The pressure’s building. I can feel it. It’s like it’s congealing in the air, in the space between us and sitting on my tongue. My heart’s pounding.

“Ah, not really. There’s no one I can think of right now ….”

Pound. Pound. You should tell her.

She tilts her head and hmms, considering. I smooth my dress out underneath me to sit down beside her, shifting with nervous energy.

“Well, next year’s prom is a year away, obviously! Sure you can find someone.”

I swallow and nod, blood rushing in my ears. “Yeah.”

I’m being careful right now, not giving anything away. The pressure’s building with every word I say, and she can’t feel it.

“I mean, I’ve dated people before. Never gone with them to anything like prom though.” Small breath. “There’s only one person I could really think of right now, and they’re technically an ex, so ….”

“Awkward,” she agrees.

Awkward is what it is. The pressure is a weight on my tongue, and she’s here, and she’s talking to me, and the opportunity is there. I have to take it.

Pound. Pound. Pound. Right now – so easy – I could – I need to – it’s on the tip of my tongue.

Just one comment, one second of not being too careful, and it would be out.

“Well, I guess you’ll find someone. Or go with a friend! That’s always an option. You know.”

I nod. So many sentences spring to mind, things too bold, too witty, too overt, things I would never say.

I don’t say them.

She laughs and leaves at some point, cheerful after a good chat with a friend. Her dress swirls around her ankles as she takes the pressure with her.

I take a deep, shuddering breath, and air fills my lungs again.

•      •      •

It is thirty minutes earlier. I am at prom with a group of friends. Most of them are seniors in the grade above mine, and I only knew a couple of them beforehand; one is the boy who invited me as a friend, another is a girl I met in my ninth grade math class.

She’s bright, friendly. Bubbly. She hugs me when she first sees me again. She doesn’t seem like the kind of person to choose her words, choose her actions, think about who’s watching. She just lets it all spill over.

We’re upstairs, all crowded together, standing outside the dancing room; the swing band is taking a rest. She seems like she wants a rest too, so … she links her arm through mine, softly, and leans her head on my shoulder.

She’s wonderful. Her smile is incredible. I freeze and must flush all the way down to the tips of my toes, and–

In that moment, I don’t know that in thirty minutes, I will fail to tell her that I’ve dated people but never taken them to prom because the people I date have pronouns like ‘she’ and ‘her.’ I don’t know that I will try and fail to tell her – this sweet girl that I suddenly like – that I am a lesbian, even as we talk about dating. I don’t know that I will give in to the pressure that tells me to say silent. I don’t know any of that.

In that moment, all I know is that she’s nice, that’s she’s pretty, that her head is warm on my shoulder.

In that moment, all I feel is breathless.