A Pure Love- Gjon's Tears Fanfic

Chapter 2

Rosalee and I made it into the venue for the Grand Final right on time, in the same close seats as Gjon's semifinal the other night. Gjon invited us to the afterparty, so I dressed for the occasion. His performance at the Grand Final was even better than the semifinal. And the semifinal was absolutely phenomenal, which says something. After the final results were announced and while Maneskin celebrated their overall win, Rosalee and I walked down to Gjon's green room to celebrate his jury win, third place, and experience.

He hugged me again to thank me for coming and immediately led us outside to the bus to head to the afterparty in a banquet hall just miles away from the venue. The three of us could not stop talking, catching up, and laughing the entire bus ride and going into the party. The bus was already so loud and full of us party goers, though, that we had to yell over the noise to hear one another. The afterparty was just the same. Hopping just like the bar inside.

I offered to buy drinks for all three of us in our first round. One drink would get us just tipsy enough to let loose and dance, so that's what we did. I got to meet most everybody there- other contestants and their teams. They were cool and all, but none were still as excellent as Gjon and Kateryna Pavlenko, his contest bestie. She and her band members partied with us as well as we sang along to songs from the contest.

A few more drinks in, the older classic hits of Eurovision came on to surprise us all. "My Number One" from Greece, "Fairytale" from Norway, "Waterloo" from Sweden, "Ne Partez Pas Sans Moi" from Switzerland, "Hard Rock Hallelujah" from Finland, all the classic winners and even non-qualifiers. I sang so loudly and danced so wildly to "My Number One" that I was sweating already, out of breath, and falling on the floor. The party must go on, so I lifted myself up to dance some more. Soon enough, a ballad came on and everyone went with partners to dance. Gjon grabbed my hand to dance to "Dancing in the Rain" from Spain. During this, Rosalee was drunk dancing with Go_A, close to us still. Nothing was more magical than that, but again we were wasted as all get-out so of course we went wild to the ballad. But drunk actions are sometimes sober thoughts.

That's when I realized I was really in love with him. I know you can couple-dance to a ballad as friends and have it not be anything serious, but I felt a sort of butterflies in my stomach with him that I had never felt before. First of all, I never knew he could dance so well like this. Secondly, the way his hands moved across my body while we danced had just about made me faint inside but not show it on the outside. I felt a spark between us that I never had with anybody else. We were too busy dancing to have any more drinks. We were so wasted that, in fact, our lips had met so close but could not touch because the music suddenly stopped and the bell was rung for us to leave.

The party was over at 2am and Gjon and I had been dancing for only half an hour. We didn't notice that it was over until everyone except for me, him, Rosalee, and Go_A had left. Once we noticed, we all stopped dancing and began laughing on the way out to a taxi to take us all home. Go_A had all gone their separate ways after saying our goodbyes, then me, Gjon, and Rosalee hopped in the taxi back to our hotel room. Later in the afternoon, it would already be time to head home on the train for Fribourg. Rosalee would again spend the night with me to recover from the loud party.

But something's telling me that Gjon wanted to have some kind of serious talk about what happened the other night. Because the day after the party while I was on the train, Gjon asked me over text to meet for coffee the next day, just the two of us, at the local Fribourg shop so we could talk. My face went red.
"Marlee, are you okay?" she asked, her face concerned as ever.
I sighed in and out quickly. "I'm a little nervous to hear what Gjon has to talk to me about."
"Is he mad at you?"
"No, I don't think so. He's never been angry with me or with anyone."
"Could it be about last night at the party when you guys, drunkenly, couple-danced and almost kissed?"
I gave her a disturbed look. "How did you know that?"
"Because I saw it! Out of the corner of my eye, I saw it. But I didn't say anything because I didn't want to ruin the fun."
I sighed again. "I get it." I stood up and went to the bathroom to get myself ready, but I had one more thing to say on the way: "But I didn't want anyone to know that."
All I could do while getting ready, though, was worry. I worried about how the coffee date would go, worried about how I just acted with Rosalee, worried about how that single event last night could have changed everything between Gjon and I, and worried about how it could have been different had we not been wasted on all kinds of spirits, shots, and the best night of our lives. I even sat on the bathroom floor just to... think.
I regretted getting so drunk, I regretted the way I just treated Rosalee, and I blamed myself. I was so excited to see him that I completely lost my mind and forgot about the consequences of my doings.
As I walked out the door of our house, I stopped to see Rosalee's nonchalant yet oddly-hiding-something look on her face. "I'm sorry, Rosa. I'm sorry I acted that way just a minute ago."
She breathed heavily in and out. "Thank you."
"I know I should have seen it coming. You know, someone seeing us and being concerned."
She nodded with a slight smile. "Yeah, but it's okay. Go have fun with Gjon."

With that, I walked out the door and along the sidewalk. My headphones played French dance pop to try to forget about everything.