We slowly immersed ourselves in the swoony atmosphere of prom. There were some surprising couples. Sebastian O’Hara, for example, was with a boy I could only assume was the Oscar of urban legend. I’d never seen him at Piles Fork High School. But whoever he was, he clearly adored Sebastian. And Sebastian’s usual Dexter the Serial Killer personality melted, rendered into something sweet and innocent and nonlethal.

Even more surprising: aspiring wizard Tucker Cook and Daisy Munk.

I didn’t know when or where or how that happened, but suddenly Tucker was completely googly-eyed for Daisy—which he had to kind of crane his neck back to do properly. She was nearly a foot taller than him. You could tell Daisy’s guard was up; she hesitated to dance, to talk too much, to even smile excessively. But Tucker was kind of relentless in his adoration. Like a puppy.

When Daisy and Tucker finally did dance, Imogen pressed her hands to her cheeks, smooshing her face like a giant stress ball, swooning.

“Be still my heart,” she said.

Wynonna, Holden, Imogen, and I danced ourselves silly. As a group, in pairs, by ourselves in moshing droves of sweaty bodies during the really fast songs. The ambience was magnetic. The air was pulsing, fueled by a thousand racing heartbeats. Even the fruit punch was on point. And that was to say nothing of the music.

DJ Ziggy Donovan was in the house. I swear, the guy had, like, a billion hobbies, and half a dozen side jobs. Of course he would be our DJ.

Prom was perfect.

Imogen was probably the greatest dance partner in the history of the universe. She gave zero shits about how one was supposed to dance. She just moved, and I moved, and we had fun—a blast, even—and we couldn’t stop laughing, and she made me feel like I wasn’t the worst dancer on the planet. (Which I knew for a fact that I was.) She was more than I deserved. I couldn’t ask for more.

I also couldn’t stop looking at Wynonna.

For the life of me, I couldn’t.

When she danced, she was moving poetry—reckless, electric, alive. The more I looked, the more I felt myself fading in her presence. She was water, and I was a dissolvable tablet. I broke apart, crumbled, disintegrated in her wake.

The feeling was strange. I wasn’t, like, in love with her.

I realized I was happy for her.

I realized I had never cherished the happiness of another human being more than I did for her, right now, in this moment.

I wasn’t in love with her. But I did love her.

I felt a something trickle down my face.

“Ezra?” said Imogen. “Are you okay?”

I snapped out of my daze. Touched the part of my face where a tear had obviously snuck out. Wiped my face with my sleeve.