Prom had never been first and foremost on my thoughts like it might have been on other peoples' minds. Take Skylar, for example. Once prom was over the next thing on her agenda was undoubtedly a wedding dress despite her lack of groom. That girl had been planning outfits to events since she could walk, I was sure of it.

I, on the other hand, had been under the impression up until a few days ago that I wouldn't have been attending at all. Dancing plus socialising equals Flora Montgomery? Certainly not - but my mother, Skylar and Parker were insistent that the equation work out, and as it so happens, it's very difficult to refuse the ones you love what they want after going through several life threatening experiences and coming to understand just how deeply you care for the people around you. Just because I said I'd go didn't make me happy with any of it. Frankly I'd rather stay in and watch reruns of The Bachelor. Old habits die hard.

Parker hadn't executed a cringe inducing promposal (I taste vomit as I use the term that's now the most whispered word in the hallways) or anything of the sort. He would have hated doing it, and I watching it. It wasn't us. Bribery, however, wasn't out of the question and was very Parker.

"Go to prom with me." Parker had suddenly blurted in the middle of a conversation.

I blinked, sitting up straighter on the couch to look at him. "Weren't we just talking about shredded wheat?"

"I thought we'd finished that. Shreddies don't go with strawberry milk, end of. Throw that suggestion at Matthew, I'm sure he'll love it. New conversation topic: prom. Go to it. With me." His words seemed to blur into one another at the speed he was talking.

His eyes were still fixated on my living room's television, unable to look at me probably due to the fact he knew how against the whole event I was. I had been complaining about it for weeks.

"Prom?" I asked. I could hear my mother as she spent her day off work singing as she washed the dishes, the melody filtering down the hallway and filling the silence that stretched out between us. "As in the dance... With couples and punch and- dancing? That kind of prom?"

"No," He tore his eyes from Spongebob (nothing was on so sue me for still enjoying the children's programme) to look at me, clearly trying to suppress a smile and failing miserably. "That other kind where I give you up to the mighty dark lord Satan whilst chanting sacrificial hymns," He rolled his eyes. "Yes, the dancing kind."

"Damn it, Park. You got my hopes up for the whole bloodshed scenario. Thought someone was going to finally put me out of my misery."

"Well sorry to break it to you but that someone isn't me and I will forbid that someone from following through with said plan until prom is over. Stop avoiding the question. What do you say?"

I picked at the muffin I was eating. "These taste really good. You know, until you made that cake for your sister I'd have never thought you the baking type. To be honest you still don't fit that image in my eyes but- wait a minute. Is this why you baked?"

"You like them?" His eyes lit up, suddenly distracted. "I've never made lemon drizzle, I didn't know how it would go."

I took another bite, staring at him through eyes like slits. "Delicious, but with a very strong after taste of bribery."

His grin widened. "Come on, Flora. Anyway, soon I'll be on trial. It's a miracle the guys and I are even allowed out of the station right now. If things go bad, if I- if I end up in prison or something, I'll want my prom to look back on. I want you to look back on. A happy ending to my high school life. To remember I have someone who cared enough for me to go to this dance because I really wanted to, and I hardly ask that someone for anything, and she did it just for me so that it'd remind me I had someone waiting on the outside if things did go south and-"

"Fine, fine, fine! No need to keep it going. If you really want to go to this stupid dance I'll go. It doesn't mean I'm going to be smiling in any of the photos."

"Photos?" My mother came through, drying off a plate with a dish towel. She sent Parker a tight lipped smile - this was extraordinary progress believe it or not - before returning her gaze to me. "Why wouldn't you smile for photos? What don't you want to do, sweetheart?"

"It's fine, mum." I sighed. "Parker's making me go to prom, is all."

"I- uh-" Parker's face burned brightly. I took note of how immaculate his posture had suddenly become since she'd entered the room, his hands neatly folded in his lap as if he were having a meeting with the Queen. It was with great difficulty I didn't burst out laughing at his uncharacteristically nervous attitude. You'd think I'd have been used to it what with the amount of times he'd been round now when my mum was still at home, but I wasn't. Whenever I saw him like this I couldn't help but compare it to the Parker I knew. The one who stormed into my work one day and whisked me away on a whirlwind of adventure with shoplifted Twinkies in his back pocket. "I wouldn't say forcing. I just encouraged her, but of course she could say no. I just thought, well- it's prom. Everyone should go to prom. If it's okay, that is."

