based on the song by Grace VanderWaal

I can see clearly now
The rain has gone
I accept all the things that I cannot change
Gone are the dark clouds
The dawn has come
It's gonna be a bright, bright sunshiny day

My doctor tried to install in me to have positive mind. She didn’t mean to paste a fake smile, allow everyone to punch me in the face and scream out: “Please, sir, can I have some more?” And there were times that I wanted to stay on that high cloud. “Don’t punch that dude, Jo,” or “Don’t drive a nail into that jackass’s tires” to “Don’t throw your heart into everything. Think first.” Okay, maybe she didn’t say that…no, that was from my other therapist, the one who I paid with giving him rides around town.
There were days that I should have listened more to the both of them.

“And so, Dr. Norby tells me that I wrote out the chemical formula for shit.”
“You mean you got it wrong?” I asked as we drove down the street. We as in myself and Frank, my friend since the sixth grade. We did just about everything together.
“No, I mean a real formula for it: C9H9N”
“What were you trying to write out?” I asked as I turned my car onto the highway.
“I was taking a guess at the question. Just Lucky.”
“The weird thing is that he knows that’s the formula in the first place.”
“I was thinking that too.”
Frank closed his notebook and then tapped on the dashboard. “Question for you.”
“Okay.”
“Promise you won’t get mad?”
“Can’t promise anything until I hear it.”
“Well, we’ve gone over this a few times.”
“We’ve gone over a lot of things. You’re going to have to clarify that a bit.”
Frank looked in the side mirror as we passed a school bus. “Yeah, it’s about April.”
“April again?”
“Yes, again.”
“She doesn’t hate you,” I replied as I merged back into the lane. I wasn’t in a hurry to get home I just usually drove at sixty-five miles an hour—on a road with a limit of fifty-five—because I could.
“That’s a good sign, maybe.”
“She doesn’t really know you either.”
“You were supposed to talk to her.”
“I was?” I replied with mock surprise.
“You have the inside track with her, you know, being in the girls’ locker room.”
“Frank, there’s like, an order that girls do when talking about guys and no, we don’t talk about them while taking a shower.”
“But later on?”
“Sure, while we’re getting dressed let me bring you up. Nothing weird about that.”
“I’m getting the feeling that you’re trying to get me to ask her myself.”
“You should go with that feeling.”
“What about you?” Frank adjusted the heater—it was February and there was snow everywhere but on the road as the weather had allowed the plows to treat the highways.
“Dating is way off my radar.”
“That’s a load of C9H9N right there, Joanna.”
“That’s true,” I replied as I swatted Frank’s hand away the temperature control.
“I could talk to a few of the basketball players. We’re not afraid to talk about girls in the shower.”
“Of course not.”
“We could help each other with finding a date for the dance.”
“I have never liked dances since the seventh grade.”
“And that was, what, four years ago?”
“And there are people who still remember.”
“The dress rip?”
“It didn’t rip. It was torn and you know it.”
“Sorry, Jo.”
“If I ever see Anthony Riesche again, I will have you beat him for me.”
Frank nodded.

