Tidewoven Inc | Micah Goes to Prom
Micah agrees to go to prom because Daniel’s cousin from Yakima asks him like it is a favor she is doing herself. Her name is Kara. She wears combat boots under her dress and tells him immediately, “I’m not dancing to slow songs unless they’re ironic.”
Micah, seventeen and already chronically out of place, nods because he doesn’t have much interest in slow dancing either.
He borrows a suit that fits his shoulders but nothing else. Elise fixes his tie with military precision, steps back, and says, “You look like you’re about to testify before Congress.”
“Is that bad?” Micah asks.
“It’s accurate,” she says.
Kara shows up to pick Micah up at 8 pm exactly. Before she can ring the doorbell, Elise opens the door and pushes Micah every so gently out the door before closing it firmly behind him. This is it. He is going to prom. Kara sees the look of abject terror on his face and laughs. “Hey, weirdo.”
Micah relaxes slightly at her teasing tone. He knows Kara, they’ve hung out at Reyes family reunions for years. It’s going to be fine.
Prom is in a hotel ballroom that smells like carnations and too much body spray. There’s a balloon arch. There is a DJ who believes he curated the ultimate playlist. There are classmates Micah barely recognizes because they are suddenly dressed like adults pretending to know what they’re doing.
Kara takes one look at the dance floor, snorts, and says, “Absolutely not,” then drags Micah to the snack table. They spend twenty minutes ranking desserts by structural integrity. “This cake is lying,” Kara says, poking a slice. “It can’t support itself.”
Micah nods. “Flawed engineering.”
They dance exactly twice. Once, because the DJ plays something fast* and Kara shouts, “THIS ONE’S ACCEPTABLE,” and drags him onto the dance floor. Micah dances like it’s his first time hearing music. Kara dances like she has nothing to prove and no interest in watching anyone else.
The second time is a slow song**. They stand there. Swaying. Three inches too far apart. Micah’s hands hover in a panic before landing politely on her shoulders like she’s made of glass.
Kara looks up at him and says, “You okay?”
“Yes,” Micah lies.
“Cool,” she says. “Me neither.”
They bail early. They end up sitting on the hood of Kara’s father’s car in the parking lot, shoes off, laughing at absolutely nothing. Kara eats contraband fries. Micah stares at the stars like he’s already halfway gone somewhere else.
“You’re not like anyone else,” Kara tells him, fondly.
“I get that a lot,” Micah says.
She grins. “But in a good way.”
They never date. They never kiss. They take exactly one blurry photo together that Elise keeps forever. Years later, Micah will remember prom not as a disaster, but as the night he learned something important: You can show up. You can be awkward. You can leave early. And sometimes that’s enough.
Senior prom survived. Micah, only mildly traumatized. Kara undefeated.
*Mr. Brightside by The Killers
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