My mother's smile was genuine this time. Actually, it was nothing short of delighted. She even beamed at a now obviously relieved Parker.

"Prom!" She exclaimed. "My daughter at prom. Oh, I thought the day would never come. You've grown so much, baby. Especially during these past few weeks. Wow... prom... I never thought- well what with your- I mean I never- prom..."

"That is what the kids call it nowadays," I said, somewhat embarrassed to have my mother turning it into such a big fuss in front of Parker. Thankfully he was too busy sinking back into the sofa with relief after his worries were put to rest to pay any attention to my discomfort over her enthusiasm. "No need to keep repeating yourself."

"Not smiling in photographs," Her stern tone was back, and Parker's relaxation time was abruptly put to an end as he sat up straight once more as if his spine had been replaced by a pole. "Ridiculous! I'll pin your cheeks up into a permanent smile if you force my hand. Prom is a right of passage, sweetheart. Something you'll look back on in years to come. Do you really want to remember yourself as the sulky girl next to her happy boyfriend? That wouldn't look so good."

It was the first time she'd really acknowledged our relationship as a legitimate thing. Slowly but surely progress was being made. Miracles didn't happen over night, but I was glad my mother would eventually see me eye to eye when concerning Parker, even if it did take time.

"I'll make sure she smiles, Mrs Montgomery. I'll come pick her up here myself, 7 o'clock on the dot. You can even take the photographs if you'd like. I'm sure you can have her laughing in at least one." Said Parker, and this time I did let out a laugh. Parker Heywood trying to act like the boy next door was certainly something I never thought I'd witness. He snuck me a sideways look, glaring.

She looked at him for a few moments, and then, "Joanna." She said. "Call me Joanna."

Parker gave her a brilliant smile. "Joanna it is."

And so it brings me to present day, awaiting Parker and Axel's arrival. Though the plan had initially been that Parker pick me up in his truck - I'd recently confessed how cool I thought it was and I'd never regretted something so much in my entire life for his ego had expanded to the size of my house - I'd told Skylar this and she had hated it. Had shrieked in my ear to share she and Axel's limousine until it bled and I relented. According to her things had to be done in style for this particular occasion. The height of it. Axel himself, his parents both on very generously paying jobs, had been happy to oblige. His Mum and Dad, the payers of said limousine, did so rather grudgingly. After all, it wasn't just Parker who was in a serious amount of trouble for his past crimes. A limousine was more of a reward than it was a punishment for broken rules and law, but thankfully they did relent.

I hadn't quite come to terms with Skylar and Axel's relationship just yet. It was early days for them, and they were only dating just now. Skylar had always been one for flipping from guy to guy, never staying too long in fear of things getting overly serious or one or the other becoming too attached, but I'd seen the way she looked at Parker's best friend and knew this was different. This wasn't like the long list of boys she'd dated and dropped like hot potatoes afterwards, leaving them heartbroken and pining after her. This was serious. It was within Axel's power to seriously hurt this girl and I now knew his past as well as I did Parker's. Too well. I couldn't help but wonder if this was how Skylar had felt about my hanging out with Parker at the start of the year: protective and anxious. However, I did have to remind myself that Skylar came to accept Parker. That she kept a relatively open mind throughout and eventually came to support my decision despite her own opinions. And anyway, Parker had assured me it was the most he'd ever heard his friend talk about the one girl. According to him, whenever Skylar's name was brought up he'd turn beetroot and begin to shout at him for mockery despite the fact there'd been none. They were like Parker and I when we'd first met, and though in the early days we'd been a mess, we had ended well. We'd come out alive. Who said Axel and Skylar couldn't have the same? Who said their happiness didn't lie with each other the way it did with Parker and I?

