My first short story

Have you gotten the chance to dance with a girl? I’m not talking, in-the-club, grinding against every living thing you see ‘dancing’, I’m mean hand in hand, lost in each other’s eyes, in a timeless, endless, dance with each other’s minds and souls. Alone, on a dock, lit by dim lights and breezy from the slick surface of the water. Her hand on your shoulder, and head on your chest. You know she can hear how fast your heart is beating but you don’t care, nothing matters, not even how bad you’re, sure, that you’re dancing.
You know what I mean? It’s truthfully hard to explain unless you’ve experienced it firsthand. It’d be like trying to explain how you felt the first time you fell in love. Nobody can explain love to you, you gotta’ endure the hardships to understand the rewards for yourself. I’ve danced with one girl in my life. Boy was she gorgeous, she’s one of those girls you tell your friends how amazing she looks and they don’t believe you until they see for themselves. Her names still echoes in my head every time I hear it; Carolina Mayorga, and, trust me, you need to see her to. Not a flaw to her being.
I wore a rental black suit, with an orange tie that matched my corsage, she had on a fine black dress that stopped just above her knees – We had just come from our school’s homecoming dance. We didn’t go together, but to my luck her date left her to dance with another girl. I saw her standing alone and saw it as the chance of a lifetime. Her arms crossed, and eyes darting towards the dance floor. I poured two cups of punch, taking care to make sure it wasn’t the one mixed with alcohol, and made my way to where she stood. She saw me coming and smiled her gorgeous smile, like I made her night just by acknowledging her.
“Why are you just standing here?” I said, handing her the drink.
“The douche I came with started dancing with the one preppy girl” she grabbed the drink to take a sip “Is this…”
In interrupted “Nah, I made sure to grab the one without the alcohol.”
“Thanks, I can’t afford to go home drunk.” She looked back towards the dance floor.
“Do you have to be home anytime soon?” I looked at the couples dancing.
“No, I don’t have to be home until 12:00”
“Do you want to get out of here, go to the lake or something?” I looked back at her, praying she’d say yes.
“It beats standing on the side looking like a rejected date.”
It wasn’t the “Yes! I’d love to” I looked forward to hearing, but it still beat a no. I just couldn’t believe she said yeah. I mean, I knew through a friend she used to like me, and she knows I’ve liked her for a long time, but she had been dating Charlie Simmons, who played the line on the football team, and flaunted just being on the team like he was hot stuff. Anyways, we walked out to the parking lot, and got in my car, I had made sure to clean out the usual mess of food wrappers and soda cans the night before. The car right was relatively quiet, the occasional “This is a good song” and other pointless conversation, that did nothing but break the silence. We got to the lake and I practically sprinted to her side to make sure I got the door for her. We walked down the steps and to the end of the dock. It had a rounded off part at the end of it, with railings and a rooftop. There were couples on all the benches, probably trying to find a secluded spot just like ourselves, so we stood, leaning on the railing staring into the lake. As I looked around to see if I could make out any of the faces, I saw my friend Mike with this girl he told me he planned on asking but, I didn’t believe he’d do it. He’s had a crush on her for a while. He happened to look at me too, and we just nodded our heads and came to a mutual understanding not to get into conversation and ruin our dates’ night. After I finished looking around and seeing nobody else I could recognize, I looked back at her, and she took her eyes off the lake, and looked at me.
“Did you at least get to dance?” I asked.
“No…” she broke eye contact and looked back across the lake.
I stepped back, lowered my head, held out my hand, and in my most fancy voice asked her to dance.
She looked back at me “There’s no music, and everyone will watch!” she did one of the loud whispers to make her think people couldn’t hear.
“I’ll sing to you, I’ve been told I have a pretty decent voice…” I really do, “…and let them watch, it doesn’t matter what they think. You didn’t get to dance, and everyone, should get to dance at their homecoming.”
“But I can’t dance.” She said shyfully, still using her loud whisper voice.
“Neither can I” I said as nonchalant as I could.
She took my hand, after a few moments of hesitation, and I brought her to the center of the dock. I took her free hand and put it on my shoulder, and continued to hold the other one down low. I took my free hand and put it around her waist. I made sure to put it high enough to make sure she knew I wasn’t gonna’ try anything funny.

I stayed at a respectful distance, because I still wasn’t entirely sure how she felt about me, and if she was over her boyfriend yet. It was quiet for a few moments, as we just danced trying to imitate what we thought was correct dancing. I couldn’t think of a song to sing for the life of me. I finally chose “Lucky” by Jason Mraz, my favorite song of his. Before I could finish the song, Mike got up and took out his MP3 player- It was one of those kinds you could hear without headphones, but it killed the battery twice as fast, and he hated to use the speaker way too, he said it destroyed the sound on it. I guess he was making exceptions for a special occasion. He chose a song, and set it on the floor. Before long, “The dumbing down of Love” by Frou Frou began playing. I turned my head to look at him and chuckled, he knew it was my favorite song of all time. I hummed the song for a while, and after I stopped, she rested her head on my chest. She took my hand and wrapped it around her, moved in closer to where we were completely pressing against each other, took my other hand, and lowered it a bit, to let me know to relax and that she was more comfortable. So there we were, hugging, and doing our best to dance, we danced for a good ten minutes of, which felt like less than a moment.
“You know I never actually stopped liking you? I just never knew how you felt, and I was with Charlie” She said with her head still pressed against my chest. I could feel the treble in her voice radiate up my body and freeze me for a moment. I had no idea what to say or how long I was lost in the moment.
“I love you, I always have, from the first time you walked in my math class, just happened to sit by me, and I asked for a pencil”
“But, I hated you the first day, I mean who doesn’t have a pencil on the first day? I thought you were just another lazy kid who was gonna’ ask me for my homework or to copy during a test all the time.” she took her head off my chest and looked at me.
“Yeah, I knew you didn’t like me on the first day, but it only made me love you more.” I looked down at her.
It started to rain outside the dock. Some of the couples, that were in the range of the stray drops and splashes, got up and got closer under the roof, or ran back to their cars.
I leaned in to kiss her, and before I could even make it halfway she met me at about 70% of the way to my 30. It lasted about eight seconds, and wasn’t one of those tongue in each other’s mouths, superficial ‘look everyone! We’re making out!’ type kisses. It was the kind you remember for the rest of your life, the kind that you swear to everyone, on God’s green Earth, that you heard fireworks, and trumpets in the background. It convinced me that how I felt about her I knew to be true.
Ten years later, just as I vowed I would, I put a ring on her finger and changed her last name.