The Debut
I woke up when something hit me on the back. I pushed my body up and looked round. I saw Seth smiling at me from my door, I investigated my bed and found a cushion lying next to me. I looked back at Seth and glared.
"Come on, get up, you sleep like way too much." He told me walking in pulling up my blinds so that I was attacked by morning sunlight hitting my face.
"What time is it?" I asked him, rubbing the sleep from my eyes.
"Uh, 7:42 last time I looked."
"Fuck Seth." I took my hands back from under me and landed on my pillow. "Do you know how much I hate you?"
"Get dressed and I will kick your butt at some sort of video game that is yet to be decided." He told me walking out of my room.
I shut my eyes and rolled over trying to get comfortable but found it hard to concentrate on sleep with the light glaring in my room. "Fuck Seth!" I sighed, throwing the covers off and getting up and walking out of the pool house to the fridge.
I pulled open the door and grabbed the open carton of milk, I drained it and chucked it into the trash before walking through to Seth sat in front of the TV, yelling instructions at computer animated men.
"I hate you." I told him. He just looked up at me and smiled. I looked down at what I was wearing and realised that walking into the house in just a vest top and my knickers was possibly a bad idea. "And I'm dressing."
I went back into the pool house and pulled some clothes out of the wicker basket things, dressed quickly and promptly sat down next to Seth in the living room, snatching up a controller.
"What are we playing?"
"Pro Ninja Fighter VII."
"What happened to Pro Ninja Fighter VI?"
"New one came out whilst you were in lock up."
"Jail makes you miss all the good things in life." I deadpanned as I ran a sword through one of Seth's men.
"Hey guys!" Sandy smiled at us as he and Kirsten walked into the room.
"Hey." Seth and I nodded neither of us looking away from the TV.
"Seth, we need to talk to Alex." Kirsten told him, making Seth turn away from the TV.
"Okay." He said pausing the game, before he rose off the floor, "If this has to do with the rug though, I just want to tell you that it had nothing to do with her."
Kirsten looked down, "What about the rug?"
"I'm gonna go now." He said as Kirsten continued to inspect the rug.
Sandy sat down in one of the chairs, whilst Kirsten remained standing. I put down my controller and stood up too.
"You guys look pretty serious." I frowned at them.
"So, Kirsten and I went to Child Services this morning."
"Child Services is open at, like, eight in the morning?" I asked.
"Alex it's now 11:43," Kirsten told me after a glance at her watch, "how long have you and Seth been playing on the Playstation?"
"Its 11:43? Wow, Seth is a bad influence on me." I laughed.
"Anyway," Sandy said, drawing back the conversation to where he wanted it. "We told Child Services that, uh, that we want you to stay with us."
"You serious?" I smiled at them.
"But there's a catch. Because you're a minor, the only way they'll allow that to happen is if we assume all legal responsibility for you." Sandy continued.
"You want to do that for me?" I asked.
"Well we're asking you." Sandy smiled.
"We've all talked about it." Kirsten explained, "And we want to be your legal guardians. We want you to be part of the family. If you want to be..."
"Fuck yeah!"
"Language." Sandy laughed.
"You just have to promise us you'll stay out of trouble." Kirsten said.
"You're still on probation. And child services will be up our ass all the time."
"No more trouble. I promise." I smiled at them both, which they returned. Kirsten pulled me into a hug.
"Welcome to the family." Kirsten said into my ear.
"Thank you so much." I told them both once Kirsten had let go.
"Okay, Seth. You can come out now." Kirsten laughed.
Seth popped his head around the corner with a huge grin on his face.
"You knew about this and didn't say anything?" I pointed at him.
"I didn't want to jinx it."
"This why you woke me so early?"
"Part," he shrugged, "but you do sleep way too much."
"I'm a teenager, I'm meant to." I explained slowly to him.
"Come you two," Kirsten sighed, walking out into the garden, "I want to make sure you've got everything." Kirsten said once Seth and I had joined her outside the pool house, she motioned for me to open the door.
"You already bought me like two wardrobes worth of clothes, what else do I need?" I asked her walking into the room.
"You're going to need bedding. And towels. Oh, how's the bed, Alex? Is it comfortable?" Kirsten asked me, just to have Seth answer her by jumping on the bed.
