One of the Boys

Chapter 3: Dancing Queen

Chiz opened the door for us. There were already a lot of students in the gym. Principal Franklin was holding the microphone. He was just waiting for us to settle down a bit. We found a space at the back, at the top of the bleachers. I really hate assemblies. It's just the same thing every year in every school. They welcome new students. They remind us of all the school's rules and regulations. They introduce the faculty and staff in every department. They talk about the upcoming activities and events that the school is organizing.

Chiz can see that I'm bored to death and want to get the hell outta there. He pulled out a mini tic-tac-toe keychain from his pocket.

"Play with me?" he asked.

"You know me so well." I replied.

We played for a while until our principal said something that caught Chiz's attention.

"Each class will pick one boy and one girl to represent them in the dance-a-thon for our school's fund raising activity next month." Principal Franklin said.

"Your turn." I said.

"Huh?" Chiz asked.

"She said it's your turn." Em said.

"Oh. Yeah." Chiz said but he still wasn't paying attention to me.

"That is all. You can now all go back to your homerooms." Principal Franklin said.

"Finally!" I exclaimed.

"I'm not a big fan of school assemblies too." Em said.

We all went back to our respective homerooms. I sat at the back row near the window. Chiz sat in front of me and Em sat beside me. I took out my doodle notebook because I know we were only going to continue to talk about the things mentioned at the assembly earlier. I didn't listen to it before and I had no intention on listening now.

Chiz raised his hand and said, "I nominate my best friend Mackenzie."

I looked up and saw my name written on the blackboard. "What?!" I belted.

"Chaz suggested you to represent our class in the dance-a-thon." Em explained.

I thought to myself, "A dance-a-thon? What is this? This isn't Stars Hollow! Is Principal Franklin really Taylor Doose in disguise?" Oh, if you don't know or you haven't watched Gilmore Girls then you really wouldn't know what I'm talking about.

Chiz turned around and placed his hand on top of my desk. "You dance, don't you?" he asked.

"Never in public." I whispered.

"Come on, Mac. You wanna be more than just another face that comes and goes in this school, don't ya? Do it for me. Please." Chiz said while doing a puppy dog face.

"You know I can't say no to you." I said then sighed. "Alright." I added.

Chiz smiled at me and let out a quiet "Alright".

"So it's settled. Miss Torres will be our female representative." Mr. Turner, our homeroom teacher, said. "Now let's choose our male representative."

Before I could suggest that Chiz be my dance partner, Thea told Mr. Turner that Alpha would be the perfect choice.

Althea 'Thea' Lawrence, currently dating school heartthrob Alpha Chan, looked like one of those mean girls that you really want to avoid making eye contact with. She's not like those size zero type of mean girls, she's actually a bit on the plus size category. I'm surprised she didn't volunteer to be the female representative herself. Maybe she thinks she's not "fit" enough for the dance-a-thon. But I'm still afraid of her, especially now that I'll be spending a lot of time with Alpha for "training".

"You do know that this is just a dance endurance competition, right? This is not a beauty pageant." Mr. Turner said.

"We're just lucky that our reps are two Asian hotties." A girl from the other side of the room said. Then the whole class nodded in agreement.

Hotties? I know Alpha is. He's definitely a hottie. But me? I think these people are going blind.

"Mr. Turner, I don't think I can do this. Can't you just let, um, Thea be our rep?" I said nervously.

"No, hun. You do it. It would be an honor." Thea said to me.

"You really have no choice, Miss Torres. No one else wants to participate." Mr. Turner replied.

I let out a quiet sigh. Then the school bell rang. Thank God!

Alpha came to talk to me. He asked, "Is it cool if we start practicing for this thing tonight?"

"Yeah." I replied.

"Our house is kind of a mess right now. What about your place?" he asked.

"My house is fine." I said.

Then Thea approached us and gave Alpha a kiss on the lips. I'm not really a fan of kissing, mainly because I've never been kissed before but also because it looks really disgusting. The thought of two people swapping saliva makes me want to hurl. It was like Thea was marking her territory.

Let's fast forward to our practice. And since it was Mac n' Chiz Monday, Chiz was there with a lot of mac n' cheese.

So I got home and changed into what my grandma called a 'pambahay'. It's a Filipino term. 'Bahay' means house or home. And the prefix 'pam-' means used for/used on/used at or something in that context. Hence, 'pambahay' is something you use/wear at home. Comfortable clothes that you'd be kinda embarrassed to be seen in public wearing. I was wearing sweatpants and an over-sized shirt and flip flops.

Chiz barged into our house without knocking, like he always does. (It's okay, he's like family)

"I brought the mac n' cheese!" Chiz shouted.

I went down to greet Chiz. "Good!" I said. "That's the least you could do after making me agree to do that stupid dance-a-thon." I added.

I then went to the kitchen to prepare the iced tea. I put three glasses on a tray. I was carrying the tray when I turned around and bumped into Chiz. Most of the drinks fell on him. Our shirts got all wet and sticky. He took his shirt off and gave it to me so I can wash it. I also took my shirt off because I don't want to look like a mess when Alpha arrives. It's not because I like him or anything. I just don't want him to say anything bad about me. That's all. It's all about image and reputation in high school. Oh, and don't worry, I was wearing a tank top inside and not just a bra.

The doorbell rang. "That must be Alpha." I said. Chiz opened the door and guess who else was there. Yes. You guessed it right. Thea was there with Alpha.

"Thea! You're here too." Chiz said. "Let me guess. You trust him but don't trust her, right?" He added.

"Chiz!" I belted.

"What?" he responded calmly.

"You three go to the barn house. I'll catch up with you in a sec." I said.

"We weren't interrupting anything, were we?" Thea said with mocking tone in her voice.

Alpha looked at Thea with disgust and said, "Really, Thea? Really? You have a dirty mind."

Chiz, Alpha, and Thea went to the barn house while I re-prepared the drinks plus one for our very special guest of honor, Thea.

I went to the barn house. Alpha and I started to coordinate our "go to" moves for each dance style. We went from hip hop to jazz to waltz to foxtrot to tango to contemporary. Basically every dance style we could think of.

Chiz was there cheering me on. He was eating all of the mac n' cheese.

"You better save me some of that mac n' cheese!" I said to Chiz.

And Thea was just, well, she was there. Staring. Judging.