When the Buick died in the parking lot, Georgia didn’t scream or roll her eyes; she laughed, soft and startled, like the night had finally slipped out of character. We ended up on the curb, her green dress puddled around us, sharing a crushed bag of pretzels from the glove compartment while she confessed she’d begged her dad not to do this, not to turn me into some science fair project with a rented tux. I kept replaying every “coincidence”: Madison nudging me toward the snack table at the exact moment the power flickered, Aunt Evelyn’s comment about “excellent under pressure,” the DJ’s smirk when I requested the fake band. Georgia admitted there’d been a script—but I’d gone off it, offering my jacket when the night got cold, apologizing for jokes that landed wrong, calling my mom from the pay phone instead of Sheldon when the jump start failed. “You weren’t supposed to care this much,” she said quietly, like that ruined everything and saved something else at the same ti… Continues…