I’ve always loved slow dancing. Not only is it intimate and romantic, it was also very simple. Basically, slow dancing consists of a guy and a girl. The guy has his hands on the girl’s waist and the girl has her arms wrapped around the guy’s neck. Her head can be resting on his chest or shoulder, or the two people’s noses can be touching, or they can be looking into each other’s eyes. Sometimes you can even kiss while slow dancing, but if you start making out, you’ve crossed the line of “sweet and romantic” to “desperate and sexual”. And slow dancing should NOT be sexual. The purpose of slow dancing is to get close to someone who you really care about, and intensify your feelings for that person and vice versa. Slow dancing is sweet and romantic and slightly awkward at times, but it’s still a beautiful and hopefully innocent form of affection.
Another great thing about slow dancing is that anyone can do it. People from Dancing With the Stars can slow dance. Horribly clumsy teenagers can slow dance. Even my awkward, hopeless, yet adorable little brother Marcus can slow dance, if he had someone who would slow dance with him other than our maid. Slow dancing is very easy – it’s practically just swaying – but it has great meaning for the people who are dancing together because of the closeness and the newfound relationship and the indescribable feeling you get when you slow dance. However, slow dancing has been forever ruined for me because my long-time boyfriend dumped me during the middle of a slow dance.
It was at our tenth grade Homecoming Dance, which was a classic yet somewhat boring Under The Sea theme. I was wearing this really pretty blue green dress that was sparkly and looked really expensive but it had been a steal at Plato’s Closet, and my hair was up in a loose bun and I was wearing these fantastic heels because David was taller than me so I could, and we were dancing to the song I’m With You by Avril Laviege, which is a kind of sad song but it was also slow so we could slow dance, and I had positioned my head so it was lying on his big, muscled shoulder – he’s a wrestler and has a killer bod – so I couldn’t see his face, which turned out to be a problem because the entire time he had been looking at this girl Melanie Scott, and halfway through the song I kind of sighed into his shoulder because I was having a fantastic time until he pulled away from me and dumped me.
“Look, Trish, you’re a great girl and all and you’re really cute and smart, but… I’m sorry. I just don’t feel the same way as I did.”
Needless to say, I was completely shocked and hurt at this turn of events and spent most of the rest of homecoming in the girl’s bathroom either crying or ranting or both to my best friend Amanda. She had kind of expected it – not that David was cheating on me or anything, but he had been for like three months while I was away at this “nerd camp”, as everyone called it – but she had pretty much suspected that David was going to break my heart. He was a year older than me and totally hot and he had a car that actually worked, AND he was also fairly smart, although he didn’t understand math to save his life, which is how we met and eventually kissed through private tutoring. I once would’ve said “which is how we met and fell in love”, but times are very different and I know now that you can’t really fall in love just through algebra books and small snacks and dim lighting in a wood-paneled office. Which is why it’s such a shock that I’m attracted to my new student, Cameron Martinez.