Chapter 29: Balance

[RODRICK'S POV]

Ugh. It was Monday. And it was too early for all the cheesy crap in school.

Everywhere I looked there were posters with glittered letters, huge banners carried by trying hard guys, kneeling freshmen kids in front of their soon-to-be dates (they looked pretty excited for marriage, not a school dance), and people squealing, hugging, and then holding hands.

I honestly don't get all the hype. It's not even freaking prom! It's just a lame dance they do every year before the holidays begin. I mean, what the hell is the big deal with dances that, instead of studying for the exams, everyone decides to cram on getting dates?

I know what you're thinking: Shut up, Heffley. Did you even study for the exams?

Well, I never thought I'd say this, but yes. I did study last weekend. It was a pain in the ass but yes, I, Rodrick Heffley, studied for the exams.

With a little help, of course.

When I was about to get out of my van after school on the day after April and I went to the amusement park, I noticed a small object in between my seat and the passenger's seat. It was a stuffed toy—an ugly teddy bear with a pierced eye and a hole on the head to be exact. April won this stupid thing at one of the mini games in the amusement park. Of all the stuffed toys there, she had to choose this one, probably to rub it in my face that she won. Psh. If only she saw me actually play the game seriously. I may or may not have let her win. I don't know.

Anyway, I brought the stuffed toy with me in my room, and then shot a message to April on Facebook: you left your half-blind teddy bear in my van.

I didn't expect to get a reply from her in less than a minute: What teddy bear?

I immediately replied back, and the conversation went on.

Me: that thing you won yesterday
April: Oohh. That teddy bear. I don't collect stuffed toys tho
Me: so... what do you expect me to do with this?
April: You can have it if you want
Me: i don't want it ew
April: Fine, then just keep it first. I can get it next time
Me: get it soon. i don't want people questioning me about having a teddy bear
April: Hahaha what's wrong? Is it bad if wittle wodwick wuves ugly teddy beaws
Me: ha ha very funny

After that, she sent a laughing emoji. That seemed like the end of the conversation already I, however, had so much free time in my hands and was in the mood to keep bugging her.

Me: watcha doin
April: Homework
Me: we have homework?
April: Yeah check your notes
Me: i don't take notes
April: That's why you don't do your homework
Me: hey i did my homework yesterday!
April: No you didn't. we went out yesterday!
Me: you make it sound like we went out on a date

It took a while before she sent a reply. She typed, stopped typing, and then started typing again.

April: No I didn't
April: Go away and do your homework
Me: you sound like an old teacher-mom
April: I do not!
Me: yeah you do
April: Bother me next time. I'm busy
Me: whats our homework?

Then she stopped replying. She probably decided to ignore me, but I repeatedly sent question marks to flood her messages. After a few more minutes, I told her that I was going to come over if she didn't reply.

April: English and history
April: There. That's our homework
Me: why dont you want me to come over?
April: Cos you're just gonna copy my homework
Me: when did i ever do that?
April: I always have to make extra effort to cover my answers so you won't copy them
Me: fine just tell me what we have to do

I'll cut the long story short: I didn't get to finish my homework.

She gave me the instructions right then and there, but somehow we ended up chatting all night, not just about homework, but also about other things—the rides at the amusement park, how Claire kept asking her where she went that day and how she kept the entire trip a secret, how she told her mom that she got home late because of a group meeting, how I made up an awesome I'm-doing-homework-with-my-friends excuse to my parents for getting home late, random stuff. It was pretty surprising that the conversation actually kept going. Before we knew it, it was already past 2am and April was complaining about how she didn't get to start studying for her exams. Soon after that she said she had to go sleep, and then she logged out.

The next day, Friday, I just finished eating my lunch when I noticed that April was gone from her table in the cafeteria. She was just there a minute ago. Not that I was observing or anything.

"Dude, I'll talk to you later," I told Ben as I took my bag.

"Where you goin' man?"

"I... have to do something. See ya." I got up and headed to the exit.

I had a mental list of places in the school she could possibly be at. I checked the area by her locker, the classroom, the outdoor bleachers. She wasn't there. I thought she might have been in the girls' washroom, but that's the last place I'd want to go to. I wasn't in the mood to be called to the principal's office for peeping at girls. Good thing I didn't miss out on the library.

