Dancing with Danger

CHAPTER ONE: Squeeze into me

Chapter One: Squeeze into me

I met him a little more than a year ago. I didn't know anybody. I remember my heart racing just a little bit as I made my way to class that day. Charlie, lazy as he is, was a few minutes late. He came running to class and all the boys welcomed him like they're his favorite boy.

"Hi, I'm Julia Cheng," I began as I stood in front of the class. My fingers were fidgeting over the ID lace, that the school administration has given me, because I was a little nervous over their scrutiny. "I just moved here two weeks ago."

Everyone was quiet, all their eyes were upon me.

"Thank you, Julia. You can sit next to Charlie over there," Mrs. Miller said. She pointed onto the single empty seat next to late Charlie.

Charlie didn't give me a single glance as I sat next to him. He didn't talk to me either. He acted like I wasn't even there. Charlie was a quiet boy, he focused on the task at hand, or he merely scribbled unknown things on his notebook in front of him. Although, he was all everyone could hear when he was with his friends.

I could describe Charlie in a thousand words but all I could say was he's one of the most beautiful boys I have ever seen. He wasn't a pretty boy but he was pretty popular. There was nothing particularly attractive about him but it's the way all his features came together. He had smoldering dark eyes that looked completely uninterested with the world. A week after the first day of school, I decided that that was my favorite part of his face. His nose was completely symmetrical with his entire face. His lips, I noticed, were never dry and never pale. His teeth were perfectly sized and placed together. And my second favorite part was his jaw. I couldn't say anything else about his jaw, it just felt like God created him first before anybody else, making him this beautiful.

He hung out with six of the boys in class but Charlie was particularly close with one of them, Richard. Richard was a friendly boy. I remember that he was the first person who talked to me during my first day. It was hard to imagine how he was close to Charlie when they didn't seem to have matching personalities. Richard was the soft kind of boy and Charlie was tough. Charlie was usually loud when he hung out with the boys, making jokes and with the others laughing. His jokes were usually at somebody's expense without being offensive. Whenever they walked, Charlie was always front of the line with everybody listening to what he had to say. Charlie was tall and thin so he was easily seen through his crowd besides the fact that he was attractive.

"So, you coming to that one day camp they're planning?" Charlie suddenly asked, leaning onto my table. It took him two weeks before he decided to talk to me.

I looked at him with my small round eyes, he was looking straight back at me. "No," I answered.

He leaned back to his table and shrugged with a smile at the corner of his thin lips. "Oh well, everyone's coming though."

I managed a small smile under the pounding of my heart.

That was our first interaction. What was nice about it is that he actually talked to me before I talked to him.

Another week later, Charlie leaned towards me yet again. He flashed a perfect smile.

"I'm curious," he began and my heart skipped a beat. "Do you even know what happened to Ryan?"

"Who's Ryan?" I asked innocently, momentarily avoiding his gaze.

Charlie chuckled softly. He leaned back and pulled his chair to face me. I felt the heat running to my face as quick as the speed of light. "The one who sits, or should I sat? two seats away from you," he said, nodding towards the empty seat in front of Kim who sat in front of me.