Chapter Nine:

Jamie smiled at me as we looked through the library. I started to feel uncomfortable while she kept staring at me. "What?"

"I'm just happy for you," she said simply with a bigger smile. "You seem very happy with Will."

I smiled. "Yes, I am," I watched her put some of the books away, still with a smile on her face. Jamie helped me so much, and I had a feeling I'd need more of her help in the future. "Thank you, Jamie."

"For what?" she laughed as if she had no idea what I was talking about. I tilted my head and smiled shyly.

"You know… For everything you did… You're my best friend, you know."

"I'll always help you," she said, and I believed her. "And you'll help me, right?" she asked quietly.

"Of course!" I said, a little surprised, to be honest. Jamie almost sounded… scared. The look quickly evaporated, though, and she was smiling again. For a moment it was silent again as we shoved books back in the shelves, and I wondered what Jamie was thinking. I became so deep in thought that I didn't hear the door open. Nothing seemed to be about to shake me awake. Nothing but Will's voice.

"I thought I'd find you here." he said, and even though I didn't see him, I could tell he was smiling. I exhaled slowly, suddenly starting to feel a little emotional. Ever since Will and I took that walk, I started to feel different every time I saw him. I didn't feel the shy, school girl feelings someone feels when they have a crush on someone. I felt like I could deeply trust him, like how I trusted Jamie.

Will came up from behind me and kissed me on the cheek. "Hi Jamie." he said happily. He was truly transformed. A few months ago, no one would imagine Will walking up to two girls like us, and start being nice. I wondered what his friends thought of him now. I put the last book on the shelf and turned toward him, smiling. Just a moment before I felt like Will had already accomplished his mission, but when I turned and looked at his face, that feeling went away. Now I felt like there was still one more thing Will needed to do. One more thing we both needed to do.

"Hey, Maria, I wanted to ask you something…"

"Yes?" my heart leapt. Maybe this was it. Only time would tell.

"There's a dance at school next week, and I was wondering if you would want to go? With me?"

I suddenly felt like I was melting into a puddle at my feet. I had never gone to one of those dances before. I had always thought I'd be invisible there. I knew no one would notice me. Now Will, the boy I never thought would notice me wanted to go with me. "Sure." I said quickly. I didn't want to make a stupid mistake and pass up a perfect moment with Will again. "I've never been to one before, though." Ever since that walk, I found myself telling Will the truth more often.

"You'll love it," he said with a smile, and then he took my hand. "I promise." In the corner of my eye I saw Jamie watching us, and for a moment I swear she looked like she was going to cry. It wasn't the type of tears you cried when you were sad. It was the tears you cry when you were happy.

"Oh, Honey! You look so beautiful!" My mother stood in front of me, clapping her hands together as she looked at me from my toes to the top of my head. She looked like she was going to cry as well. Jamie was over too, as I had asked her. I was so nervous about going to the dance, and I wanted her with me before I left to go. She could always make me feel better. She herself seemed delighted about the whole idea. I think it was because she hoped the dance would bring out the ambition in me, if I had any. She stood beside my mother, looking just as happy.

I was wearing a new dress, a beautiful shade of red, my favorite color. Half of my hair was pinned up in the back and curled. I could feel it bounce when I moved. My mother put only a little make up on me, but she knew I wasn't the type to wear too much. I smiled and took their word for it. I skipped looking in the mirror and went right to the door, where there was a knock. Jamie and my mother followed me towards it, but stopped a few steps towards it.

When the door opened I saw a very handsome Will standing there, but it was quite a shock. I'm sure he never dressed this nice when he went to dances. Sometimes at Cecil's Diner I heard girls talked about Will and what he did at the dance, and I never pictured him like this.

"You like it, huh?" he said with another mysterious smile. He took a moment to look at me, and he looked breathless. "You look beautiful."

"Thank you," I said, blushing slowly. It felt strange to hear so many people say I was beautiful. It was almost more than I could take in one night. "Oh, you can come on in." I packed into the room and let him step inside. My mother exchanged a few handshakes and smiles with him.

"It's so nice to finally meet you." she said to him, and he nodded.

"It's nice to meet you, too," he turned to me. "You have a beautiful daughter."

I blushed again, and I felt a familiar feeling as he took my hand in his. I said my good byes, whispered to Jamie that I'd tell her all about it when we got back, and before I knew it, we were out the door.

