College Ruled

fourteen

| 14 |
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ONCE, WHEN I was thirteen, I convinced my parents to let me go to my middle school dance.

I didn't really want to go, I went mostly because I wanted to know I was capable of tricking my parents into letting me do something they thought I wanted to do. Something I chose for myself.

     I spent the whole night stuffing myself with fruit punch. I stood in the corner, right next to the bakugan players and the basketball team who spent the night passing around Nintendo DSs, and tried to convince myself that I'd won something by bargaining myself my very own miserable night.

    I'd almost—almost—decided to shovel my pride away and text my parents to pick me up when Lottie Mitchell's caught sight of me. She was the type of nice that fooled people into thinking they could be someone like her. Someone real. Someone who didn't shit on other people just because it made their friends laugh.

   She'd said I looked lonely. Said I shouldn't spend the night looking like a ghost. She'd pulled me out to the dance floor and skipped around me, pink pastel romper draped over he porcelain skin. She'd taken my hand and spun me around and around and around.

   She'd laughed, proud of herself, and said I finally looked like I was having fun.

   But god—that punch.

   I'd puked all over the gym floor.

   Lottie fucking Mitchell's had held my hair back and patted my back. She said everything would be okay.

   I'd wanted to die.

   By some miracle, I'd forgotten about that memory. I'd bubble wrapped it and shipped it away to some unseen realm in my brain.

    Until Grayson pulls my into the sea of sweaty costumes and I'm immediately reminded. I swear the distant stench of vomit prickles my nostrils.

"I don't know how to dance."

      I say the word dance very loosely, knowing we're both aware that the only acts happening around us that even resemble the word are the sloppy footwork of rhythmic sways and blatant grinding.

     Grayson glowers at me, but I ignore him. I shrug his jacket back over my shoulders at the same moment someone shoves into my back, pushing me into him. He uses the momentum to grab my hand again and he spins me into him. The back of my head knocks into his shoulder.

    "Look at that," he says smugly. "You're dancing."

     "That was not dancing. That was tripping." I roll my eyes. "Tripping I am very good at. Dancing I am not."

     Grayson lets out a resigned sigh. His chin falls onto my head. "Has anyone ever told you that you talk a lot?"

      "No." My voice comes out squeaky, so I clear my, suddenly very scratchy, throat. I'm too aware of him pressed up behind me. He's warm and solid and his smell is everywhere. "That's a new one."

I try to take a step away, but his grip tightens. God, I hope Andy and Theo aren't watching us. I probably look like I'm going to be sick.