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missing.”
    Jess took hold of my hand and led me toward the front of the gymnasium. Holding his hand made me feel safe from the disappointment that was surrounding my head. Jess stopped as soon as we were close enough to the crowd to look “involved” but far away enough to breathe. He pulled my hand across my body until I spun under his arm. When I had completed the spin, I was locked safely in his arms.
    “Are you kidding me?” I looked up at his face and was surprised to see him so close.
    He looked genuinely confused. “What?”
    “Where did you pull that move from? Mr. `I wouldn’t dance the last dance if someone paid me.’ You’ve always made it sound like you couldn’t dance!”
    Jess rolled his eyes. “I have two sisters. What do you expect?”
    I stared up at Jess; he used to seem so much taller. I didn’t realize I had grown so much over the past couple of years. The last time I stood this close to Jess was when he was hoisting me up into our old tree fort in the woods behind my house. That was at least two summers ago. Back then my eye level was about to his chest. Now my forehead came right about to his chin. And he had even grown a couple inches himself. Being this close to him I couldn’t help but take in his smell. Jess wasn’t the type to drown himself in cologne, but instead he smelled like fresh soap from this morning’s shower mixed with the electrifying scent of men’s deodorant. As the song played on, Jess and I stopped talking, and soon we were dancing so close that my cheek was nuzzled into the side of his smooth neck. I always thought that I knew Jess so well. I knew the exact laugh lines that would appear on his face when I made a funny joke. I knew what made him angry, frustrated, or annoyed. I knew when he needed a haircut and when he hadn’t studied enough for a test. But in all the years that we had spent together, I had never been this close to him. I had never felt the softness of his skin against my face.

    “Can I cut in?”
    I knew that piercing female voice all too well.
    I pulled myself a few inches away from Jess’s firm grasp to see Clarissa standing at our sides with her hands clasped behind her back. Both Jess and I looked at her with our mouths gaping.
    Jess spoke first. “Right now isn’t a good time,” he started. But before he could say more, I interrupted him.
    “It’s okay, Jess.” I was still staring at Clarissa, wondering how she could take Jess away from me now when Trace had obviously decided not to ask me to dance. But I didn’t want either one of them to feel sorry for me. I wanted to prove that I was okay on my own. I released my hold on Jess’s neck, and I felt him do the same. The air around me felt cold without Jess’s heat surrounding me. Jess watched me with uncertain eyes as I stepped away and Clarissa inserted herself in my spot between his arms. I left the dark gymnasium, and even though it was against the rules, I walked down the hall to my locker and took out the bag I had packed with jeans and a sweatshirt. My first last dance had been horrible. Trace didn’t like me. And now Jess was dancing with Clarissa for the second time, up close and intimate. I went to a distant bathroom where I could no longer hear the music from the dance. I changed out of my dress and mismatched shoes and put on my comfortable clothes. The clothes that didn’t reek of rejection.

Chapter 6
    Twenty minutes later Jess and I were walking across the old soccer field headed for home. So far it was as though the dance had never existed. Jess was playing with a helium balloon when I met him, and he had been sucking out the air and talking like a chipmunk ever since. Once he used up all the helium, he stuffed the saggy balloon in his pants pocket and cleared his throat. “So, Clarissa cut in while we were dancing.”
    I raised an eyebrow at his subtle approach of bringing the subject up. “Yeah, I know. I was there.”
    Jess looked down at his shoes as he walked.