A Collection of Short Stories

The Dance

You know, love is a strange thing.

You could say that 'stereotypical' love is when people of the opposite gender love each other.

Nowadays, there almost isn't a 'stereotype' for love.

People love another of the same gender, opposite gender, and or anything in between- or outside for that matter.

Then... there's people like me, who don't feel love.

Well, I shouldn't say that, it's not like we're heartless and hate everyone. Basically, we don't feel romantic or sexual love.

It's a certain level of asexuality, also commonly known as asexual, grey-asexual, and ace.

Like I said before, there are many levels of asexuality, but the level I'm on feels like a curse.

People talk about teenage raging hormones- but I'm over here like, "Um what?"

They talk about young love and how, "It's ok to have little crushes," and I'm still standing there like, "Um what?"

So now that you have a bit of backstory, lets get on with this story.

Walking down the school corridor, I can hear the whispers- I always can. And every time they're talking about the same dang thing, 'Why don't they have a boyfriend yet?'

By now most of the school has already accepted the fact that I don't identify with gender, which is fine, I'm not the only one that either doesn't identify with gender, or just their assigned gender. By now, it's a normal thing. But also by now, everyone's hooking up for the school dance coming up.

It's not a surprise that nobody's asked me- I'm that one antisocial weirdo kid who talks to like 3 people on a daily basis. But to everyone else, it's like I'm an alien or something. I haven't asked anyone because, well, I'm not into anyone. I don't have those raging teenage hormones that adults are always boasting about when asking if you have a crush or not. It's awkward trying to explain asexuality to most adults, they simply think, "Oh you just haven't met that special someone yet."

I walk into my second period class, math, and take my seat in the back of the room. Either the teacher knew after seeing me that I was antisocial or I just got very lucky when the seating charts were made. Yes, we still have seating charts. Our grade is full of bad students who couldn't follow rules to save their lives.

I begin to doodle on a piece of paper instead of taking notes. School's almost out anyway, so why should I care? I'm just going to forget it all this summer anyway.

I start by just doodling a little characters face, then move on to body and clothes. In my head, I give this character the backstory of a very popular kid who has the perfect partner and wins queen at the dance.

I move on to sketching out an entire scene for this character. They're dancing with their partner on the dance floor, wearing a crown. They live the most perfect life, with lots of friends and-

"Milo! Are you paying attention?" My teacher cut my thoughts short and I immediately look up at her. I nodded my head in hopes that she'd buy it.

Please don't ask me what we're discussing, please don't as me-

"Ok, then what have we been talking about for the last five minutes?"

Dang it.

I open my mouth to try and justify but the bell rings instead. Thank god. Saved by the bell.