Three very long, blaring honks of a horn were heard from outside just around the same time the doorbell rang. It was the first time I realised (and I was probably a little late in doing so) how jumpy I felt about this. The entire event had been something of a bother as Skylar now had a viable excuse for dragging me around every dress store in Illinois. A hindrance to what I had otherwise envisaged being a smooth, hassle free (okay, nothing ran smoothly and without hassle but that had been my wish) end to my school years. Yet I hadn't noticed how picky I'd increasingly become over my chosen dress, how nervous I felt about what Parker would think of me in it. Skylar's dress was a midnight blue and had dozens upon dozens of twinkling jewels adorned to the bodice like stars in a dark night's sky. Flashy, obviously beautiful, accentuating her curves and emphasising her existing beauty. I'd opted for something plain. Something boring in comparison...

"Sweetheart, that's the door." Said my mother from behind me. "Though... it seems as if you already know that."

The door bell rang again. Indeed I did know it was ringing, for I was standing directly in front of it. I span around to face the woman I now knew I could tell anything to, a fact I should have already known but got lost somehow when I reached the age of ten.

"Mum, I'm nervous."

She placed her hands tentatively on either one of my shoulders, looked at me for permission. After our hug in the station it was as if she was Parker. I didn't mind her touches anymore, nor did I Skylar's. I was still a little wary of Parker's friends, and strangers were still a dangerous area, but this was leaps and bounds of difference compared to what I'd been before. Something that had far exceeded my expectations. Perhaps it had a little something to do with the knowledge that both Ian and Jason were still under intense questioning, confined in a place far from where they could reach out and grab hold of me. When they were gone for good I hoped that they'd act as a metaphorical key of some sort to unlock the door to the life I'd led deprived of physical contact, allowing me to walk down a new, unexplored corridor. Knowing they were out there had left me stranded in a world of fear, but perhaps if they were gone I could move on from that. For good.

"Flora," My mum brought me back to the present. "I see how much you care for this boy. I'm not blind. I can tell just as easily how much he adores you. Well- it's rather endearing actually, I must say. He certainly is a tryer, and I have to admire that. I know what you're like. You lock yourself away in your room to watch season after season of a show you've seen ten times before-"

"Binge-watching, mum." I couldn't help interrupting. "I've told you that's called binge-watching."

"-and you do it in place of going out with the people who care about you. You deprive yourself of happiness sometimes because you're scared it'll end too soon or you'll mess it up. Well, sweetheart, the only thing that'll mess this up is if you don't open that door tonight. You look gorgeous, and he'll think so too."

"It's the first time I've worn a dress since..." I pulled at the scalloped hem of my burgundy dress. I'd chosen a shorter one rather than the stereotypical ball gown that brushed the floor. The crushed velvet was soft and reassuring underneath my touch. I let the silence fill in the rest of my sentence for me, knowing my mother would understand.

She blinked back tears. "You've come so far, baby. You're so strong." She dabbed underneath her eyes, mascara smudging slightly. "I'm so proud of you. Now go on! Shoo. Answer that door, don't leave the poor boy waiting."

My own eyes were a little glossy as I replied, "Thanks, mum."

The bell rang again at the exact same moment I swung the door open to reveal Parker sporting a tuxedo. The black and white looked striking on him. It seemed to make his hazel eyes glow in the dark evening light like fireflies. Hair swooped up into that infamous wave at the front and an expression on his face as if he'd been taken off guard as he looked me up and down even though he knew exactly whose door he was ringing, I wouldn't have wanted anybody else waiting on me.

"Expecting someone else?" My voice cracked and I silently cursed myself for letting it.

Flora wasn't the girl that got nervous for prom, she had more dignity and was cool and- who was I kidding. I was human and my boyfriend was a Greek god, I had a right to be nervous.

He shook his head, lips still parted until eventually he composed himself and met my eyes with a mega watt grin. "You're beautiful."

My mother made a noise from behind me before I could respond with a witty retort that would hopefully make up for my burning cheeks. "Oh come in, come in. I need to take a photograph. Not just one, plural. Approximately ten hundred of them. You're both so- oh excuse the tears I-"

"It's alright Mrs Mont- Joanna. My mum was the same. Said I looked like James Bond."

