Only One Boy Asked the Girl With the Birthmark to Prom—Then Police Walked Into the Gym and Called His Name

Only One Boy Asked the Girl With the Birthmark to Prom—Then Police Walked Into the Gym and Called His Name

PART 1

Nobody in that gym knew what Jonathan Ziegler was carrying inside his tuxedo jacket.

Neither did I.

I only knew it made his chest look stiff, like a boy wearing armor.

For most of my life, I was known for something I never chose.

The birthmark covers the left side of my face, from my temple down to my jaw.

In first grade, a boy asked if I had spilled grape juice on myself and forgot to wash it off.

By seventh grade, there was a name for me in the hallway, and I won’t repeat it.

I learned to keep my head down and my hair forward.

I learned to laugh before anyone else could.

My name is Laney Talbot, and I was seventeen years old.

I lived with my mother in a two-room apartment above a dry cleaner on Birch Street in Oakdale, Ohio.