A couple months went by of us dating and, surprisingly, I managed to convince everyone that me and Dylan weren't dating. During third quarter, posters were being put up everywhere about the eight grade dance. Dylan and I were going to go together, but with a group of friends so that it seemed less unusual. In the months that Dylan and I had been dating, I had only told three people. Jessica, Sam, and I went dress shopping and, for me, tuxedo shopping. I went with a normal black and white tux white black dress shoes. Sam got a beautiful teal dress with matching heels, while Jessica bought a stunning, strapless, red dress and a pair of black heels. A lot of my nerd friends decided they were going to stay home instead. After many failures, I gave up hope on trying to convince them to go. A month later was the dance. In the week leading up to the dance, there were a bunch of basketball games; all of which we won.
The night of the dance, Dylan's dad picked me up an hour early and I climbed in back of the Range Rover with Dylan. All the way to Jessica's house, as that was where we were going to take pictures, Dylan and I held hands. His dad knew that we were dating so it didn't matter if he saw. At Jessie's, we stood in the backyard taking pictures and complementing each others outfits. The people that came there were Sam, Jessica, Livy, Giggles, Grace, Daniel, Dylan, and I. We ate some chips and then left for the dance. When we arrived at about 5:45, we walked inside and went to the cafeteria. The whole squad showed up, even Sam, Jessica's latest boyfriend. We danced around but soon Dylan and me decided we should go to the gym where you could play basketball. We sneak away from the group and go to the gym. All the people that came decided to dance because nobody was in the gym. At first, Dylan and I decided to just do free throws but then we just sat in the bleachers and talked. We talked about how we felt when we were with each other. We discussed how much we love each other and quarreled about who loves the other more. We sat there talking for half an hour. We stood up to go back to the cafeteria but he grabbed my arm.
"Hey, James, I want you to know that I love you. I always have, and I always will. No matter what I say or how I act, I love you."
"I love you too." He starts to lean in for a kiss and I do the same. We go back to the cafeteria and dance a little more. There weren't many slow songs played but when they did only the couples would slow dance and everyone else would move to the sides. After an hour or two the DJ grabbed the microphone.
"Alright everybody, this is the last slow song of the night." All the couples move to the center as Ed Sheeran's "Thinking Out Loud" starts playing. A couple of my friends jokingly ask each other to dance so when Dylan asks me to dance, Giggles laughs. She was one of the people I made sure not to tell that the guy she has a crush on was the person I was dating.
"May I have this dance?" Dylan asks, reaching out his hand. I take his hand and we walk to the center. Everybody giggles as they believe we're joking around I put my hands around his neck and he puts his on mine. We sway back and forth staring into each others eyes. I lay my head on his shoulder as we rock back and forth. I can feel his heart beating fast in his chest.
"James?" he whispers.
"Yeah?" I reply.
"I never want this to end and I don't care what people say but I want to kiss you."
"Go ahead," I say lifting my head. For a moment, we look into each others eyes. Our heads start to move in closer, our lips finally touching. Everyone there was probably staring at us but we didn't care. We kissed for several seconds. This kiss felt different. It felt better than all of the kisses we shared before. It wasn't sexual in the least but instead, was romantic. When we pulled away from each other, I smiled and looked at my feet. People were looking at us. I could feel there eyes on me. It didn't matter, nothing did. I was happy. The song ended shortly after. Dylan walked to the stage and climbed up onto it. I watched, wondering what he was doing. He grab the microphone from by the DJ.
"Hi, everyone. I'm sure you all saw James and I over there and are wondering whats going on. Well, to put it bluntly, I love him. I love him so much that last night, I looked up at the stars and matched each one with a reason why I love him. I actually ran out of stars. We've been dating for several months now and its time you guys know. Thanks." With that, he walked offstage and we hugged. The dance ended about ten minutes later. I went home with Dylan and slept over at his house. "Hey have I told you I love you?" he jokes.
