited to go to prom. It was really right around the corner, the day after my birthday. I felt extremely sharp, aching pains in my stomach the day of my birthday. I didn’t want to do anything or eat anything; it was awful. I never felt anything like it before, I couldn’t even move, I didn’t see anyone, or even eat birthday cake. The next morning I couldn’t take it anymore and decided to go to the emergency room. I was there for hours waiting for help, crying in the waiting room. I was getting skipped over because other people were coming in that needed help right away, I even remember a little boy that was screaming in the back from being poisoned, and I had to explain my story to at least six people before I was actually seen by a doctor that could help me. My boyfriend came over right away after I had finally seen somebody, with birthday presents and balloons that I didn’t get to open the day before. After hours of testing and waiting they told me I was probably going to go home because my white blood count looked normal. But the doctors wanted to do one more test just to make sure. I had to drink two cups of this drink that looked like punch but was a disgusting dye, to light up my stomach during a test. Finally the nurse came in telling me that I would not be going to prom and they needed to do an immediate surgery to remove my appendix. A million questions zoomed through my mind, as tears trickled down my face. I felt awful that everyone had gone through all of that trouble and spent all that money for nothing. I had to stay the night in the hospital, some friends came to visit after the surgery and my boyfriend spent the night with me. My first prom I will never forget.