"Yeah, it's - Huh. It's fine. It's great." He told her, sprawled across it.
"We really want you to have your privacy," Kirsten continued, walking around the room, "but this is a pool house - it needs a little warmth. You're going to need chairs, and a desk and a... bookshelf."
"I don't have any books." I told her.
"Right, you don't have any stuff. Which means we have to go shopping-"
"Seriously you already bought me more than enough clothes."
"Yeah but you need kid stuff." She told me, "CD's, a player, books…" she waved her hand.
"A kitten?"
"You want a kitten?" she bit her lip to stop from laughing, "you don't seem the type."
"I'm not really, but I want to get one so I can call him Chairman Meow."
She frowned at me. "Were you being funny?"
"She does that occasionally." Seth explained from the bed.
"So anyway," she shook her head, "you're going to need a white dress at the very least."
"A white dress? A dress? For what?"
"For Cotillion."
"Oh…" I nodded at her, "yeah I have no idea what that is."
"It's the annual debutante ball. It's Newport's biggest event." Kirsten explained as we walked towards the country club.
"Until whatever's next week." Seth told me.
"Will next week's thing require dress wearing too?" I whispered in his ear.
"Probably. They like excuses to get dressed up."
"It's the day," Kirsten raised her voice so that we would stop talking so she could finish her explanation, "when Newport's most accomplished young women make their formal debut into society."
"Or another excuse for them to get wasted and throw up on themselves."
"Hey. I was a deb. I made my debut at this very country club not so many years ago." She told Seth, which cut into his sniggering.
"The year was-"
"Hey!" She cut Seth off as we walked into the building.
I looked round and was instantly struck by an amazing sense of awe. Everything about this building seemed to be made of marble, for no other reason but to show off its grandeur. The people inside seemed celebrate the building's magnificence by running around carrying things, as if trying to mirror the building's importance.
I shut my mouth and turned back to Kirsten.
"You know what. Maybe I should skip it. As I said I'm not really all that into dresses."
"You have to go." She said, wrapping an arm around me. "It's a family tradition and you're part of the family."
I turned to Seth who simply shrugged and dug his hands in his pockets.
"Hello!" this short haired, angry woman seemed to appear from no where, but unlike the others she was only carrying a clipboard.
"Hi, Peggy. How are you?" she asked after the air kissing.
"I'm good." The woman nodded.
"And how's it going?"
"It'll be fine. Oh, the fitting area's back there." She pointed to the vague distance.
"Thank you. Come on, kids. It'll be fun." Kirsten led us in the direction that Peggy gestured, whilst Seth made faces and the butterflies in my stomach started going mad. "Okay, Alex there are dresses through there," she pointed through another set of double doors, "Seth and I are going to find him a tux."
"Cause we all know how that's a two person job." Seth sighed, walking through a different set of doors.
I walked into the room Kirsten had pointed out and found that I was instantly lost. A man with a tape measure round his neck walked up to me.
"Cotillion?" He asked gruffly, I just nodded. "Follow me." I followed him further into the room, in between rails of near identical white dresses before he started pointing wildly. "Okay, pick whatever you want. We've got Gucci, Armani. Versace's over there." He told me before walking back towards the door.
I looked around at all the dresses, trying to remember which rail belonged to which designer. I also tried to spot the difference between the dresses because, to me, they all looked pretty similar. All white and all stupidly small, none of them looking as though they sized above zero.
"Hi." I turned at the sound of her voice and saw her handing a piece of paper over to a woman. "Um. I'm picking up for Marissa Cooper?"
"Hey." I waved at her.
"Hey." Marissa turned to face me, "What are you doing here?"
"I'm apparently a deb."
"Cool." She smiled, "Me too."
"Who knew there were so many different white dresses?" I sighed looking over at the rail.
She laughed, "First cotillion huh?"
"They're not so big in Chino… but, uh, my neighbour was a bride of Christ this one time… but she was five and catholic…" Marissa laughed. "Yeah I'm way out of my element." I scratched the back of my neck.
"You want a hand picking out your dress?" She smiled at me.
"Hey, Coop!" We turned as Summer came up to us removing gloves as she babbled, "Oh, these gloves are giving me serious sausage arms."
