H-LTA chapter 9

I woke up early the next morning; it took me a few minutes to
realize what today actually was. It's Friday, I have class with Aaron,
and then tonight is the dance. I felt butterflies in my stomach. What
if Aaron reads the story and loves it? What if he and hates it? The
butterflies turned into knots at the realization that Aaron might hate
the story and ultimately hate me for writing it. Well, I'll just won't
let him weasel out of the dance, if he doesn't like the story. So with
that, I made my way to class.
As soon as Aaron spotted me he came over to me. Well, that must be a
good thing. "This story is?"

"No, you're not allowed to talk about it until tonight." I interrupted.
"Unless of course, you read it and hated it and don't want to be
anywhere near me. But, I'm going to make you go anyway, so it doesn't
matter."

"Breath Allison. I'm still going to the dance. You're just a little
high strung today."

"Just a tad." I said sitting on the step. "I think I might need some of
those relaxation exercises today."

"Uh-oh, something is definitely not right, you actually said you wanted
to do those exercises. You're not coming down with something are you?"
He said putting a hand on my forehead to see if I had a fever.

"I'll be fine, as soon as I get to the dance tonight I'll be back to my
semi-normal self. Actually I'm more or less my normal self right
now."

"So, you'll be even more hyper at the dance tonight?"

"Probably. I'll eventually mellow out though."

"But, it's not for certain."

"Yes. Don't worry too much."

"Ok." Aaron said smiling. "At least the night will be
interesting."

"To say the least." I laughed, and continued to laugh until Mrs.
Saraceni came in to signal the start of class.
We did the relaxation exercises, and they actually started to work. I
wasn't about to go bouncing off the walls, and the knot in my stomach
went away, and was replaced by the tiny butterflies. No matter what I
did, those butterflies wouldn't go away, and it wasn't such a bad
feeling anyway.

Mrs. S then split us up into pairs for an activity. I ended up being
paired up with Aaron.

"We meet again." I said.

Mrs. S explained what the activity was for and how to do it. We had to
improvise a scene only using our hands. The first scene would be a girl
and a guy in a library, the girl is a total bookworm, and is oblivious
to the fact that the guy likes her.

So I sat down on the floor and Aaron sat beside me. The scene began,
and I pantomimed that I was writing in my notebook and I became totally
engrossed. Aaron stole my pencil, his hand brushing against mine. I
took it back, and the cycle continued until instead of the pencil it
was my book. Then, he just grabbed my hand and held it. My heart leapt
up into my throat. Just then, Mrs. S told us to move onto the next
scene; which was a person confessing to a murder to a priest. I was the
priest first, and then we would switch roles.

We did the scene by the time we were done, we were both laughing
uncontrollably. This outburst of laughter solicited looks from a few of
the groups that were around us. We stopped laughing and switched
roles.

When everyone was done with all three scenes, we all discussed how the
activity helped figure out what movements worked better than others.
After that Mrs. S let us out early, which hardly ever happens.

"Now, I have to get ready for the dance." I said walking outside.

"It's only 10, the dance isn't until 6."

"Yeah, but it'll probably take that long for me to get ready."

"Geez, I just have to take a shower and get dressed."

"Some of us aren't blessed and have to actually work at looking good.
Oh well, a day of primping, pampering, and grooming isn't necessarily a
bad thing."

"Want a ride up?"

"Sure, that way I'll have more time to get ready." I said and got into
his car.

"Girls confuse me."

"Well, guys confuse me. So we're even."

"Here, we are. See you at 6 in front of the dining hall." He said
stopping the car at the top of the hill.

"See you." I said getting out of the car.
I got up to my room and set up my bed as dance preparation central. I
took a shower and put my hair in pin curls. I looked at my clock and
realized I had more than enough time to get ready. I went to lunch, not
caring what people thought about my appearance.
The time crawled; it was the total opposite of a few days prior. An
hour seemed like three. I was starting to regret finishing the story,
because if I still were writing it, time would go faster.

Finally, five o'clock came and I was braiding my hair, then braided the
two braids together, so that I had a halo of braided hair. Next, I took
the blow dryer and used it to make sure the pin curls were totally dry.
Before I removed the pin curls, I applied my make up. I carefully, took
each bobby pin and clip out of my hair and gently combed the resulting
curls with my fingers. My normally stick straight hair was now
curly.

Next, I slipped into my dress, put on my shoes and accessories. I
walked down the hall to look in the full length mirror and my friend
Jane was there checking her own reflection. She looked at me, and
started to squeal.

"You look like Sleeping Beauty." She said, signaling me to turn around
and she watched as my skirt billowed around me. "You're so
pretty."

"Thank you. I love your dress. Now if I can get a response like that
from Aaron, I'll be happy." I said blushing slightly.
I checked my reflection once more in the mirror, touched up my lipstick
and made my way down stairs.

There were throngs of people milling around the hallway in front of the
dining hall. I was actually early for once, so I had a feeling Aaron
wouldn't be there yet. I made my way through the crowd and talked to
some of my friends.
I felt a hand on my shoulder and I saw Jeff standing in front of
me.

"Hey, how are you doing?" I asked, taking in the sight of Jeff in a
suit, which was a very nice sight indeed.

"Fine. So who are you here with?"

"Aaron, he's not here yet."

"The seniors, are having a little gathering before the dance so they'll
be here soon. So what's up between the two of you?"