She was in there buried in her school books and notebooks.

"It's freakin' lunch time. What the hell are you doing here?" I sat beside her, taking one of the papers on the table.

She looked up from her notes and took the paper back from my hands. "I have to start studying for the exams next week. I finished my lunch already, don't worry."

I shook my head. She's too hardworking. "Don't you ever take a break?"

"I told you, I just had my lunch. If that's not break time, I don't know what you call it." She started writing on a piece of paper again. "What are you doing here? It's not like you're gonna study for the exams in advance too, are you?""

"I was just looking for you."

"What do you want?" she replied, still focused on her paper.

"Well… Can I borrow your History and English homework?"

She finally looked up and glared at me. "What—no! Why?"

"Yeah I didn't get to finish it."

"So… You expect me to lend you mine so you can copy it?"

I shook my head. "No! Chill out, woman. I'm just asking for your help."

"Ssh!" The librarian suddenly popped out of nowhere behind us. "This is the library. Keep quiet!" Then she left.

April sighed. "Where's your homework? Bring out what you've started." She gestured with her open palm.

"Awesome." I grinned, and started taking out the papers from my bag. It had nothing but my name and a few lines on top.

She stared at it for 5 whole seconds. "What is this? There's almost nothing in here." She looked at me, and then back at the paper. "What the hell did you do last night that you didn't finish your homework?"

"Hey, it's not my fault I didn't finish it. You kept sending me messages all night, I couldn't focus!"

"Wha—You started it!"

I cleared my throat. "Can we just finish this? Help me. Pleeaase?"

She rolled her eyes. "I can't believe this."

"Pleeeaaaase?" Puppy dog face: Activate! I looked at her with pleading eyes.

"Ugh, fine. Gosh, what would you do without me," she mumbled. "Stop making that face, it's annoying." She pushed my face away with her hand. "We have like 30 minutes to finish this, so it will only work if you cooperate. Okay?"

"Yes, ma'am!" I replied with a salute and a grin.

She did her best to hold back laughter but I saw her smile before she got all serious again.

With homework to finish for two subjects, the next 20 minutes went too fast. Literally. From time to time, April would get the book and point out what the answer was supposed to be based on. I felt like my head was gonna explode with information. And my handwriting, which wasn't really pleasing to everyone's eye to begin with, looked like chicken poop. I almost gave up.

"Do I have to do both now? We have free period later, right?" I told April.

"Hey. You took up all my lunch study time. There's no way I'm letting you take free period too. Keep writing!"

If I knew this was going to happen, I would have just grabbed April's homework from her bag and copied it. But no, I chose to be a good student. Sort of.

About five minutes before our class started, I finished writing the last sentence of my English homework.

"Whew! I'm done." I said, staring at the outcome of my 25-minute homework.

"Great." She patted my back for a job well done. "Now you can stop staring at it and we can go to our class. We have less than 4 minutes left until it starts and we have to run all the way there!" She was already wearing her bag over her shoulder and gathering her school books.

"Right." I quickly shoved all my stuff in my bag, making sure the papers I wrote on weren't crumpled. "Let's go!"

We shuffled towards the library exit. I held the door open so April can walk out without struggling too much with the books she carried, but I noticed she was slowing down because of them. There weren't even a lot—just two big ones. So after she walked out, I swiftly took them from her arms.

She naturally complained. "Hey, what are you—"

I started walking. "Come on!."

She followed me quickly. "Wow, are you being a gentleman now?"

"Chivaring is not dead, woman."

She laughed. "Chivalry. It's chivalry."

"That's what I said." I walked past the stairs.

"Hey! Classroom's this way!" she called, just when the school bell started ringing.

"Right." I turned back and we both ran up the stairs.

"Is this why you're always late?" she said in between breaths.

"Because of homework? Yes."

"I meant forgetting the rooms, liar."

We ran as fast as we could across the hall to our History room. By the time we got there, the teacher had just taken his seat in front of the class.

"Heffley, Preston. Why are you two late?"

Still out of breath, April tried to reason out. "Sorry, sir." She panted in between. Her hand was on her chest. "We ran to…"

"We entered the wrong room," I said, still panting as well, but not as bad as April was.