To be perfectly honest, I was a little worried about how the other students might react when they saw us together. Maybe they would think it was a joke. Maybe Will wanted them to think it was a joke? Or maybe he didn't care if anyone saw us together or not.

It was Will who dragged me inside. I couldn't make myself go inside by myself… I was too nervous. I don't think he noticed my refusal to go in, because he wasn't looking in my direction as he talked to a few other people at the door, but once he got inside he turned all his attention to me. "I'm glad you came." he said softly to me.

I tried to smile. "I'm a little nervous."

"Don't worry," he said as if he expected this. "This will be fun."

I only nodded and started to look at the decorations, trying not to look nervous or stupid. I didn't like standing there doing nothing, but I didn't want to go out and dance either. Not in front of everyone else.

I felt Will slip an arm around my shoulder as we watched other couples start to dance, and it wasn't long until he popped the question on me. "Would you like to dance?"

I gulped. "Sure."

He smiled and steered me towards the middle of the dance floor. For some reason I felt as if his attention was on something else. I'm not sure what it was… He kept looking the other way- at least he was looking the other away until we got to the middle of the floor. "Now, since you're never danced before… I'll lead, and you can follow." The few first minutes were the time for learning. He made sure I knew where to put my hands, and where to put my feet so I didn't step on his, you know; Simple things like that. Soon I started to feel myself start to calm down. This wasn't hard. It was fun.

I leaned against him and sighed, letting out the last bits of my worries. I heard him sigh too, as if my touch calmed him down as well. I smiled at the thought of that.

Not even a sudden burst of laughter distracted me from our dance. We held onto each other for several seconds, lost in thought, feeling each other physically and mentally, until we realized the laughing was directed at us. For a split second I thought they were laughing at Will for dancing with me, but when I turned around realized that the laughing had come from Will's friends, who appeared to be drunk, walking our way.

"Hey, Will, we've got the liquor!" one of them said loudly. Another one started to shush him. "You'll get us caught, you idiot!" he then slapped the other boy upside the head.

"Liquor?" I gave a terrified look over at Will. Was he going to do something bad again? Then my shoulders sagged. I should have known. A boy like Will couldn't go too long without doing something bad. I started to feel disappointed, but a voice in my head said, "Why don't you give the boy a chance?" It was right. I should be trusting Will. All I had to do was wait, and time would tell me what he'd do.

Will seemed to sense my nervousness as I realized what they were planning to do. I had heard talk about Will's group doing things like this at every dance. They liked to see all of the students get drunk without realizing it. I also heard they never got caught.

"Can't you see I'm busy?" Will said angrily. The slow music stopped, and something faster was beginning to play. He smiled at me. "Watch this." He said to me with a wild grin. I couldn't help but let out a yelp of curiousness as I looked at the wild grin. I suddenly felt alive again, just like I had in the rain. The music was feeding me power. I watched as Will started up a faster dance, and waited until he wanted me to follow in his footsteps. In only a matter of seconds, we were lost in our own world of dances, and we had forgotten about the drunken boys standing next to us, watching us stupidly.

Only when the song came to an end and my dress stopped twirling around did they remember what they were doing here. "Hey, didn't you hear us?" one of his friends asked.

"Didn't you hear me? I said I was busy." Will snapped. I don't think his friend realized how much he was shouting.

"Well, you're not busy now! Come on before someone suspects us."

"Nope, there's another song playing and I have a date to dance with." Will drew me in closer again, so close that our faces were almost touching.

One of the boys waved carelessly at me. "You can leave her for just a second," he hiccupped. "Who the hll is she anyway?"

Will turned me around, but I suddenly didn't feel comfortable about letting three drunken boys stare at me. I knew I was perfectly safe, however, when Will slipped his arm around my back again.

One of them gaped at us, blinking as if he thought he vision was betraying him, and it probably was, in a sense. His vision was probably blurry. "Is that who I think it is?"

"Yeah yeah yeah, the one who punched me last year… who really cares? Why don't you get your (butts) out of here before you do something stupid?" he finally turned his attention away from them, ignoring their looks of betrayal.

