“Sure,” I say.
She comes close. Her perfume floats in through my nostrils and fills my whole body.
“Careful, don’t poke him,” Mom says. I feel her lean toward us.
“Would you… like to do it?” offers Cecily.
“If you don’t mind,” says Mom.
Cecily steps aside as Mom’s perfume enters my personal space, filling me with quite different emotions than Cecily’s did.
“There,” says Mom. “You look so handsome. And here’s Cecily’s corsage.”
I reach my hand out to accept the floral arrangement, but instead hear Mom sliding it onto Cecily’s wrist herself.
“Can we take the picture now?” I ask, feeling increasingly eager to ditch my parents.
Mom arranges us in a few different poses and, once satisfied with her photo collection, dismisses us.
“Be safe,” she says.
“Have fun,” adds Dad.
We go out to a fancy dinner with Whitford and Ion, and then go to the dance, which is in the school gym.
“I’m gonna show these folks how to dance,” says Whitford as we walk through the doors. “We’ll meet you out there.”
Ion and Whitford walk away, leaving the two of us standing by ourselves.
“I’m nervous,” Cecily says. The music is loud, and she has to put her lips right up to my ear so I can hear her. I feel her breath against my skin, warm and humid, like a breeze in the summer. It gives me chills, having her face so near.
“I’ve never been to a dance before,” Cecily continues. I feel her leaning away, as if shrinking back toward the exit. “I don’t know if I can do this. I don’t know if it’s a good idea,” she says.
I reach down and give her hand a supportive squeeze.
I remove my sunglasses and turn my head so my mouth will be close to her ear. She’s so close that my chin bumps lightly against her hair. “Keep your eyes on mine. Don’t look away. It’s just you and me.”
I give her hand another squeeze. “Got it?”
Her head brushes against my face as I feel her nod.
“Then let’s go dance,” I say.
We turn toward the music. She walks slightly ahead, our fingers still intertwined. If someone saw us and didn’t know better, I bet they’d think we were a couple, walking together, holding hands.
As we move across the gym, the music gets louder and the bodies closer.
“How’s this?” she says, yelling above the music.
“Perfect!”
This is not my first school dance, but it is my first dance at a mainstream school. I try to start dancing, bouncing my shoulders and arms to the beat. But I feel self-conscious, like every student in the gym is staring at me, judging my inability to dance. If I could see my dance moves, and if I could look at everyone else to compare myself, maybe I wouldn’t feel so insecure. Everyone else, everyone who can see—I know they aren’t having such doubts. But I try to pretend I’m confident and having fun because I want Cecily to be comfortable.
“So… are you dancing now?” I yell at her.
“Yeah! My moves are incredible. Shame you can’t see them!” she jokes.
“Let me feel them,” I say.
“What?”
“Come closer!”
I reach out both of my hands, and she lays her fingers across them. It’s a fast song, a club remix of a pop radio hit. I tug on her arms, and she steps one of her legs right up against mine, and then the other, her whole body following so that we press together from the ground up, like a closing zipper, until our faces meet, cheek to cheek. She wraps her arms around my neck, and I pull against the small of her back, tighter with every beat of the song. The silky fabric of her dress is stretched taut between her legs. I feel the strap of her camera, which is hanging over her shoulder even now, at this school dance and in this dress. I love that about Cecily. Always ready to capture beauty.
That’s when I realize something: I want to kiss Cecily.
But does she want to kiss me?
If only I could see her, read her expression, look into her eyes. Then I would know.
I let my mouth brush over her ear.
She doesn’t pull back. That’s a good sign. Maybe there is something here. Something more than friendship. Something more than cohosting.
Suddenly a great holler rises up from the crowd, a collective protest. The music is still going, but I get the sense that everyone has stopped dancing.
“What just happened?” I say.
“The lights turned on,” says Cecily.
“What? They were off before?” I ask.
“Yeah.”
“So we’ve been dancing in the dark this whole time?”
“Pretty much.”
That’s not what I had imagined. I generally assume that wherever I go, there is light. If it was dark, people would stop moving. Wouldn’t they? They’d get confused and start stumbling over each other. They’d be, well, blind. But apparently, it’s been dark at this dance the whole time.
“You mean, people danced when it was dark, but when they could see themselves, they stopped dancing?”