57 | The Last First Dance
The Last First Dance
Niall
ITHOUGHT I knew beauty.
I really did. I thought I had it all figured out.
Molly was the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen.
I believe in beauty being in the eye of the beholder.
And in the last four months, my eyes have beholden Molly in all sorts of ways.
I’ve seen her in muddy football kits, in school uniforms. I’ve seen her with the largest smiles and with tears streaming down her face.
Her hair up, her hair down. Make-up, bare faced, and tired in pyjamas.
I thought I knew how beautiful she was.
But I was wrong.
She looks ethereal in that dress, as it shimmers under the dimmed, colourful lights of the ballroom.
It’s not the dress, not really. It’s her.
The way the soft light catches in her hair, turning the caramel strands to spun gold.
The way her eyes look like shimmering opalite jewels, except for the fact that there was nothing fake about them.
They’re all hers, all Molly. And they’re fixed on me.
We’ve gotten to the slow song portion of the evening. The DJ has put on a soppy ballad, and the dance floor has thinned out, couples pairing off, swaying together under the twinkling lights.
I’ve forgotten all about keeping an eye on Stephen and my sister, because I’m too focused on making sure I don’t step on her toes or anything. My feet feel too big, my limbs too clumsy.
When I told Finn he should ask Chloe to the dance (he chickened out and they’ve gone as “friends” for the record, the eejit), he asked me to help him out with ballroom dancing.
Which means the both of us went to Fitzy for help, and so for the last couple weeks, we’d been getting secret ballroom dancing lessons from Joey Fitzpatrick.
‘lead with your left, Niall, firm but not forceful, small steps, you’re not trying to stamp out a fire’
His words are echoing in my brain, though it feels a little different dancing with Molly than it did with Finn. More delicate and more room for mistakes. One wrong move and I could ruin this perfect moment.
“Niall?” her soft voice pulls me out of my thoughts.
“Yeah, love?”
“Do people here have... songs?”
I look at her, a bit confused by what she means. “Songs?”
“You know, like in the movies,” she clarifies, eyes searching mine. “The ‘Our Song’ thing. Back home, couples always have a song that means something to them. Usually something really sappy from a Nicholas Sparks movie.”
I laugh, pulling her closer to me and leaving no room for Jesus at all. She fits against me perfectly, like she was made to be there. “I don’t know about ‘Our Song.’ My parents had one. My da used to play it on the old record player whenever Mam was properly annoyed at him. Like a peace offering.”
“What was it?”
“‘The Whole of the Moon’ by The Waterboys,” I say, my voice softening with fondness at the reminder of the memory. “He said it reminded him of the first time he saw her—like he’d been looking at the ground his whole life and she finally showed him the sky.”
She smiles, her hand trailing over the soccer ball necklace she always wore, with the one golden clasp where I’d fixed it, fiddling with it. “That’s really pretty.”
“It’s a bit old-fashioned,” I admit. “But... I think I get what he meant.”
The song that was playing ends, and the next one starts up. I didn’t recognize the other song, but I do recognize the first few piano notes of ‘Look After You’ by The Fray as it drifts through the ballroom.
“I don’t have a Waterboys song for you yet,” I whisper. “But I think I like this one.”
It made me think of her. This song was the very first one on the IPod playlist I made her, the ones we exchanged on her birthday for when she goes away over winter break.
And when I’d looked at the one she made for me, scrolling through the track list on my laptop last night, it was the first song in her list too.
It was like it was meant to be.
My hands are on her waist, and her arms are looped around my neck. We’re moving together slowly, the world around us blurring into a kaleidoscope of blue and silver, the voices of three hundred people all faded into a distant thrum.
All I see is her.
It’s always half and never whole. Always her half and my half. Right now, though, I feel whole. Entirely whole and entirely hers.
“I love you,” I whisper against her ear, the words feeling inadequate for the sheer volume of emotion swelling in my chest. “I’m so glad you moved to this rainy little town.”
I lean my forehead against hers, feeling her heart beating against mine—a promise of a future I hadn’t dared dream of four months ago. Not before she came barreling through and crashing all my walls down.
“I know I say it a lot,” I continue. “But I mean it. I love you more than anything else in the world, Molly.”
She laughs, the sound a little wet with emotion. “I love you too, Niall. Thank you for looking after me.”
“Always. I’m keeping you, Molly Lockhart. Forever.”