Liz Heck leaned close to her bathroom mirror and drew a thin band of liner along each eyelid.

"Just a little color," the 39-year-old said, stepping back to examine herself. "Nothing too drastic."

Tonight, she wanted to look and feel like herself.

She'd been so excited a few months ago when she saw a Facebook post promoting the first-ever Houston Gay Prom, a party for adults who didn't get to enjoy their high school dances, either because their sexuality was still a secret or they feared the social backlash that would come with being themselves.

Liz told her girlfriend, Sabrina, then bought tickets the first day they went on sale. She picked out a little black dress and, for weeks, seemed to talk about little else.

Now she took a deep breath and turned away from the mirror.

"Oh my gosh, I'm so nervous," she said. "I don't even know why."

A few minutes later, Sabrina rang the doorbell and stood at her own front door, wearing a white suite jacket and holding a pink corsage and boutonniere.

"You look beautiful," Sabrina told her as she slipped the corsage onto Liz's wrist.

Liz's eyes became glassy as she looked down at it:

"I've never worn a corsage before."

Two decades ago, the last time Liz had been excited to attend a dance, she'd been a shy and confused 17-year-old. She'd known she liked girls since 3rd grade, but her adoptive parents, devout Jehovah's Witnesses, had taught her from a young age that homosexuality was a dire sin.

That year, though, her classmates at J.J. Pearce High School outside Dallas had voted her onto the homecoming court, and when a boy asked her to go with him, she agreed.

She'd been on the phone with her date, trying to describe the color of her dress so he could buy matching flowers, when her father cut the conversation short.

"You are absolutely not going," he told her, making clear that no daughter of his would do something so "worldly" as dance with a boy.

Imagine if he knew what she'd really desired.

It didn't matter. The next day, Liz had to resign from the homecoming court, giving up her chance to be queen.

That spring, she didn't even bother asking if she could go to prom.

Liz and Sabrina pulled into the valet outside Rockefeller's in north Houston. Holding hands, they stepped into the darkened music hall. The place was packed with people in bright dresses and tuxedos, nearly all of them with their own prom horror story.

"Oh, how are you doing?!" Liz shouted over the music, then hugged Hershel Williams, who she'd met a month earlier at the Houston Pride parade. "How cool is this?"

They sat down together for dinner, and Hershel recalled taking a girl to his senior prom back in 2002. The whole time, he said, all he could think about was the boy he'd been secretly crushing on.

"That wasn't really my prom," he said. "This is my prom."

Leland Gray, a 30-year-old manager at a local HVAC company, dreamed up the event and organized it in his spare time. So many of his gay friends had shared similar stories of regretting prom, just like he had. They'd been scared or confused or trying to be something they weren't to please their parents.

"Doing it our way this time around." That's what Leland had written on the online page he created to promote the event a couple months ago.

He'd expected a few dozen people to come.

He had to cut off ticket sales at 250.

Liz and her date headed for the dance floor. Sabrina held her close. Twirled her. Tried and failed to teach her the choreographed steps to a song she didn't know.

Liz spotted another friend and waved to her from across the room: Brandi Adams and her girlfriend, Tameca Colbert, had come all the way from Dallas.

Tameca knew Brandi had missed out on her prom, so she secretly made plans to attend the event in Houston. She staged an elaborate promposal, complete with a homemade poster: "You are as sweet as sticky rice, and sushi is da bomb. I just want to know, will you roll with me to prom?"

The word "prom" was spelled out on a tray of California rolls.

"People might think it's corny, but so many of us missed out on that stuff," Brandi said. "It's fun to go back in time for a night and relive it."

Not just relive it. Recreate it, the way it should have been.

SLIDESHOW: A SECOND CHANCE AT PROM

Back to Gallery At prom for gay adults, a second chance at a night worth... 12 1 of 12 Photo: Yi-Chin Lee, Houston Chronicle 2 of 12 Photo: Yi-Chin Lee, Houston Chronicle 3 of 12 Photo: Yi-Chin Lee, Houston Chronicle 4 of 12 Photo: Yi-Chin Lee, Houston Chronicle 5 of 12 Photo: Yi-Chin Lee, Houston Chronicle 6 of 12 Photo: Yi-Chin Lee, Houston Chronicle 7 of 12 Photo: Yi-Chin Lee, Houston Chronicle 8 of 12 Photo: Yi-Chin Lee, Houston Chronicle 9 of 12 Photo: Yi-Chin Lee, Houston Chronicle 10 of 12 Photo: Yi-Chin Lee, Houston Chronicle 11 of 12 Photo: Yi-Chin Lee, Houston Chronicle 12 of 12 Photo: Yi-Chin Lee, Houston Chronicle























Liz remembers feeling miserable that night 21 years ago, lying in bed while her classmates danced to Boyz II Men and some other girl was crowned homecoming queen.

She's done a lot of living since then: Her failed marriage to a man she couldn't truly love. The births of three children. The death of her mother in 2004 and the sudden realization that she didn't want to keep living a lie.

Now the dance music had faded and the emcee was asking all the nominees for prom royals — a gender-neutral name for king and queen — to line up at the stage.

"That's you babe," Sabrina said, then gave Liz a kiss on the cheek.

Liz stood up, trembling slightly, and headed to the front of the room. She'd put her name in the running a few weeks back, and although she'd said it was just for fun, she couldn't help thinking back to high school and all the years she'd spent wondering how that night might have turned out. How everything might have turned out.

This prom contest would be decided by the online votes of strangers. Liz stood with her hands clasped at her waist, smiling nervously, as organizers checked the final tally.

Someone passed a piece of paper to the woman with a microphone, and she began to read aloud:

"The 2017 prom royal is ..."

Liz closed her eyes and looked down.

Then she heard her name spoken and people cheering. Her mouth dropped open and she snapped her head around to find Sabrina in the crowd. Disoriented, she made her way up the steps.

Someone placed a sash over her head. Then a crown.

A minute later, Sabrina joined her smiling girlfriend on stage. She kissed Liz and told her: "This is your night, baby."

Finally.