MARY
It's prom night, the night when everyone dresses up to dance together for the last time before graduation. High school is ending, and I'll miss being able to see everyone that I love everyday at school. Francis drove me to school like he has been recently, and we both met up with Kenna and Bash. They were holding hands and staring into each other's eyes and I whispered to Francis 'Are you sure that we should bother them? They look pretty content without us bothering them.' Kenna and Bash noticed us pretty quickly after that, and Kenna ushered us over to her. We talked about finals, and while the guys talked about sport cars or whatever, we talked about prom. 'Ok, so tonight, you're coming over at like five to get ready right?' she nodded with a huge smile on my face. 'Ok, so I'll paint nails and makeup, you can do hair, and I think that we can get our own dresses on.' 'Your mom is taking pictures, right?' my smile immediately faltered, but I tried to bring it back before she noticed. 'Mary, what's wrong?' obviously, she noticed. 'My mom can't take pictures anymore. She'll be busy.' Kenna wasn't taking it. My smile was permanently gone at this point, and Francis noticed. He slid over and put his arms around my waist. 'What are you girls talking about?' he asked, trying to change the subject. 'Oh, just prom.' Kenna said, smiling down as Bash kissed her forehead. 'That's at like eight right?' Bash said teasing us. Kenna playfully slapped his chest, 'Yes, Bash, you two are picking us up at seven right?' 'We wouldn't miss it for the world.'
The rest of the school day went by relatively slowly, and nothing important happened. I climbed into Francis' car and kissed him. 'Hey.' I said. It was three o'clock and I needed to get home and get ready. He drove me home and told me 'So I will see you at seven, beautiful.' I blushed as he kissed my cheek, and I walked inside. Kenna arrived about two hours later, and when I opened the door, I was greeted by 'I'm so sorry, Bash and I got caught up on something and I swear I'm so sorry.' 'Kenna, really, it's fine.' She came in, and we grabbed some yogurt before heading upstairs. I painted Kenna's nails red, and mine were a beige color. It took longer than expected to finish makeup, because Kenna and I were laughing so hard at each other's jokes. Kenna curled my hair and swept it to the side with a braid. I slipped my dress on and stood in front of the mirror, smoothing out the wrinkles. Kenna did the same, and we gave each other the final glance of approval. 'You look perfect, Mary.' 'Kenna, you do too. Bash will love you.'
We walked downstairs, ready to open the door, and I asked her 'What are your plans for after prom?' She looked at me, 'Well, I think that we are going back to his house. And you guys?' I smiled. Francis had told me earlier that he had gotten us a hotel room, and I was excited then, but I was more excited now because of our previous actions. 'I believe that we are getting a hotel.' She looked at me at put two and two together. 'Mary Stewart. You did not.' I laughed 'Why is that so unbelievable to you?' 'It's not, I just didn't expect it.' At that moment the doorbell rang, and I yelled 'Coming!' I opened the door, and of course Francis was the one who was waiting to come in first, since he had been here so often, I was guessing it felt like a second home. He looked me over for a couple of minutes, and I picked up my skirt and twirled, and landed back in his arms. 'I think that you look completely ravishing.' I smiled 'You do too.' After several minutes of talking, and one particular instance of Francis whispering asking me how I take the dress off, for later use, we left the house. There weren't many pictures other than the ones that we took on our phones because my mother was too drunk to notice.
We walked into the gym, where prom was, and marveled at the sight. The gym had been transformed into a winter wonderland. Fake snow was falling down from the ceiling, glittery snowflakes were positioned across the floor, and on the stage was a crown fitted for a king and queen. Not wasting any time, Francis bowed down with his hand extended and asked, 'May I have this dance?' I put my hand in his, and we walked onto the dance floor. I leaned onto his shoulder and he put his hands on my waist. 'I love you.' I told him, for the second time. 'I love you too.' He said, kissing my nose lightly. Some of the songs were fast, and we danced wildly, and others were slow, and we slow danced.
When it was time to announce king and queen, we all lined up in the front of the gym. 'Thank you everyone, for coming tonight, and now it is time to announce the prom king and queen.' There was an awkward silence as the principal opened the card. 'Our king and queen for this years prom is Francis Valois and Mary Stuart!' It took me a minute to process what was happening. Kenna was pushing me to the stage, and Francis was holding my hand. Francis was crowned first, and sat down in the chair marked as king, while the principal put a crown on my head. We weren't asked to give a speech, but we were asked to dance. Everyone moved to the side as Francis and I made our way to the floor. The spotlight was moved to capture us, while everyone stared. All of the girls were staring at Francis as I put my head on his shoulder so I brought my head back up and gave him a kiss. Half of the girls awed and the other half scowled at me, because how dare I kiss their Francis.
