The girls from the cheer squad and I liked to go outside as a group. And sometimes, the boys would tag along. They watched us rock the dance floor with the perfectly prepared choreographies that put every single dancer to shame. Even the weird ones that always seemed to appear out of nowhere around midnight and had glowing eyes.

Really, we sort of suspected that part of their interest would have been lost without the short, short cheerleader outfits.

*sigh* Teenagers.

It doesn’t stop me from having the time of my life on the dance floor once my friends have had enough. I’m cheer-captain for a reason: whether with pompoms or with glow sticks, my whole family has rhythm in the blood.

And Charlotte and Romain apparently don’t mind me being busy with something else.

It’s okay, though. On this particular night out, my head is absolutely elsewhere. And pretty soon, I leave the dance floor too, anyways.

The Queen of the Dancefloor

The Queen I tell you.

Too preoccupied with my moves to care about them.

I barely have the time to reach my locker after Geography class, and Charlotte is already on my heels. She says there’s apparently something we need to discuss; she forbids me from sitting with the boys at lunch.

So I sit with the girls.

Our cafeteria is small, fit for the very limited number of students in our school, but that day it feels even smaller. It feels like I can’t breathe. Being called out by strangers is one thing; being called out by a friend is another. But being called out on your behavior by three of your best friends, it sucks the oxygen out of a cafeteria faster than the words “remember we have a test next period?”.

Marie is the angriest. She shouts, and she accuses, and she doesn’t realize it, but she’s not entirely being fair either. Charlotte tries to act supportive, and I see she’s not mad for the same reasons: mainly she’s hurt that I’m not talking to her about the situation. That these are the lengths she has to go to to get me to listen to her. Still, she doesn’t help.

Even Shanna is in on it. In typical Shanna fashion, she doesn’t get mad. She doesn’t scream, she is not pointing fingers. She is not pleased, but she talks calmly, clearly, and out of the three of them, she is the only one whose words I hear.

I know that she is right.

Ambush!

This would have been my last chance to talk to her, and her only. Maybe I would have been excused from the rest of the plan.

You know an argument is serious when there’s a half-eaten slice of pizza on the table and no one has made a claim for it yet.

No use defending yourself…

… When you’re attacked on all fronts.

Thank Plumbob for how oblivious teenage boys can get.

(poses mainly by @rinvalee . Someone else as well, I am so sorry, I’m afraid I have since taken the poses out of my game. If they are yours, please inform me <3)

When we leave the café, at half past eleven, we are all completely sober. High on an unhealthy dose of coffee, high on being young, and powerful, and daring, but otherwise sober.

Which is to say, perhaps not sober at all after all.

With a cleverly programmed smartphone, we take photos in front of the café, smiling, shouting, singing. Young, and wild, and free. Perhaps too free.

While we take these photos, I make mistakes. I slip. I behave in a way that I regret. Not because it didn’t mirror how I felt, not because I was wrong; but because I shouldn’t have gone about these feelings that way. Because I was in the wrong. It’s a knowledge that’s a shadow on my memories, even twenty years later.

But at that moment, it doesn’t seem to matter. It will, later, no doubt, but not tonight.

Tonight, we’re insouciant, and everything is merry as merry goes.

SCREAMING into the night —not pointlessly, but as always, with someone to take a picture.

A triangle of friends, talking about who remembers what, in front of a deserted, space-themed kids park. All very usual.

Laughter under the cherry blossoms.

The night air is soft and sweet with the smell of petals. Some distance away, the crashing of waves, not as loud or powerful as Brindleton Bay’s, but they bring the same breeze, the same cool weather. It’s a beautiful night.