I'm not sure if the three boys really spiked the punch bowl or not, but neither of us went for a drink. I didn't ask about it either… not even how they got the beer in the first place. All I wanted to talk about was how great it was to finally dance. I sighed and rested my forehead on his forehead. "I love to dance," I said. "I could dance all night." We smiled at each other until Will looked down at his watch.

"Too bad. We have to leave."

"Leave? Right now?"

"Yep." Without saying anything else, he took my hand and led me outside. We sat silently in the car, and I started to feel disappointed again. I liked it better when we were dancing. Last year I never would have had the nerve to dance in front of other people- especially that fast. I sighed, remembering the experience.

After a while I realized that he wanted driving towards my house. "Where are we going?" I asked curiously.

"You'll see."

I suddenly gulped, but only in a nervous way. Will must have a surprise for me. What could it be?

We slowly came to a stop in front of a house, which at first I thought was his house, but when I looked at the house number I knew it couldn't be his house. Everyone knew his street number. "Where-"

"Shhh…"

He went around the car and opened my door for me. "Thank you." I whispered, but he still warned me to stay quiet. Wondering what was going on, I followed him up the stairs.

When we were halfway towards the door, I started to hear soft music playing. I gave Will a quizzical look, but he shook his head. What was he doing? The questions burned in my mind and heart, but he wouldn't answer me.

Finally he led me through the door where more soft music was playing. It was so beautiful that I almost sighed out loud, but I decided against it. Thinking that we were the only ones in the house, I was quite startled when someone dressed as a waitress appeared in the room with a friendly smile.

"Come right in and sit down." se said softly with a smile. In the corner of my eye I saw her nod to Will, and then I saw him nod back. Who was she? How did they know each other?

She led us to another room where the music was playing as if we were in a restaurant, but there wasn't a table or chairs. Every place Will took me seemed to surprise me. The woman left as with another smile, as if she had seated us well.

Will looked around the room in satisfaction before he turned to me and took both of my hands. He folded them together and held them between his own, and lifted them up to our chests. "I wanted to surprise you with this." He said, and I saw a twinkle in his eye. A twinkle like the twinkle I saw in Jamie's eyes.

The 'waitress' came back into the room, but she wasn't empty handed. This time she was holding a very large plate, with a cover on top. Peculiar. I didn't smell anything good, and we both already had dinner. All of this was very strange.

She handed the plate to Will, who waited until she was out of the room to open it. "Why don't you open it?" he said, more like an order than a question. I shrugged and took off the tope. Expecting something like sandwiches or something, but instead, there was nothing.

Or at least I thought there was nothing. In the middle of the plate was a very small box. He watched me as I gaped at it stupidly. It was a very nice box, but I didn't know why it was there.

"You can open that too." Will said. I blushed, feeling foolish as I took the small box from the plate. As I untied a ribbon around the box, Will placed the dish on the floor. I felt his eyes bore into me as I opened the box and peeked inside.

I gasped. Inside was a beautiful ring. That was strange. Was Will going to ask me to marry him? I looked up at him curiously. Why would he ask such a question so soon? We weren't even girlfriend and boyfriend, really. Not yet at least.

He took the ring outside of the box and slipped it on my finger slowly, letting the image sink into our memory. Then, with one of the quietest voices I had ever heard him talk in, he said, "Will you be my girlfriend, Maria?"

I was shocked speechless when he finally asked. To tell the truth, I never thought Will would actually as me. I thought we might date for a little while, but then he'd find someone new, and I might find someone new. You never know what the future holds, right? I never thought this would happen.

"If you do, then this ring reflects our hope for each other," he took another ring out of his pocket. "No, we're not getting married," he said with a laugh, as if he had read my mind. "At least not yet."

It was another few moments before I could speak again. "Yes…" I said in a shaky but happy voice. "Wow… they are so beautiful." I said as I looked at the rings. We smiled and stared into each other's eyes while fiddling with the rings. "Who's house is this?" I asked, trying to break the silence, even though it was nice. All I suddenly wanted to do was talk to him- and kiss him.

"This is my aunt's, actually. I don't live with her, but she likes when I visit. She loved the idea of using her house."

I nodded. "It's a beautiful house."

"Jamie actually helped me a lot with this," he confessed after a few moments of silence. "She said you'd love to be surprised."

I nodded. "I do like to be surprised." I said.

"Did I surprise you?"

I started to laugh, and I took his hand. "You still surprise me- every single day."