The Approximation

The Engagement Ball

I stood in front of the hall, the lights from inside were blinding. And as I stared at them I couldn't help but be consumed by all of the blinding lights and music. I heard girls scream as the music was turned to a specifically popular song. 

And even though worse things have happened in my life never before have I ever been so afraid. Because today it feels real. 

Before today the ball had only really felt like a far off future one that could never really reach me before today. And even as the days drew nearer and nearer. I never really thought that today would come. It almost feels like every single moment of my life has been building itself up to this moment. 

It feels like only yesterday that Momma was leading me by the hand to enter into kindergarten. But at the same time this morning feels like a million and one years ago. I pause and look at the sparkling light and begin to mourn everything that I am about to lose. All the friends even if they may not have been real, all the hours of being in school learning about things that seem insignificant and yet at the same time irrevocably important as if everything that you will ever do will build up to your real life. All my life has been building up to my life. My real life and it seems like now it's here that all those micro-decisions have led me here at the end of high school. 

And my real life is about to begin.

I always thought that I'd be ready for my real life but now that it's here I'm mourning all the things that I've hated. 

And as I look at the lights, with Aria next to me her pale arm draped around mine I'm afraid. 

Afraid of what's to come. 

Afraid of all of the ways that I might fail.

Afraid of all the things I might lose. 

"Are you ready?"  Aria asks me, she looks dazzling in her green dress that matches mine. She designed it beautifully so that my dress is a cream color rimmed in gold and green ivy sprawling from the top of the bodice cascading into the dress. And she has the opposite, with a completely green dress with a royal looking gold with a diadem in her hair that falls curls around her face. Showing that I have become part of the tribe of Ivy and she has become part of the tribe of King. 

I nodded my head in response. Aria tugged at my arm and lead me into the hall. 

Immediately I was bombarded with the sound of loud music and sound. Girls with flushed faces less danced as bounced to the loud music up and down.     

Brintey spotted us first and ran towards us. "Ohmigod guys this party is absolutely insane." Her hair was done up in a knot on her head and her face had more than ten layers of makeup on it. Yun-Jen her fiance right behind her bubbly as ever. 

"Ya, I'm so excited to be here," Aria says. Shes practically glowing and I know that she's having the time of her life. 

"I love your dress Tera it's so beautiful," Yun-Jen said gushing as she waved a hand over the cream-colored fabric. 

"Thank you but who you really should be praising is Aria it was her handy work that was able to really make this hole dress come together. I had nothing to do with it."I said.  

"You really are talented Aria," Britney said, her brown eyes staring down at my dress enviously.   

"Let's dance!" Yun-Jen said enthusiastically. Aria smiled at me as she dragged me to the dance floor. 

I smiled at Aria's enthusiasm as she began to move and bop to the music, as wonderful as Aria is at everything she does the girl cannot dance.  

But I laugh with her as we dance the night away letting the rhythm of all the songs make my hips sway letting the songs carry me away. Because if there was one thing that my Momma gave me it was the gift of dance. 

A slow song came on and I danced with Aria. We swayed to the music her eyes closed resting against my shoulder. And even though she stepped on my feet more than one time the moment felt raw, and towards the end of it, I felt her begin to sob on my shoulder. 

"Ari, are you okay?" I asked her. She looked up at me. 

"Ya, everything is more than okay." She said, looking up at me tears gathering in the corners of her eyes. 

We danced heart to heart and at the end of the song she sighed contently and we continued on with the night. 

I danced until my feet hurt laughing and talking. About halfway through a song was done by What the Funk my (sisters favorite band) I decided to get a drink. I walked slowly to the back of the hall, and as I walked to the edge I felt a cool breeze brush against my skin and I noticed for the first time how suffocatingly hot it is inside from all the bodies dancing close to one another. I noticed a girl in a yellow dress, she stood out from the rest of the group her hair loose falling into a straight pattern down her back her dark skin accentuated by the light yellow. And as I looked at her I felt as if I knew her. But for some resone, I couldn't put my finger on how. 

And then I recognized her, Ruha. 

Nusiba's fiance. 

I couldn't recognize her because usually, she has piles and piles of makeup, and her hair always was curled perfectly so. And a light always seemd to radiate off of her drawing all those around her in. But all of that seemed gone.

After Nusiba had died she hadn't come back to school, some said she even moved. I immediately felt guilty for not thinking about her earlier but I had been so caught up with my job and Res that I hadn't had time to worry myself with idle gossip, even if it was about Ruha.    

"Hey, Ruha." She swirled around to look at me. 

"Oh hey Tera." She said her eyes turning disinterested beginning to wander around her. 

"How are you doing, I haven't seen you in a while," I say. She laughs bitterly. 

"I'm fine, my Mum made me come today. She said that I need to get back out there." Ruha says I nod. 

"I'm really sorry about what happened," I say awkwardly. I feel embarrassed and then guilty for feeling embarrassed. I really never know what to say in these types of situations.   

"Don't be, I knew it was coming. I just...I thought that I could change her." She crosses her arms and looks up at the ceiling and wipes her eyes with the back of her hands. 

"How could you possibly know something like that?" I ask her. 

"No matter how much a person tries to hide it, you always know whether or not they love you." She says. 

"Nusiba loved you Ruha," I tell her. 

"Not the way I needed her to. She may have loved me but she never wanted me." We lapse into a silence that is only filled with the blaring music that is way too peppy for the mood that her words had put me in. 

"You know I always envied you and Aria," Ruha says, watching as Aria spins around in the middle of the floor with Britney laughing as they move awkwardly to the pulsing rhythm.  "She loves you so much, Tera. You would have to be blind not to see it, there is not a doubt in my mind that she loves you with every particle of her being." Ruha admits.

We watch them dance for a few minutes before Ruha grabs my arm. 

"It's you I'm worried about." I stare at her stunned as she moves on from talking to me and walks out the door alone down the street in her beautiful yellow dress.