Chemistry

Andie and Drew are Basically Married

All the team was buzzing with excitement. There was a ball we get to go to! Though I'm not that excited about wearing a dress, I'm definitely interested in going just to dance with Drew. All the girls get assigned 2 seamstresses, and the headmistress of all of them will work with each of us to figure out our unique style, then will give the sketches to the seamstresses that will take our measurements and create the dresses by next Friday- a whole week from today. The guys had the same thing, but seamsters instead of seamstresses, and a headmaster instead of headmistress. We got an hour to think, and talk with the team alone. We each talked with our gender group for 30 minutes then talked with our partners for the remainder of the time. Drew and I decided that I was going for a beautiful sunset orange, and he'd correspond with indigo. We were told not to tell anyone else, and we were all so excited for this!! I took a look at all the other... couples? I don't know what to call them because Drew and I were the only official couple. Noel and Jacob were curled up together, looking at color palettes, Cam and Ben were humorously arguing over which color would look better on Ben. Connor gently took Ember's hands in his and told her she'd look beautiful in anything, making her blush. I laughed as Bryn excitedly hugged Sam, then pulled away because of embarrassment, and he reached over and hugged her anyway, letting her bury her face in his chest. Drew leaned toward me and kissed me back to reality, making me fall in love with him all over again. Finally, the sewing team arrived, making us all ecstatic beyond reason. I jumped with joy at the sight of my seamstresses were Min Seo and Caitlyn, my two best friends from South Korea. I cried and hugged them graciously. They said they volunteered for it just so they could see me. They said bye and began to set up as my appointment with the Headmistress began. The Headmistress, Maria, was really nice and turned out to be Bryn's Spanish aunt (the Headmaster was her uncle). I requested just a simple, orange dress that might be acceptable in a garden party because it was simple yet elegant. But Maria was having nothing of it. She spoke in rapid Spanish, and Bryn, hearing everything, bounced over with Sam on her trail, gasping and clapping her hands at her aunt's designs for me. My friends nodded excitedly and rushed to the fabric room. I looked alarmed at Bryn, who was whispering in Spanish to Maria. Maria thought and then exclaimed more foreign words. Bryn laughed and walked away. Sam looked at me in utter sympathy. Of course he could understand it, and Ember could as well, since Italian is similar. But I could see the smile creeping on his lips as his near girlfriend bubbled over my dress that I was genuinely scared to find out what it was. The other girls designed their dresses, and, with a few tweaks from Maria, got the outfits started immediately. Then, Cam smiled as her grandparents walked into the door soon after Maria left. They announced (in a thick French accent) they were teaching us to waltz. We all nervously glanced at each other- everyone but Cam was basically an awful dancer (well at least at waltzing or ballet. Everyone has a special dance they love from their country, but that's as far as it goes). We all got random partners- Bryn with Jacob, Ember with Sam, me with Ben, Cam with Drew, and Noel with Connor. We started off with the basic guy's hands on girl's waist slow dance, then we moved on to more intricate and fast paced waltzing. After we had done French dancing, we moved on to the English Step, the Bahamian hula, a South Korean traditional fan dance, the Spanish flamenco, the Portuguese tango, two different types of unique tribal dance (African and Jamaican), a Canadian step, and finally the Russian dance. By the time it was dinner, we were all exhausted.

We repeated this for 4 days, until someone could call out at random which of the 10 dances we had learned and we could execute it perfectly. Each day we switched partners until the final day we were back with our crush. I have to say, I am loving this dance thing but goodness gracious. All 10 of us collapsed onto the couches at 7:30 p.m. Thankfully, we only had one dance lesson left, and that was the morning of the ball. We had etiquette lessons tomorrow and the next day from my parents, and then Noel's mom and Ember's older sister come after our dance lessons to do hair and makeup. As for now, Drew made chicken noodle soup, and we ate that, showered, put on pajamas, then brushed our teeth, and came downstairs, only to find Jacob and Noel kissing on the couch. The eight of us stood gaping in the doorway until the two bashfully pulled away. Before we could say anything, Noel giggled and said,