"The semester is almost ending, and you still don't know your rooms?" he replied. Some of our classmates snickered. April coughed, still trying to catch her breath.

"It won't happen again. Sir." I told him.

He eyed the two of us, and then finally asked us to go to our seats.

After the class, I followed April, I knew she was heading straight to the library again. That girl's really glued to her books. Before she made her turn to the hall leading to the library, I pulled her aside.

"Not so fast," I said, running to the opposite direction.

"What are you doing?" she asked, almost annoyed. "I have to go study, Rodrick!"

"The library is too quiet."

I led her to the outdoor bleachers. It was extra cold that day. I let go of her arm once we started climbing to our usual spot.

"Why did you have to drag me all the way here? It's freezing," she whined.

"What's the problem? You're wearing your cardigan anyway."

"It's still cold. Can't we just go back inside?"

We reached the top already, and I didn't want to go all the way down again. Before I sat down, I removed my jacket and gave it to her. "You can study here, or whatever."

She wore the jacket and sat down beside me. "The library is perfectly fine for me. Seriously, there was no need to bring me here."

"I just thought you could relax while studying," I said. "Be outside with trees and nature… and kids suffering along that oval." I pointed to the students jogging for their Physical Education class.

She laughed while taking her one of her notebooks out.

"Thanks for helping me out with the homework, by the way." I stretched my legs and propped my feet up on the bleacher seat in front of us.

"No problem. But you still have to learn to do stuff on your own, you know."

"Yes, mom."

"Stop calling me mom!"

I chuckled. Annoyed Prescott is always funny. "Why are you rushing to study anyway? You have like 3 days to go before the exams."

She flipped through the pages of her notebook. "There's a lot to cover. You should probably start too. When are you gonna study anyway?"

"Don't know." I shrugged.

"Do you even study for the exams?"

"Uh, duh." I sat up. "Sometimes. When I feel like it."

"And you don't worry about failing?" she looked up and asked.

"The trick is not to keep stressing myself out. And I already failed a bunch of tests before so I've managed to lower my parents' expectations."

She just nodded. "Ah, I see."

"You worry too much about stuff, you know? You gotta chill," I said, pointing at her.

This time, she shook her head. "Better to be extra-ready for the exams than not studying at all." She started reading silently from her notes.

"I'm not just talking about exams, I'm talking about school in general. Even stuff unrelated to school, actually."

She glanced for a second, and then focused on her notebook again. "I can't just chill and relax all the time like you. There's a proper time for everything… Like now. I told you I'd use my free period for studying and you're here bothering me."

I rolled my eyes, because I couldn't think of anything to say. I don't chill and relax all the time, do I? But then again, when you're too busy with your social life, your music career (Yeah, Löded Diper!), and other stuff, school becomes your least priority.

"Did that sound too harsh?" She must have noticed that I remained silent for a while. "I didn't mean it, I—"

"No, I was just thinking."

"Thinking?" she asked, like she couldn't believe I was thinking. I shook my head, and almost chuckled when she said that. "Thinking about what?"

"About what you just said."

"Oh." She looked down, somewhat ashamed. "I'm sorry. I really didn't mean to sound so offensive. I was just—"

"No, you actually have a point," I cut her off before she started justifying what she just said, which had actually nothing wrong with it. It's just the truth.

She looked up again, a bit confused this time. "I do? Right, I do. I'm glad you got my point." Then she smiled.

I nodded. "Yeah. So I have a brilliant idea." She closed her notebook, ready to listen. I continued, "What if you and I study for the exams together?"

She was speechless at first. "Uh, what? Study together?"

"Yeah! We'll study together. You know, like a study group, but with only two people? Like a study… A study da—uh, partnership… Study partners!" No idea why I had to name it. I shouldn't have bothered. I almost spit out the word 'date' for goodness' sake.

"No," she replied firmly.

"Whaat? Come on, help a friend out. Pleeaaaase."

"I don't know." She opened her notebook again, keeping her eyes locked on the words written there. "How can I even focus when you're around?"

I leaned closer and said, "What do you mean you can't focus when I'm around? Are you distracted by my good looks or something?"

