The Art of Falling In Love

Chapter 1

Hennessey

Hennessey huffed, pushing his way out of the dance studio. His maroon jacket tied around his waist. He had just finished rehearsal of the school’s fall production, a new show written by one of the Marx alumni, One Man Change.

He was in a rush to leave, since they had gotten out later than usual, making the dance students needing the space have to wait an extra half hour. It was such a rush, that he didn't see the person heading towards the studio. He only noticed the other boy when he ran right into him, nearly knocking him over.

They boy was holding ballet slippers, but they fell out of his hands and onto the mat in front of the door when he and Hennessey collided.

“Oh god, I am so sorry man,” Hennessey began, picking the slippers up handing them to the boy, meeting his eyes, “Wasn't watching where I was going,”  he chuckled.

“It’s totally alright, you don't gotta worry, neither was I, I'm running half an hour late to dance practice,” He explained, fixing his short, dark-brown hair.

“You would've been sitting around waiting for that half an hour, rehearsals ran late,” he laughed, “I don't think I've seen you around this building, are you new?”

The boy shrugged, “Not to the school, to this major, I added a dual major last minute and they just now processed it.”

“And your name? I'm Hennessy, Hennessey Jackson.”

“Nice to meet you Hennessey, Hennessey Jackson, I’m Juno Grey, Dance and Creative Writing major, at your service,” The boy, now revealed to be Juno, joked.

“You better get yourself to practice, or your instructor’s gonna kill you, I should know, I majored in dance my Freshman year, and she nearly shot me when I was late.” Hennessey explained.

Juno shrugged, “It’s not a mandatory practice, I can afford to be a little late, anyways, you were a dance major? You don’t seem like one.” He was right, Hennessey wasn’t built like a dance kid, he was bigger and well built, while the ‘Dancer’ stereotype at their school was typically short and thin, much like the boy standing in front of him.

“I was originally, but my Sophomore year I transfered into the Musical Theatre program, it’s more my thing.”

“Valid point, Jackson.”

“What about you, why’d you transfer into dance?”

Juno thought for a moment at the question, “A lot of reasons really, I love Creative Writing but I also really wanted to do Dance, but the Writing program is what got me into Marx so I had to stick with that, but then I found out they did dual-major over summer break so I added Dance.” Not even a second after he finished, his phone buzzed in his back pocket. He took it out and sighed, “The choreographer is wondering where I am, I’ve gotta go,” He began, “But tomorrow is an Open Mic Night for Creative Writing in the black box, you should swing by for a bit.”

“I’m off at 6:30, when does it start?”

“6:30, ironically, so I’ll see you there?”

“You sure will,” Hennessey smiled warmly, “Now get on to practice, I'll see you around.”

The next day, rehearsals let out on time and Hennessey hurried over to the black box, not even bothering to change out of his sweatpants and tank top. When he entered, he was hit with a blast of cold air and voices chattering.

He glanced around for the brown-haired kid he met the day before. He caught sight of him from across the room, talking to a girl, from his Creative Writing class he guessed, and made his way over. When he reached Juno he saw Hennessey also and smiled, “Jackson, you made it.”