Our dance was the last event before everyone was released. Kenna and Bash made their way back to the Valois' house, and Francis helped me into the car to drive to our hotel. Before he even started the car, he leaned over and kissed me, and as we broke apart, he whispered in my ear, 'That is only the beginning.' And squeezed my knee. I could hardy contain my excitement as we pulled up to the hotel, and checked in. Once the door opened, we both had all of two seconds to look around before our lips were on each other's. We wasted no time, as he started to unzip my dress, and I tugged off his jacket. I could already tell that on my part undressing was going to be a long task. 'You have too many clothes on.' I breathed in between kisses. And he smiled and said 'We should fix that.' He started unbuttoning his shirt and once he had finished, he let me take it off. It had only been a week since our last encounter, but missed the feel of his bare skin against mine. At this point, my dress was on the floor somewhere, and Francis' clothes were scattered across the room. As we fell onto the bed, Francis slipped off the rest of his clothing and helped me with mine.
We fell asleep together, and Francis, as always, woke up earlier. He ordered room service, without my knowing, so I woke up to plates upon plates sitting on the table. 'Francis, what is this?' I asked, wiping the exhaustion from my eyes. 'I figured that the queen would like some breakfast.' He was very proud of himself for that one, I could tell. 'Will the king be dining with me this morning?' I got up, holding the sheet to my skin. I slipped on a robe from the bathroom and joined him. The food was delicious. It was a platter with eggs, pancakes, and fruit. We fed each other for a while before I could not eat anymore because I felt like I would burst. I excused myself for a shower, and afterwards, I was hit with the realization that I had forgotten clothes. I poked my head out of the bathroom and asked, 'Francis, could you run to my house and get me some clothes? I forgot to bring an extra pair.' He sighed, and I could tell that he didn't want to do it, but being the best boyfriend ever, he agreed.
He returned after about twenty minutes with a cute flower dress that I loved. 'I love this dress, thank you.' I got dressed and put my dress from last night into a bag that the hotel had given us. 'Are you ready to go?' I asked him, before he replied 'I think I forgot something.' I wrinkled my brow. 'What?' He gave me a kiss and said 'Ok, now I'm ready.'
It was Saturday, so we didn't have anywhere to be after we left the hotel. 'Do you want to see a movie?' We hadn't seen one in theaters for a while, so we both agreed that that sounded like fun and headed there. As we were buying our tickets I noticed a couple in front of us that looked vaguely familiar. 'Is that Bash and Kenna?' I asked Francis. 'I think it is. Should we say hi?' I tapped Kenna on the shoulder, and she turned around in surprise. 'Mary! What are you two doing here?' 'Probably the same thing you are.' We ended up seeing the same movie, and it had turned into a double date pretty quickly. Before the movie had started I leaned over to Kenna and said, 'I can't believe that graduation is in a couple of days. I'm going to miss seeing you guys everyday.' Francis butted into the conversation, 'Hey, we'll all see each other everyday.' I was a bit of a pessimist, and Francis was an optimist, for sure. 'How are we all going to see each other outside of school? Other than our relationships, when are we going to see each other?' He turned to me and said 'Well, I guess we will just have to find a way.' He had a plan, I could tell, and I wasn't sure what it was.
A couple days later, it was graduation day, and Francis had come over to get ready with me. I put on waterproof mascara because I was guessing that there would be a lot of crying associated with this day. 'Are you ready to graduate?' he asked me, coming over to give me a hug. 'As ready as I'll ever be.' We got in his car and drove to the school, meeting up with Kenna and Bash. Kenna was already crying, and I went to give her a hug. 'Aw, Kenna it's ok. It's not like any of us are leaving or anything.' She sniffled 'I know, it's just weird. I've known all of you for most of this year, and not seeing you every morning and afternoon is going to feel so weird.' I started tearing up a little at this. 'We should go get our seats, guys.' Our school let us sit next to anyone we wanted, so I sat next to Francis, and Kenna sat next to Bash. The principal came up on stage and gave a speech before starting to call names. It felt like forever before he said, 'Mary Stuart.' I stood up and maneuvered around everyone's legs to go receive my diploma. I got onstage and shook his hand before I returned to my seat, tears threatening to fall. Francis' name was going to be called any minute, but he asked me 'Mary, why are you crying?' I looked up and bit my lip and replied, 'Other than the fact that we are graduating, my mom's not here. My mother who watched my go through all of this didn't even bother to make an appearance at my own graduation.' He gave me a short hug before his name was called to go to the stage.
It was all over fast enough, and Francis and I went back to my house. 'I don't want to live here anymore, with my flaky mother, and all of it.' He searched his pockets for something before turning to me and saying 'I'm almost glad that you said that. I want you to move in with me.' He told me taking keys out of his pocket 'I've already rented one; it has a really nice kitchen, open floor plan, 2 bedrooms. You would love i-.' 'Yes.' I whispered, and his smile grew. 'Yes?' 'Yes, yes, yes.' I told him before we started kissing each other. He saved me so many times before, and I didn't know why I thought this time would be different.