A second later, a notebook hit my face. And my arm, and my chest, and my face again. April got up and kept hitting me with her notebook everywhere. When she stopped, she said, "You're so annoying! Ugh." I just laughed. The way she reacted was hilarious. "See, this is why I can't focus! You keep teasing around."

"Hahaha! Okay. Okay. When we study together, no teasing. Promise." I raised my hand.

She rolled her eyes. "As if."

"Use your brain and skills to help me pass all my exams and get good grades. Pleeeaaase?" I did that cutesy puppy face thing again, the one she always falls for. "Please April?"

"Noo, stop!" She looked away and covered my face with her notebook. So I took it out of my face. She instantly closed her eyes. I leaned closer, still with the puppy dog act, keeping distance just a few inches from her face. When she peeked and saw how close my face was to hers, she got startled and backed up a bit.

"Ugh, fine. Fine!" She pushed my face away just like she did earlier. "You should stop making that face. It doesn't suit you."

"Yes!" I raised both my arms in victory, and then gave her a quick hug. "Thank you!"

"But you have to follow my conditions."

I repeated what I said earlier, raising my right hand again. "No teasing, promise!"

"No teasing. No annoying side comments. No sleeping. No anything that would get us off track." She counted one by one with her fingers.

"But with breaks in between."

"Ten-minute breaks."

"Thirty!"

"Fifteen."

"Alright, deal." I reached out to shake her hand.

And she shook mine. "Deal."

That night, she went over to my place. We got the first two subjects covered smoothly because we followed all the rules we set. Heck, she's way organized than I am. She's makes reviewers for each class, has Post-it notes on her books, even different colors of highlighters. She made me read her notes, and some pages from the books, and then her reviewer, and then we asked each other questions. Studying like April is a long process, I tell you. I mean, when I study, I just flip the pages, read a few then I'm done! But that's probably why I couldn't get higher than a D minus.

With all that studying, I totally forgot to give back her stupid teddy bear. Now it's still stuck in my room, displayed for everyone to see. Good thing not a lot of people go in there anyway.

On the weekend, we studied at her house. When Saturday came, we forgot all about those rules. Well, not really. April kept nagging me about them, but hey, I was just adding fun to all the studying! Like I told her, she had to take breaks and relax. So we watched a movie (the 15-minute break has extended to 2 hours!), and even fell asleep while studying. Now, that second one—falling asleep—that was April's fault, not mine. That even happened twice.

We just finished eating lunch. And you know that after-lunch feeling. I wanted to take a nap so bad. So my head was on her study table and I was lazily reading her reviewer from the side. My arm was stretched across the table, just above the notebook she was reading. Both of us were quiet, and I'm bored as heck. You'd think I'd be the first to doze off. But no. Not this time. After a while, I felt a thud on my arm. It was April's head. She was facing me with her hair all over, using my arm as a pillow.

"Hey." I tried shaking my arm a bit. "Hey!"

She stirred, and then whispered, "Three minutes. Just give me three minutes."

I rolled my eyes. When I closed my eyes for 5 seconds, she kept nagging me. Then there she was asking for three minutes. Huh. And then I sighed. Whatever. This girl was working so hard, and almost didn't take breaks while studying. Why the hell did she have to keep giving herself a hard time?

I combed her hair away from her face. Why did I do that? Uh, because she might choke on her hair or something. She needed to breathe, you know! Still, I couldn't help but smile, just staring at her while she took a nap. She didn't even have a lot of make up on, yet she looked so cute and pretty even when she was asleep.

Okay, stop, Rodrick. You sound like that freaky main guy from Twilight who watches people sleep. Stop. I blinked to snap myself out of it, and resumed reading her reviewer. But alas, I could no longer absorb anything. I ended up recalling why I had to suggest studying together.

To pull my grades up. Right.

"HEY!" I shook my arm even harder to actually wake her up. It worked. She immediately sat up, and then yawned. "Don't get mad at me when I fall asleep later. You broke the rule first."

She glared at me, and almost threw her notebook to my face. I took cover with my arm, and when I realized she was just faking it, I sat up. She started reading her notebook again. And I tried studying. But damn it.