The second and final dance in seventh grade was held in the darkened multi-purpose room with the boys on one side and the girls on the other. It was held during school hours so no one was dressed in prom regalia but in what could be described as “their Sunday best” and I chose to wear a dress that day. I stood with the girls—as I had started transitioning months before. There was always pushback from someone or other that day was no different, but Frank walked near me, so no one said anything to my face but there was a lot of hatred from the other girls and some hazing from the boys. I assumed that day would be the same.
Everyone was on the main floor for several fast songs but as soon as the tempo dropped for the next song, it was like Moses has walked in and parted the waters—with everyone standing on the opposite sides of the room. It was a huge game of “Red Rover” and no one—except for Amy Mangelsen and Michael Thomas who, according to Frank, had broken past the “just holding hands” barrier—went out to slowly turn in a clockwise motion while staring into each other’s eyes.
We were required to be at the dance. The only ways to get out of it were to be sick or be suspended and as much as I didn’t care to be there, I had hoped that…maybe…maybe, someone would want to dance with me. I had ordered Frank to not come within twenty-five feet of me and to not look at me so I would not look at him and have the room assume we were going to come together like friends who become lovers. We never crossed that boundary…and at that time Frank was heavily into breasts, which due to crappy genetics, bad timing with doctors and my stand to not to stuff anything…I mean, only the dumbest guy in the world would assume they just magically grew overnight for a stupid dance. It was dark, however, so it could have been possible…maybe? I mean, boys are a little dense.
So, as Garth Brooks’ “The Dance” played there were a few girls going up and dragging guys onto the floor and there was one guy who walked across the great divide and up to me. His name was Tony Riesche and he was pretty good in the looks department. He had braces and his tie was a little frazzled, but he was an okay guy from what I knew of him. We were never in the same classes together but I heard that he was going to be “that guy” that you either liked with all of your seventh grade admiration or despised with your soon to grow teenage disdain: he was the guy who had the money and talent and everyone knew it. Stating that, I had to wonder why he was standing before me.
“Do you want to dance?” He had asked at the same time Garth said it in the song.
There was a tug-of-war going on in my brain. Yes, this was what I wanted…and…No, I didn’t care. I had not expressly shown an interest in boys but at that moment, I was.
I nodded and he took my hand. If there was laughter, snickering or gasps I couldn’t hear them as we stepped out onto the floor. He placed his hands around my waist, and I rested mine on his shoulders. I didn’t want to look at eyes because that would mean we would have to discuss things that I didn’t want to think about. Instead, I laid my head near his shoulder, he was a little taller than I was, and closed my eyes. Perhaps we should have said something to each other. get to know one another, talk about our future together and how we arrange our shared locker in high school. But no, instead I just leaned into it all and it felt good. It was best feeling since I came out to my family and Frank. The song ended and a fast-paced, hip hop song blasted out of the speaker in the worst possible segue ever. I felt grasp at my dress and as I stepped away a look of extreme horror came onto my face as I looked at Anthony face—which was a mix of malice and a sadistic grin. The dress was ripped and most of it fell off of me.
And, for some reason, the lights came up. So…picture if you will, a half-naked girl in their underwear being laughed at by just about everyone except for the teachers and by Frank who came right over and slammed Anthony’s face to the floor in some move he later said was called a suplex. I picked the dress up and tried to cover myself as much as I could—but everyone had pretty much seen enough that everyone’s parents had an excuse to bring a torch and a pitchfork to the Riesche’s front door. Instead, I was barred from wearing a dress to school. That lasted less than a day as my parents came in almost gave the principal the riot act. He took one look at my parents and then commented that the Riesche’s were taking full responsibility. They took responsibility by moving away. So, while I didn’t’ have to physically see him, the mental scars remained and every year each dance brought those feelings back.
“If April does say yes, I think we’ll go to that fondue place downtown.”
“Expensive.”
“If I’m going for the flowers and tuxedo? Might as well.”
“Frank, it’s just the Winterfest dance. Not like it’s prom.”
“Oh, for prom, I’ll take her in a limo.” Frank replied as I stopped in front of house that was on top of a snow-covered driveway. I was not going to try to go up it.
“Where are you getting the money to do this?”
“I guess it’s too late to get a job to save.” Frank said as he opened the passenger side door.
“For Winterfest you got two weeks. Prom, a few months.”
“Wait, you’re good with numbers—”
“—We’re not playing Powerball.”
“I’ll split it with you.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow, Frank.”
“Not unless we have more snow. Catch you later Joanna.”
“Later,” I replied as he closed the door.
I lived a mile up the road in a house that was on an even higher hill and could not be seen from the road.
Frank’s drive to ask April out had started three weeks prior. April was new to Reardan—she was a transfer from Medical Lake—and had not fallen into any cliques nor listened to the rumor mills. We talked a little bit, but not enough for us to say we were friends and not enough for me to just volunteer that my best friend wanted to do whatever made her happy. That he wanted the white picket fence and the two-point-five kids. He once spent three hours laying out the master plan for Frank and April Sullivan. He even had the honeymoon itinerary planned out and as much as I needed to study for my algebra test, I chose to listen to his list that he had written down. The stop gap to his happiness? He didn’t know that April still had a boyfriend at her old school, which was only fifteen miles away.
There was a chance they could break up…but time was running out to tell Frank.

I Don't Like You