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“No. You left two days before.”
My eyes filled with tears. “Walter…”
“I couldn’t give you a prom when we were teenagers. But I can give it to you now.”
The young woman from the wedding stepped forward. “I’m Jenna. I’m an event planner. Walter hired me to put this all together.”
I looked around. The room was decorated like a 1970s prom. Disco balls. Retro posters. Even a punch bowl.
My daughter walked up and hugged me. “We’ve been planning this for months, Mom. Walter wanted it to be perfect.”
The young woman from the wedding stepped forward.
I couldn’t speak. I just stood there and cried.
Walter held out his hand. “May I have this dance?”
The music started. A slow jazz song I remembered from high school.
Walter pulled me close. We swayed together in the middle of the room.
Everyone was watching, but I didn’t care.
For a moment, we weren’t in our 70s. We were 16 again. Back when anything felt possible.
We swayed together in the middle of the room.
“I love you, Debbie,” Walter whispered.
“I love you too.”
“I’m sorry it took us over five decades to get here.”
I shook my head. “Don’t be. We had good lives. We loved good people. But this? This is our time now.”
He kissed me. Right there in front of everyone.
And I kissed him back.
“This is our time now.”
Later, after the music slowed and people started saying their goodbyes, I sat with Walter at one of the tables.
“How did you even think of this?”
He smiled. “You mentioned it once. Just casually. You said you always regretted not going to prom. And I thought, why not? Why can’t we have it now?”
“But all of this? The planning? The secrecy?”
“I had help. When you said you were heading to the library, I guessed you’d follow your heart. I just made sure I arrived here before you did.”
“You said you always regretted not going to prom.”
I looked at Walter. At his kind eyes. At the man who’d spent months planning this just to make me happy.
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For reminding me that it’s never too late for second chances.”
***
At 71, I finally went to prom. And it was perfect.