How could I even keep studying when she's distracting me whenever she mouths the words written on her notebook, whenever she reads a line from our English book, whenever she teaches me how to use a mathematic formula, whenever she starts adding stuff to her reviewers?

How could I even focus when she's around?

Damn it. This was a stupid idea.

I then got up and started studying on the floor, leaning on the side of the bed. I really tried to focus and memorize the stuff she wrote on the reviewer.

Later on (when I've completely snapped out of all those weird thoughts swirling in my head), while we were asking each other questions for the freaking fourth time that day (for the 6th subject we were studying for), I knew I couldn't take it anymore. We just had dinner but I swear, my brain—no, my entire head and skull was gonna explode and my eyes were gonna pop out with the information overload.

"Can we please take a break?" I begged April.

"What? We just ate dinner!"

"My brain is gonna ooze out of my nose soon. Let's take a break." I took her notebook away and placed it on the table. "Let's watch a movie," I said while turning on her laptop.

"A movie, seriously?" She tried to grab the laptop away, but I carried it and ran to the other side of the room. "That's approximately two hours. We said we'd only take 15-minute breaks!"

"You already broke the rules when you slept!"

"Oh, cut me some slack. That was only three minutes!" She started chasing me. Yeah, we were running around the room by then. Told you I was the one who added all the fun to this study partner thing.

"That was almost five minutes!" I didn't wake her up immediately that time because I knew she needed that nap.

She finally cornered me near the door. Luckily I was taller than her, so I raised the laptop up high so she couldn't reach it. "Give it to me!" I only tiptoed higher. "Rodrick! Give it!"

I just laughed when I looked at her reaching for it. But after a second, I realized that her entire body was pressed against mine. Her entire body. And I think she realized it also, because her eyes widened too when she met mine. And that entire awkward feeling suddenly exploded between us. I quickly shoved the laptop to her arms and walked away, towards her desk.

I was still trying to catch my breath when she started talking. "Thanks." It was all she said. She stayed at that area, staring at the laptop.

I cleared my throat. "I think I'm brain dead… I need a break, seriously."

"A quick break, sure." She nodded slowly. "But a movie? I don't know."

"Are you even at least 60% positive that your brain is absorbing everything you're studying?" I asked her.

She shrugged, then walked to her bed and sat down. "It's gonna take two whole hours. It's not the right time for a movie—"

"Yeah, you said before that there's a proper time for everything. That means you also need to relax and take a rest once in a while." I walked towards her bed and sat on the floor, leaning on the bed for support. "I mean, if you tire your brain out too much, it might end up worse for you. For both of us. Just saying."

She sighed. "Alright, I got your point." She then sat on the floor beside me, and placed the laptop in front of us. She opened a window full of different films saved on her laptop. "You pick a movie. A feel-good one."

I smiled. "How about your favorite?" I clicked on one file, and it started playing. Tangled.

"Of all feel-good movies, you pick the one with a singing blonde, long-haired princess," she muttered.

"Let's change it then." I reached out and was about to stop, but she held my arm to stop me.

"No, that's fine. Perfect." She hugged her knees and watched intently.

I shook my head and couldn't help but give a smile. Halfway through the first song, I got up and turned off the lights. She gave me a questioning look. "What? Watching movies are better with the lights turned off."

"But…"

I returned to my seat beside her. "Relax, remember?"

So yeah, we watched the movie. I could hear April singing along silently to some of the songs, even mumbling some of the lines. I don't know how many times she's watched this. She could probably reenact the entire film herself.

I was actually expecting her to burst out singing when the film got to the flying lanterns part. But she was surprisingly quiet. When the song ended, I felt something land on my shoulder. I didn't have to check what the heck that was. I knew it was her. She fell asleep again, with her head on my shoulder this time. And this wasn't just a three or five-minute nap. See, I'm not the only one breaking rules here, right?

Determined to finish the movie, I adjusted to a more comfortable position for both of us, so that her neck wouldn't hurt while she slept, and my shoulder won't get tired. A little while later, I held her face with my hand because I was afraid that her head might hit the floor in case she slid off my shoulder.

Soon enough I couldn't focus on the movie anymore so I decided to just stop playing it. I closed the player, but left the laptop on for a few moments. Its light shined on us, on April, whose face had soft cheeks, long eyelashes, cute nose, and other attractive features that get prettier every minute that passed by.

