The night swelled into its brightest, loudest point. Teachers exhaled in relief that nothing disastrous had happened yet. Couples posed for photos. Someone spilled red punch near the DJ booth, causing a minor commotion. Prom had entered its blurry, golden-hour chaos. Then it happened.
A murmur slipped through the gym, soft but unmistakable, a ripple of shifting voices and craning necks. Headlights swept across the far windows, too bright, too white, too sleek to belong to any parent running late or lost Uber driver. Someone near the stage whispered, “Who comes to prom in a car like that?”