I snorted at that. "She didn't."

"Nah, but I reckon I do. Count yourself lucky."

I gestured toward his burgundy bow tie as my mother fussed over the workings of the digital camera. "I didn't tell you the colour of my dress."

"In addition to my startling good looks and oozing charisma you can also add telepathy to my lengthy list of redeeming qualities." He smirked before twisting a strand of my loosely curled hair. "Pretty."

It was just a word and yet the effect it seemed to have on the blood rising to my face was ridiculous.

"Skylar," I tried to sound nonchalant anyway. "She did it this morning. Insisted actually." I patted his tie. "And though I don't doubt your telepathy skills this stinks of Skylar's doing, too."

"Okay, camera's working! Now go stand over by the bottom of the stair case. Yes, that's perfect. Okay. Come on, put your arm around her! I'm not going to hit you this time. Great! Alright, when I say cheese you both better be smiling..."

Parker's arm had encircled my waist, tugging me close to his side. I had fixed the best smile I could muster to my face as I stared through the lens, but Parker seemed intent on ruining my concentration. He bent his head forward slightly and whispered in my ear, "As we speak, Skylar is currently whacking Matthew upside the head with her purse. Axel hired the limousine and Matthew insisted on driving it. Turns out he's replaced all of the champagne with chocolate milk."

And just as the flash went off, I laughed. A genuine smile for a genuine moment; a second frozen in time captured and preserved on an image forever, and probably one of the happiest moments I'd experienced in a long time. It was odd, how I felt. Giddy with poorly suppressed excitement, almost weightless knowing there'd be no serious problems. Not tonight at least.

"This is being printed and framed and sent to every family member." Sobbed my mother, and then after another few snapshots of Parker and I, a couple of myself embracing my mother, and even one of a nervous Parker and the tear-stained emotional wreck that was Mrs Montgomery, we finally parted ways.

"I expected you to look taller." Was Axel's first words to me as I clambered into the limousine.

It was sleek and black and something I never thought I'd enter, but here I was, and being offered chocolate milk of all beverages. I had no problem with this, I loved it (though I had been apprehensive about it for a while after I drank it laced with drugs), but Skylar was glaring at the champagne flute glass filled to the brim with the delicious brown drink as if it were blended maggot on a bush tucker trial.

"And hello to you, too."

"Who'd have thought you'd look so small in heels..." He continued, trying to see my feet that were concealed behind a duffel bag that had undoubtedly been the carrier for our beverages. Matthew's name was scrawled up the side of the canvas in white pen. "You are wearing them, aren't you?"

I frowned at him and brought my feet out of concealment into the light of day to reveal my black and white Chuck Taylor's. I'd attempted to clean them but they were still looking a little worse for wear. "Why would I? I've said it about comfortable shoes before and I'll say it again. They make my toes feel like ten happy friends on a camping trip. I will not shove dear friends into some insufferable shoe that insists they end in a point. My friends want to have space to move and breathe thank you please."

Axel swore and Skylar gave him her hand with a smug grin. At first I thought it was to hold, but then I saw the wad of bills being exchanged.

"Thank you!" Sang Skylar, stuffing the dollars into her glitter encrusted clutch.

"What girl doesn't wear heels to prom!" Whined Axel, and Matthew let out a whoop from the front seat. The fact that his holler might have been his proclamation that he too did not wear heels to prom was slightly concerning, but where Matthew was involved it was best not to question anything.

"My girl," Parker said, his arm that sat around my shoulders pulling me in closer, sounding almost proud. "She's too quirky for the standard get-up."

"Huh. I usually just get called a freak but go ahead and cushion it. I'm enjoying this."

"Excuse me," Said Skylar from opposite Parker. She leaned forward, glaring, but I could tell she was just fooling around. Who knew whether poor Axel was aware that she wasn't truly offended. "I am anything but standard." She waved a bejewelled silver heel in the air only narrowly missing Parker's laughing face.

Axel pulled her back. "Nobody thinks you're standard, pumpkin."

"PUMPKIN!" Cried Matthew from the front seat.