Chapter 195: The Snow Dance
Nina
That night, it was finally time for the dance. I put on my new dress and did my hair and makeup with Lori and Jessica, then headed over to the auditorium.
The dean surprisingly put together a lovely dance despite the circumstances. There were streamers and balloons adorning the auditorium, live music being DJ’d by one of the students, and food and drinks being served.
As I passed by the big, handmade signs that read “SNOW DANCE” and walked into the auditorium, it almost felt like I was in high school again, like I was just sixteen and going to a winter formal dance.
Everyone was dressed up and dancing, and I even caught a few students right off the bat who were secretly sipping out of tiny bottles of alcohol and drinking vodka disguised in water bottles. Even just standing in the doorway and looking around made me smile and temporarily forget all of the horrible things that had been happening recently.
Almost immediately, Justin appeared in front of me with a grin on his face. He was dressed nicely in a pair of trousers and a button-down shirt; I had never seen him wearing anything except sweatpants and hockey shirts before, so it came as a surprise. Seeing him like that made me stifle a laugh, as he looked a little nerdy in his outfit.
“Come on,” he said, grabbing my hand and pulling me toward the dance floor. “Let’s dance.”
I was already tipsy from pre-gaming with Lori and Jessica back in our dorm, so I obliged and followed him to the dance floor. As we began to dance, I couldn’t help but smile a bit. Spending a bit of time just having fun and letting go relieved a lot of tension that had been built up lately, and I knew that Enzo would want me to have fun at least once while he was gone. Besides, the alcohol helped, and before I knew it my friends were secretly passing around water bottles filled with vodka and soda cans filled with other various forms of alcohol.
We danced for a long time, only taking breaks to drink more and take food from the buffet. Finally, however, the dean walked up on the stage and stopped the music. She leaned into the microphone with a smile on her face and an envelope in her hand.
“Thanks for coming to the Snow Dance, everyone,” she said. “So far, we’ve raised over five thousand dollars in donations from you guys and our local community.”
The dance erupted into cheers, myself included. The dean waited for the cheers to die down with a smile, then pulled a piece of paper out of the envelope.
“Now, to announce tonight’s Snow Dance Royalty…”
She opened the paper. From afar, I swore I could see her eyes widen momentarily. “For Snow Queen, we have… Nina Harper!”
My eyes widened. My friends, however, only grinned and shoved me forward, forcing me up onto the stage. I was rather drunk as I stumbled over to the dean in my high heels, but I couldn’t help but laugh as she placed a plastic tiara on my head. When I looked out at my friends’ smirks, I knew that they and the hockey team must have voted for me to embarrass me, but it was nothing but a lighthearted joke.
Obviously, the Snow King would be Justin.
But it wasn’t. “And the Snow King… Is our new student, Eli Johnson!” the dean announced.
The crowd went silent. Somehow, this new transfer student managed to be voted as the Snow King, but his girlfriend hadn’t been voted as Snow
King. I saw the crowd part as he sheepishly walked up to the stage, tall and lanky, and walked up the steps. Meanwhile, his girlfriend glared up at me from the crowd. As I looked at her, I couldn’t help but wonder if she had planned on being the dance royalty with him, but my friends’ lighthearted prank had voted her out. It certainly seemed that way, judging from the angry stare she gave me.
The dean put a plastic crown on Eli’s head; I thought it was over then, but that wasn’t even the worst part. We had to dance together.
The DJ began playing a slower song as we walked down the steps together. I felt everyone’s eyes on me as we nervously began dancing, with our hands clasped uncomfortably together and his other hand on my waist while 1 rested one hand on his shoulder. Aside from the music, the auditorium would have been dead silent. When I glanced over at the crowd, I could not only see Eli’s girlfriend seething, but I could see Justin pouting as well.
“So… Um…” Eli said nervously, staring down at our feet as we danced. “Do you … I mean… Does the dress fit okay? I hope I got the right size…”
My eyes widened then. “Wait,” I said, ” you were the one who bought me the replacement?”
Eli nodded. “Yeah. I felt bad because Se I mean, Sadie ruined the other one. You seemed really sad.” I didn’t know what to say. “Th- Thanks,” I muttered, feeling my face go red. “It fits perfectly.”
“Good,” he replied.
Neither of us said anything for a bit. I was not only focused on how he had gone out of his way to buy me a new dress, but there was something else… When he said his girlfriend’s name, he almost sounded like he was going to say something else.
Like he was going to say the name Selena.
But I knew that was silly. As I looked up at this boy, I knew it wouldn’t make any sense; he didn’t look anything like Enzo, and that girl looked absolutely nothing like Selena. And yet… The longer I looked at him, and the longer he looked at me, I swore his eyes changed to that familiar, soft brown I
had grown to love.
The song suddenly ended then and changed back to the regular dance music. Around us, the rest of the partygoers began dancing again.
I hadn’t realized it, but we had somehow been staring at each other for the entire song, as though we were in a trance. When his girlfriend suddenly came and snatched him away from me, he almost seemed like he didn’t want to tear his eyes away as she pulled him into the crowd, and I couldn’t look away, either.
There was no real explanation for it. When his face finally disappeared into the crowd, I suddenly felt a sense of extreme, deep sadness wash over me. I felt more alone now than I felt before, as though someone very important, someone I was very close to, had just been ripped out of my grasp. But I knew that didn’t make any sense; Enzo wasn’t here. Selena wasn’t here. Why would they be? If Selena really wanted to keep Enzo all to herself, why would she bring him back here, right under my nose?
Unless… What if she used some sort of spell on him to make him forget about me, and was bringing him close to me to test him?
No. I shook my head, shoving the ridiculous thought out of my mind. It was just wishful thinking; maybe Eli just had one or two similar features to Enzo, and that was it. He wasn’t Enzo, and I needed to understand that. If I kept thinking this way, I would only break my heart even more. Not only that, but Lori was right the day before: I didn’t know what this girl was capable of, and I was acting oddly around her boyfriend.
But even then, I couldn’t deny the But even then, I couldn’t deny the oddly deep connection I felt to this complete and total stranger.