"We're good friends."

"With the hope of being more?"

"Maybe. Well, I'll be going now, I think I saw a few seniors come in."
I said winking.

I turned around and walked toward the end of the hall and saw Aaron
come down from the stairs. He was wearing a black pinstriped suit, and
as he came closer I noticed that his tie had Scrooge McDuck on it. I
smiled; only he could pull something like that off. He saw me and
stopped short and just stared.

"What?" I said walking toward him.

"Nothing, you look beautiful."

"You don't look too bad yourself." I said smiling.

"Shall we?" He said offering his arm.

"Of course." I said taking it.

"So when shall we start talking about the items on the list?"

"Let's just enjoy ourselves for right now, we'll worry about that stuff
later. I see you brought your camera."

"Why wouldn't I?"

"Artist first, social butterfly second." I said as we made our way
toward the dining hall.

We stepped inside the dining hall, and we were both in awe. Can this
really be the same dull place where we eat our meals in everyday? It
was amazing, I felt like I had stepped into a painting of a sunset. Or
perhaps, a photograph of one. I turned around where I stood to look at
the dining hall from every angle. I found our table and set my purse on
it, not taking my eyes off of all the decorations.

"Wow." I said.

"Oh, is Allison speechless? That's twice now."

"I know. Shocking isn't it."

"Yes, very. Come on, I think they're going to start serving dinner
now."

"Ok." I said reluctantly sitting down.

As if on cue, our server, one of the professors at school came in with
the salad, and drinks.

We ate, and enjoyed the food and atmosphere. We shared stories about
our favorite things at Disney. I told him about working at Rosie's and
the friends I made, and we started to reminisce about the bikes they
had backstage. Aaron introduced me to his friends, and we joked around
with them all through dinner.

Desert came, it had to have been the neatest desert ever made. It was a
chocolate cup, with chocolate mouse inside with whipped cream on top;
you ate it with the little spoon that was made out of cake cone. About
halfway through the desert my poor spoon broke and I had to eat it with
a regular spoon. I looked at Aaron, and he was already on his second or
was it third cup. He was going to be wired, and we were worried about
me being hyper.

When we were done with desert we went around and took pictures of
everything, and everyone. We had a few really cute pictures taken
together. We mingled with people, and then it was time to go to
Mass.

We got to the chapel, and the feeling that I get when I'm in a church
started to overtake me. Aaron just grabbed my hand and squeezed
it.

"We can skip this if you want." He whispered.

"I'll be fine, I get like this within the first 5 minutes of walking
into a church, then I'm fine after that." I said smiling weakly.

We found seats, and we sat down. The mass was relatively short, about
half an hour. They did a few ceremonies in honor of September 11th, and
the graduating seniors. It was a really beautiful mass, usually when it
comes to anything Catholic I just want to roll my eyes at the
thought.

After mass was over it was time for the dance portion to begin. The
dance was going to be held in Cecilian hall. Cecilian wasn't as
decorated as the dining hall was, but it had one aspect that I just
loved. There were Gold and Red balloons all over the ceiling with the
ribbons trailing down to the floor. I grabbed one and started to toss
it back and forth to Aaron. After our impromptu game of balloon
volleyball, we put our things on a chair, including my shoes, and
purse. We flitted around the room, until the room finally filled with
people. We went onto the dance floor when a good song came on and
didn't leave it.

The energy in the room, was incredible, it practically vibrated with
the music. It was also very contagious, and soon, I was hyper again,
and doing really some crazy things. Aaron of course, was hyper from all
of the chocolate he had earlier, joined in the fun. Fast song followed
fast song for at least an hour then "All or Nothing" by O-Town came
on.

We started to slow dance, and I couldn't resist singing along to the
song, and pretty soon we were both serenading the whole room. We
swayed, where we stood and just belted out the words to the song at the
top of our lungs. I was having a blast; I don't think I had that much
fun at a dance since high school.
Another slow song came on, and we decided to take a break from the
craziness.

We made our way to the back of Cecilian to the stairs that led out to
Administration. I sat down, oh so gracefully, and Aaron followed suit.
We sat there together; I put my head on Aaron's shoulder and just
relaxed.

"I think, I'll tell you now." I said quietly.

"Go ahead."

"Ok, but you have to promise not to laugh."

"I promise."

"Ok, well you know all the daydreaming I've been doing."

"Kind of hard not to notice when you seem to daydream at a drop of a
hat."

"Well, what you don't know what those daydreams are about, hence why
I'm telling you now. They were about you. I really like you. I didn't
think that it was possible. I wanted to tell you for the longest time
now. I just thought maybe you would think of me as this little girl, or
that you wouldn't give me a chance because you're graduating this year.
I had to take the chance though."

"Allison, be quiet for once in your life."
He said and kissed me.

It was a kiss that was more magical than any kiss I had ever
experienced. It seemed to make the whole world just fade away for a
moment. As if the whole world just stopped turning, making time stand
still for us. I knew then, that it didn't matter if Aaron was
graduating in a few months, we had right now, and we were making the
best of it.

I'd like to tell you, that Aaron and his white horse swept me off my
feet that night, but I won't. He swept me off my feet, a long time
before that. I'd also like to tell you how this story ends, but then I
would be lying because this story has no ending. The kiss was just the
start of the story, the start of a new scene, the start of a new
script. This is how I learned to act.
FADE OUT