"Hey Sum, you're right on time." Marissa smiled. "We need to help pick out a dress for Alex."
"You're a deb?"
"Yeah, though no-ones really explained what that entails, apart from a white dress, which seems very scary."
"How gay are you?" Summer laughed.
"Gayer than you, apparently." She shot me an evil look. "What? I am."
"You trying to dykify every girl in this town?" We turned and saw Luke, in half a suit, leaning against the doorframe with his arms crossed.
"Luke, why don't you shut the fuck up?" Summer pointed at him, the remaining gloved hand placed firmly on her hip. "One, Coop is not gay. Two, you cannot turn someone gay and three, stop being such a jack arse because she dumped you. Get over it." He turned and walked back the way he'd come from, nearly knocking Kirsten off her feet, as he did.
"Whoa!" She laughed. "What's his problem?"
"Being a jack arse with a giant stick up his-"
"Okay, Summer, cool it." Marissa laughed.
"Marissa," Kirsten smiled at her, almost thanking her for interrupting Summer, "I was going to call you. Since you're lead deb. I…" she turned to call her son over, "Seth! - I wanted to introduce you to one white knight and one last minute deb." She pointed towards me.
Summer eyed Seth up and down sceptically, whilst Seth slid over rubbing his hands together, "Seth Cohen, white knight."
"So, uh, you'll be at the rehearsal." Summer looked less than thrilled.
"Yes. Absolutely."
"See you then." She dragged Marissa away and I'm sure I heard her say 'Seth Cohen? Ew!' but I'm not sure and I couldn't exactly ask Seth.
"Bye." Marissa said as she sent me one last fleeting glance before Summer had steered her a good few feet away from us.
"Cotillion rocks!" Seth laughed, clapping his hands together.
"Its not so bad." I conceded.
"Hey, white gloves are ready for a comeback." Seth announced after an entire car ride of the pros and cons of a classic tux.
"I don't know, to me, they'll always scream 'Bugs Bunny'" Kirsten turned to look at me, "I don't know what it is about them, they just have a 'What's up Doc?' quality about them." I told her shrugging as we entered the house carrying the stuff that we'd collected from the club.
We walked into the kitchen and found Sandy pouring two glasses of red wine.
"Hey," Kirsten smiled, walking over and kissing him on the cheek, "what are you doing home?"
"Guys," Sandy turned to us, "do you mind?"
"Oh, uh, if this is about the vase-"
"Which vase?" Sandy asked Seth.
"Hmm." Seth quickly shook his head, "Nothing. Uh, hey Mom, why don't me and Alex get some 'Kid stuff' for her room?"
"That sounds like a great plan." Kirsten nodded, reaching into the inner pocket of Sandy's jacket pulling out his wallet. "Why don't you take-" she flicked through his credit cards until she found a bluish one, "this one." She handed it to Seth.
"Cool." He nodded, slipping it into his pant's back pocket, hitting me on the arm indicating for me to follow him out of the house.
"Just don't max it out." Sandy called out from the kitchen as Seth was pulling open the front door.
"So this is what it's like being rich, huh?" I laughed, pulling out the credit card from Seth's pocket and turning it over in my hands. "Nice." I smiled. "So… why don't we get Marissa to come shopping with us?" I asked him, as we neared the end of the drive.
"Dude, I wish you'd get over your crush on her, she's straight." Seth sighed.
"I'll get over my crush when you get over yours." I told him, walking down Marissa's drive and knocking on her door.
"Hello?" a young girl looked up at me, once she'll pulled open the door.
"Hey, is, uh, Marissa in?"
"MARISSA?!" the kid yelled, not taking her eyes off me. "Who are you anyway?"
"She's Alex." I looked past the kid and saw Marissa walking down the stairs. "How can I help you?"
"Well, uh, Kirsten has put Seth in charge of one of Sandy's credit cards, aparently I need some 'Kid stuff'. You wanna crash the mall?"
"Did you just quote Avril Lavigne at me?"
"And I'll keep doing it 'til you change your ring tone." I smiled at her.
"For your information, I have." She told me as she picked up her purse from their hall table. "Caitlin, tell Mom I'll be back later."
"Whatever." She said walking into the their main room.
