6. Fifteen years old
Fifteen years old
Sam
I’m standing in a corner of our sparsely decorated sports hall wishing that teleportation was real.
Is there anything as awkward as the start of a school disco?
I missed it last year, but it’s quite funny watching people who can interact completely normally at school suddenly look terrified of each other.
It would be fine if it was just St Peter’s people, but two of the other local schools are here too, and the confidence I’ve managed to gain over the last few years has fled my body.
I can’t believe that I can swim in front of hundreds of people without worrying, but the thought of asking someone to dance makes my palms go clammy.
“This is hilarious,” Kath says from beside me. “We basically aren’t mingling at all with the other schools, and everyone looks like they would rather be anywhere else.”
That’s my other issue tonight. Kath looks incredible.
She always looks good, but tonight she’s wearing a denim skirt and a tank top, and I can’t stop stealing glances.
It’s simple, but she looks beautiful. I keep spotting guys from St Vincent’s checking her out.
I’m torn between scowling at them all, which is what I’ve been doing for the last ten minutes, or asking her to dance, which I definitely can’t do.
“At least Josh is having fun,” she snickers, and I look over to see Josh going outside with one of the girls from St Hilda’s.
Great. Now I’ve lost one of the only other people I could talk to.
How does Josh have this ability to walk up to girls and start talking to them without sounding awkward or stuttering?
And why don’t I have this skill? Not that I would use it anyway.
I think the last time I tried to compliment someone it sounded like I was insulting them instead.
“Lucky him,” I tell her, and she looks at me archly. I curse myself slightly. That was a stupid thing to say.
“Want to get out there?” she asks. “Chat to some girls.”
“Not particularly,” I mumble. “I’m not a good dancer.”
“You could dance with me?” she offers. “I promise it’s not as scary as you think it is.”
“I’m not afraid of it.” I am in fact very afraid. “I’m just a really bad dancer. I promise you no one wants to see it.”
“You don’t know that because you never dance,” she says perfectly reasonably. Why is she so logical? It’s unfair. “Come on, Sam. Dance with me?”
I shake my head, and she looks deflated. Enough that I almost feel guilty. But I hate being the centre of attention. I lean back against the wall and watch as Kath surveys the room. Eventually, she lets out a sigh of resignation.
“I’m going to get a drink. Do you want one?” she asks.
“I’m OK. But thanks.” I watch her leave and look around awkwardly for someone to talk to. I’m not naturally extroverted like Kath, and I have no idea what to do with myself.
Maybe I should’ve said yes when she asked me to dance. It might’ve been better than standing here by the edge of the sports hall, pretending I’m really into the playlist. Which is mostly 2011 hits; Katy Perry, David Guetta, that one Bruno Mars song everyone’s sick of but still sings anyway.
Ben sidles over to join me, his hair suspiciously perfect for someone who’s supposedly ‘not fussed’ about impressing anyone.
“Having fun?” he asks over the music. “You should ask someone to dance. Get some numbers?”
“What, like you?” I scoff at him.
He just holds up his phone. “I’ve got some. I was thinking about asking one of the girls from St Hilda’s out actually.”
He looks like he’s about to elaborate, but he stops suddenly, frowning towards the drinks table.
“Are you going to do anything about that?” he asks, nodding his head towards a corner of the room.
When I turn I see Kath chatting to Bobbie Reynolds.
She’s obviously telling some sort of story, but he’s not looking at her face.
No, instead he’s looking down her shirt. I glare before turning back to Ben.
“Nope,” I tell him firmly. “Not going to do anything about that.” I have to stop myself from adding ‘no matter how much I want to’.
“You’re such an idiot.” He reaches up and ruffles my hair. “Come on. Let me help you find a dance partner. Josh is off snogging someone but I reckon I’m a pretty good wingman. Even if I can only get you a sympathy dance.”
Before I can protest, he’s dragging me across the room, placing me in front of someone called Alice and then pushing the pair of us onto the dance floor.
I don’t want to be the guy who leaves a girl on the dance floor so somehow I find myself awkwardly swaying with her to a song I’ve never heard of.
A guilty feeling swirls in my stomach. I literally just told Kath I didn’t want to dance, and now Alice is moving us closer and closer to the centre of the crowd.
I try not to step on her toes as we shuffle sideways.