It wasn't like this before. Not that she wasn't already pretty before, because she's always been like that. But I don't understand why I couldn't stop noticing all these small details lately. How on earth did this happen?

I reached out to close her laptop. After that, I carefully shifted and then carried April up to her bed. She lay there comfortably, finally getting some decent sleep. My arm was on the edge of her bed while I observed her again. Maybe I should get going, I thought. I tucked her loose hair behind her ear and tried to get up to leave.

When I moved my arm, though, April suddenly grabbed it with both hands, pulled it close, and then hugged it like she would hug a stuffed toy.

"What now? Am I supposed to sleep here?" I whispered, though I knew no one was gonna answer. She only hugged it tighter, and I didn't want to wake her just so I could leave.

Whatever.

I fell asleep there, sitting on the floor, leaning on the edge of the bed. My head was probably close to April's already.

Next thing I knew, someone was slapping my face, which jolted me awake.

"Ow! What the f—"

"Sssh!" April cut me off. She was whispering. "Why does it always take forever to wake you up?

"You didn't need to hit me! Why are you so violent? Gosh."

"Sssh! Keep your voice down!" She got up and switched the lights on. It almost blinded me.

"Why are we whispering?" I asked.

"It's 4 in the morning." She shuffled towards me and started pulling me up. "Why didn't you wake me up? If my parents find out you slept here, who knows what they'd think!"

"What?!" I stood up, which made it easier for April to pull me to the door.

Her hand was on the knob. "Yeah. Can you sneak in to your house?"

I nodded. "Of course."

Then quietly, she opened the door and we both tiptoed down the stairs and across the living room. Once I got out of the house, I ran and got to my room without making a single noise.

I went back to her house that Sunday afternoon and stayed there 'til night. Not a single word about everything that happened the night before.

And all that led up to me walking down the hall on a crappy Monday morning, cringing at everyone who was being cheesy as heck.

"Dude, where were you all weekend?" Ben suddenly appeared beside me. We continued walking to the classroom. "Why weren't you at the party at Bill's?"

"Oh, that." I scratched my head. "I forgot."

"Bro, I called you thrice that night. No answer."

"I was busy," I said. I didn't want to get too detailed. If I told him I studied, he'd make fun of me all week.

"Busy? Busy with what?"

I shrugged. "Or maybe I was sleeping, I don't know."

He seemed convinced. "Fair enough."

Exam week wasn't that bad. We had two to three exams each day, then April and I met for an hour or two after classes and messaged each other online later on to recap what we studied for the following day's exams. Sure, I got headaches multiple times a day and forgot some of the stuff I read about, but it was the first time I didn't do shotgun guesses on at least half of each test; nor did I have to peek at my seatmate's paper. I'm pretty proud of that, to be honest.

About halfway through the week, I felt that the studying was worth it. But I wasn't fully convinced 'til they gave the results on Friday morning. I still did my best to focus and not waste my time on other stuff (Wow, I don't know who I am anymore.)

Ben was actually inviting me to attend this party on Wednesday night, but, staying consistent with my mission to pull my grades up (and also the fact that I couldn't just cancel on April. She'll kill me), I said I won't be going.

"You aren't studying, are you?" he asked.

"No." I had to make something up, quick. "I'm... My, uh, my stomach's bad today. Really sorry, bro." I placed my hand over my stomach.

"Oh. I see. Yeah dude, go home. Ya never know when the toilet's gonna call you, and ya don't want to be the farty guy at the party." He chuckled like a weirdo.

So yeah, I kept this entire study thing a secret, because I didn't feel like having to explain myself to everyone.

Friday came, and let me just say that it was useless to go to school. We literally did nothing but enter the different classrooms to get the results of our exams. It was a very informal school day and I wasn't even sure if we were required to go to school. The other students didn't even bother going anymore because they were all so busy for the Winter Dance thing that night.

"Surprised to see you here, Mr. Heffley," our teacher told me before handing out my result for the Science test.

"Just bein' a good student like always, ma'am." I saluted her.

"Like always, huh? Pfft."

Teachers don't like me. But whatever. Pfft at them too.

