Dance Into the Future

One-shot

I say goodbye to Lily and wave at her until she’s turned the corner. We danced well together today. We’ve had quite a few off days lately, where it’s been as if our feet had been switched so she had two left feet and I had the two right ones. Today it went better, though.

I go back inside and enter the dancing hall. Some days, I can’t believe I’m still dancing, and this is one of them. It was my mom who forced me to start and stick with it, but now that I’m almost 18, I still go here and dance thrice every week.

I guess I do it because I’ve made friends here. I have friends, who don’t go here, but this dance studio is where I met my now best friend, and it’s where I still meet him – thrice a week, every week.

I stroll through the door way and enter the dance floor, my shoes clicking loudly against the wood, and when I turn my head, I see my best friend: Gerard. He’s sitting with his legs spread, his elbows leaning on his knees and his face buried in the palms of his hands. He’s upset for some reason. I could tell as soon as he came in today, but he just brushed me off when I asked him about it. It’s nothing, he said.

I’m worried about him. And I’m worried about us. Something happened between us, and though I couldn’t be happier that it did, I wish it hadn’t.

“You danced well today,” Gerard said and sat down next to me. The teacher, Diane, had just talked to me about keeping my back straight throughout the whole dance, and not just I the beginning, but Gerard apparently saw it differently.

I just shrugged and pretended to be indifferent to his comment, but the truth is that I was fighting to keep myself from visibly smiling. I remember that my stomach tickled, and now I know why.

“Gerard, Frank, do you mind wiping down the floor? Marilyn just needs to pay for this month,” Diane asked, her usual bitchy tone of voice breaking the comfortable silence. I held back an eye-roll and just nodded, then turned to see that Gerard was nodding as well.

Once Diane and Marilyn had left, my stomach tickled again. I was excited to spent time alone with Gerard.

We got a bucket of soap water and two mops and started the work, but within 2 minutes we were chasing each other with the mops and throwing water at each other. When we got tired, we sat down next to each other on a couple of chairs and just chatted about this and that.

“You look fat when you concentrate too-“ was all Gerard got to say before I punched him in the shoulder – hard.
“Au! What the fuck!” he then said, and I apologized quickly and repeatedly. Still, he just sat there and looked hurt, so I sighed heavily and annoyed, took his arm and lifted his arm towards me. Of course, he thought I was gonna hurt him again, so he withdrew from my grip.

“Would you relax! I’m just gonna kiss it better,” I said, then swiftly grabbed his arm and pressed my lips against his white shirt.

When I looked up at him again, he looked puzzled and what I now know was tempted. And he didn’t try to resist that temptation, because he quickly leaned forward and pressed his lips against mine. And what surprised me then, but now only makes sense, is that I pressed back; I kissed him back. I wrapped my arms around his neck and opened my mouth every now and then to let our tongues teasingly meet between our lips.

The sound of dancing shoes clicking against the wooden floor pulled us apart, and the sight of Diane’s horrid face scared me.


As I remember her face, I still feel scared. She yelled at us, told us we were sinners and that she was gonna call our parents. She did, and both our moms made arrangements with her to keep us on the dance team. After that, we’ve been instructed to wash the floor after every dance class we’ve been to and that if we do it again, she’s gonna call a priest to “sort us out”.

I think she scared Gerard more than me, because he’s been quiet and nervous since. It’s been two days since we kissed, and today is the first time we’ve talked since.

I put my hands in my pockets and stand there, watching him. He hasn’t seen me yet.

I wonder what’s going through his head. Does he regret it?

I know I wish it hadn’t happened, but I don’t regret it. It’s hard to explain, but I just don’t feel any remorse about it – but it still shouldn’t have happened.

What about our friendship now? Will we still go to the same college?

I’m so excited about going to college that I’ve sent out applications to 7 different schools, applying for 13 different scholarships, but Gerard’s only sent out one: mathematics at my first choice. I don’t understand that. Does that mean he only wants to go to the school that I go to, or does it mean that he doesn’t wanna go to college at all? What about his future?

Though he’s my best friend, we don’t talk much about our families, so I don’t know if his parents are pushing him to go or if they just leave the decision up to him. I know he has a brother and that his parents are still married, but that’s all I know. And all he knows about mine is that my parents are still together, though I keep thinking “for how long”.

Gerard suddenly lifts his head up and looks at me. I automatically smile at him. It’s a weak smile, and I can’t hide the pity and the worry that I feel.

“Hi,” he says. I just keep smiling back.
He looks down briefly, but then he looks up and stares straight into my eyes.
“About the other day. I really,” he says and then cuts himself off, sighing deeply and then looking away.

He looks so regretful, and it actually feels like a fist in my gut and a knife in my throat. He knows it shouldn’t have happened, and he regrets it. And I can’t let him know that I don’t, because then he’s gonna feel guilty about it, and I have to give him a way out.

“I know,” I lie, stuffing my sweaty hands deeper into my pockets. I shrug.
“It shouldn’t have happened.” I look down at my feet. And there goes I friendship; I can just feel it. We can’t be friends after this, and we’re not gonna be anything more than we were, so the only way to go is apart.

“Yeah,” he finally says.
And that’s it. After that, I leave. I don’t leave quickly, but he doesn’t make any move to stop me. So I leave.

Next Monday, after a slow and depressing weekend for me, I go to the dance studio like I always do after school.

But today is different, because I’m not met by the usual smile from Gerard and bitchy look from Diane: I’m met by a smiling Diane.
Though she’s smiling, her eyes look sad: not genuinely sad, but sad still.

She tells me that Gerard won’t be in today: that he won’t ever come back.

And at that moment, I don’t think that our kiss shouldn’t ever have happened, but I do regret it. And I realize that this exact thought and feeling is what Gerard felt Friday: he regretted it, but he wanted it to happen. And he wanted it to happen again. And he couldn’t live with the fact that it wouldn’t.

I was his only future, wasn’t I?
♠ ♠ ♠
Since it's based on a dream I had, it isn't very thorough. I hope it was okay.