Alice’s nice. She’s tall, with braces and long brown hair that smells like that floral shampoo everyone uses.
Not the coconut one Kath has. She’s wearing one of those sparkly tops that seem to be the unofficial uniform of this disco, and she’s just started telling me about her school’s hockey team when I spot Kath across the room.
She’s dancing with Bobbie and his hand is slipping lower and lower down her back. I glare at him, and I’m almost certain he smirks in response. What an idiot. I pull my eyes back to Alice as she starts talking about her plans for Easter.
You don’t want a girlfriend, I remind myself, when I see Kath still dancing with him during the next song.
You don’t want a girlfriend. You want a world record.
Girlfriends are distractions. I grit my teeth as Bobbie pulls her closer during another song.
An hour later Alice and I have traded phone numbers, and her friend Chloe is chatting with Ben, making him promise that the pair of us will see them next weekend.
“I’ve got training,” I remind him.
“It’s good for you.” He pats me on the back. “Gets you out of the house. We could probably get Josh to come too. It’ll be fun.”
“What will be fun?” Kath appears with a glass of water. She takes a sip and then offers it to me. “God, these shoes are killing me. Sam, when we decide to leave can I have a piggyback home? Rule two.”
I’m about to respond when Ben cuts across.
“I’m making Sam come on a double, or possibly triple, date with me. He’s being boring and saying he isn’t sure about it. Convince him that he should come. He always listens to you.”
There is a beat of silence, and I watch her face carefully. But she just takes another sip of her drink, expression not changing at all.
“Oh really?” she says finally. “You should go. What are you guys going to do?”
“I’m not sure I’m going to go,” I say quickly, “I have training and stuff.”
“You should go,” she tells me, and my heart sinks. Maybe I was misreading things earlier when she seemed disappointed that we didn’t dance. “Anyway, I promised Bobbie that I’d dance with him again, so I’m just going to head over.”
I watch her walk away and wonder why it hurts so much.
It’s only in the last minutes of the night that I end up back with Kath, who finally drags me out onto the dance floor.
“Come on, Sam. With how athletic you are, I honestly can’t believe that you don’t like to dance,” she tells me.
“This isn’t even a dancing song,” I tell her as the faster track changes to Robbie Williams’s ‘Angels’, and everyone starts pairing off. The amount of PDA on the dance floor in the darkness away from the chaperones is mildly unnerving. “I think this is basically an excuse for people to kiss.”
“Don’t be a killjoy.” Kath grabs my hand and pulls me close. “You can’t leave me on my own for the last dance.”
With her face this close I can see the remnants of her summer freckles that have stubbornly stayed put throughout the winter. Sweat is sticking some of her hair to her neck, and her cheeks are flushed.
“Are you finding this torture?” she asks.
I laugh. “Torture is potentially too strong a word. I’m just not as good at making new friends as you are.”
“Nonsense.” She squeezes my arm. “I’ve spotted literally every girl here checking you out, so you don’t need to worry about people saying no if you ask them to dance. And that’s without them knowing that you have a World Championship medal. Multiple medals.”
“Junior World Championship,” I correct, before spinning her into a twirl, much to her delight.
When she comes back to face me, she’s giggling.
“It’s basically the same thing,” she tells me. “And only a few years until you can do the real World Championships anyway. Or the Olympics.”
We sway on the edge of the crowded dance floor. I look down at the way the light dances across her face. I haven’t been this close to her in ages. I try to count the freckles across the bridge of her nose.
“What are you looking at?” she asks. “You look like you’re concentrating a weird amount. We’re not in the middle of maths.”
I’m not going to confess to counting her freckles.
“Nothing,” I mumble. “Just trying not to embarrass myself whilst dancing.”
We continue to move in silence. The easy silence we’ve always had.
“I’m glad you had fun.” I release her as the song draws to a close. “Meet anyone you like?”
It’s too dark for me to decipher the look she gives me.
“Everyone I chatted to was nice,” she tells me. “I really liked some of the girls from St Hilda’s and it was fun dancing with Bobbie. He makes me laugh, and he’s really interesting.”
I try not to scowl as we go over to grab our coats.
I don’t think Bobbie’s interesting, or funny.
And he doesn’t know Kath the way I do. He doesn’t know the way she scrunches her nose when she laughs or how competitive she gets over card games.
At least I’m still the only one who knows all the rules of the pirate’s code.