It wasn't even lunch time when I finished getting all my exam results. Looking at the result of each one, I confirmed it: All the studying was worth it. A huge ass and brain pain but definitely worth it.

With a big smile on my face, I immediately went to find April. I was a hundred percent sure she attended school that day. Finally I saw her by her locker talking to her friend. I ran towards her. I didn't care who saw or not. She turned and saw me, but before she even got to say hello, I hugged her tight, lifted her and spun her around. "Thank you thank you thank you thank you!" I exclaimed.

"Woah," she said just before I put her down. She gave an awkward laugh. Her friend—was it that Olivia girl?—just looked at both of us with a straight face, like she was trying to hide her smile. "Uh, what's up? How are your exams?" April asked me after a moment.

The excitement never disappeared from my face and my voice. I showed her my exam papers. "I got three A's! Two B's, and the rest are like C and C minus!"

She smiled looking at them. "Wow, this is great!"

"How about you? All A's, huh?" I asked when she returned them to me.

She acted a bit shy. "Not all. Two are A minus and one's a B."

"Still awesome… Anyway," I said, placing my hands on her shoulders, "Thank you so much."

"Heh. No problem! Give yourself some credit too." She patted my arm lightly.

I hugged her one more time, and then let go. "Okay, I'm getting out of here." I started walking backwards, away from the two girls. "School's over. Woooo! See y'all tonight!" I waved goodbye and headed to my van.

It was my day. I just didn't know if the awesomeness would continue until the dance that night.

You know how I've been cringing the entire week because people have been popping out of nowhere to get dates for the dance, right? I hated that. April and I actually got to talk about it while we were studying. She hated it too, but she said she was going to attend anyway because her friends were going.

"And just so I can experience it. It's gonna be the first dance I'm attending in this school," she added.

Then she asked me if I was going. And I just shrugged. I went during my first year of high school, but I skipped the one last year because my friends and I had better parties to go to. When I asked them if they were going this year, they were undecided but it seemed like they were considering it. So I thought hard if I should go.

To cut the entire story short, after the last exam on Thursday, I decided to go to the dance anyway. I told my band mates, and they said they'd be going too.

As for dates, only Chris had one. Ben got rejected, and, well, I didn't have time to ask anyone. Whatever. Who cares?

That evening, I pulled out one of my old black tuxes—which was clean, I swear—and got ready in less than thirty minutes. I didn't have to bring my car because Ben picked me up at my house after fetching Chris and his date. During the ride he reminded us to find someone who'd invite us to an after-party, to which Chris's date, Mikayla, responded, "The varsity's hosting one at Jonas's place. Anyone can go, I think."

"Alriight, awesome!" Ben said, chuckling in excitement. "I can take us there after the dance."

From the parking lot, you'd already know that there's a big thing happening in our school. Music was playing and a bunch of dressed-up people were making their way to the gym.

The gym. Some of our teachers call it the multi-purpose hall, but it's literally just a gym. There were a lot of people already when we got there, but the program hadn't started yet. People were just walking around, some were dancing already, others were just chilling at their tables. I just hung around with my friends near the food. We weren't actually allowed to eat yet, but Ben and I already got a couple of small sandwiches. We're experts at sneak-eating—'sneating'.

More people arrived as the minutes passed. Half an hour later, some dude came up to the mic and awkwardly said, "Good evening, everyone. Wel… Welcome!"

Nobody reacted. What a lame starter. The guy just stood there as if waiting for a response. He cleared his throat and then shouted, probably using all his energy, "Welcome to this year's Winter Dance! Let's get this party starteeeed!" People cheered. "Hit it!" He pointed to the live band, who started playing some fast-beat song.

People started gathering in the middle of the dance floor and grooved out with their friends and dates. Chris and Mikayla went there too. Other students were still arriving. Meanwhile, Ben and I weren't really in the mood yet, so we just kept sneating.

I was just about to get bite of the chocolate cupcake when I saw her.

Everything went slow-mo like a cliché windy scene from a music video. Instead of getting a taste of the whipped cream, I was stunned with my mouth half-open.

The girl in gold just walked in with her friends.

And I don't think there are enough words to explain how beautiful she was that night.