"So what's on the list, and more importantly," she smiled at me, walking out of her house pulling the door shut behind her, "what's the budget?"
I lifted up my leg and pulled the handle to my room down with my foot, causing the door to swing open. I walked in, dumped the bags on the floor and threw myself on the bed, just to be bounced slightly when Marissa landed next to me.
"Come on," she poked me in the ribs, "lets set up your cell phone."
"I can't believe you convinced me to get a cell phone." I sighed, getting up and pulling a box out a bag and throwing it at Marissa. "I have no friends, I don't need a cell."
"You have me and Seth and no doubt Summer soon." She said, ripping open the box and pulling out all the compartments and putting them together. "Okay, now point me to a socket." She said holding up the charger.
"I think there's one over there." I told her, pointing to one of the kitchen walls. "I'll be right back, I want to grab a drink. You want anything?" I asked her as I headed out into the main house.
"Nah, I'm cool." She told me as I walked out my room.
I went to the fridge and pulled out a Red Bull, I popped the can open and near instantly drained it. I threw the empty can at the trash before pulling out another from the fridge. I walked back into my room to find, Marissa playing with my phone.
"What you doing?" I asked as I sipped from the can.
"Putting my number in." She said simply, before putting the phone and facing me. "Now you can text me any time you want."
"I'll hold you to that." I laughed, draining the can and placing it on my night stand. I sat down on my bed and pulled over one of the Virgin Megastore bags towards me and started riffling through the CDs I'd bought.
"I cannot believe you'd rather buy CD's to clothes." Marissa laughed, sitting down beside me.
"Well Kirsten already bought me like a tonne of clothes and," I shrugged, "I've always been more into books and music."
"How come you didn't buy any books today?" She asked, starting to look through my CD's with me.
"Because they weren't any thrift stores in the mall."
"Thrift stores?" she frowned at me.
"You know, second hand stores where you buy other people's stuff and the money goes to charity." I said slowly.
"I'm familiar with the concept." She laughed, "I just don't understand why."
"Cause there's just something about reading other people's books."
"You're weird."
"Not really." I smiled at her, placing the CD's on the side, next to my empty Red Bull can. I pulled another bag towards me and lifted out the stereo from it. "We spent way too much money today." I sighed, looking at the box in my hands.
"Mrs Cohen gave you Mr Coh-" I raised my eyebrow at her, "Kirsten gave you Sandy's credit card," she shrugged, "they must have expected it."
"Yeah but this and a cell phone?"
"Well the phone plays music too so that, like, doubles as an iPod."
"Then I don't need the stereo then do I?"
"Yes but," she smiled at me and took the box from my hands, "the stereo is for when I'm round here, so I can listen to your weird British music with you." She told me pulling out a speaker.
"You planning on spending a lot of time round here?" I asked.
"I'm thinking about it." She smiled at me, standing up and walking over to the kitchen counter and placed the speaker down. "What do you think?"
"I think you spent a lot of money." Sandy smiled from the doorway.
I stood up quickly and pointed at Marissa, "She made me."
He simply laughed and walked over to me and put an arm round me, "I don't mind, kid." He smiled. "Kirsten and I have too much money anyway."
"Thank you." I said quietly.
"So," he clapped his hands together, "I came into tell you that dinner's ready, the guy said the delivery will be due in around thirty minutes. Marissa you staying?"
"No thank you, Mr Cohen, I told Mom I'd be home for dinner." She walked over to the door and scooped up her purse from in amongst my shopping bags. "See you tomorrow, Alex." She smiled at me before heading out the door.
"So, uh, what exactly happens at this rehearsal?" I asked Seth, the next day, as we walked through the country club.
"Just, uh, stupid Cotillion stuff. Bowing, Curtsying..."
We walked into a hall where people were dancing. I suddenly understood why Seth had worn a jacket and felt incredibly out of place. I grabbed Seth's arm and watched Peggy counting and dancing around a little while a hall full of young couples danced together stiffly.
"Dancing? You didn't tell me there was dancing."
"Well, if I told you there's dancing, I would be here by myself right now."
"Well that's cause I'm not a dancer." I told him quickly. "I mean do I look like I dance."
He looked me up and down, I was dressed in skinny jeans, Converse and a tight fitting T with headphones drawn round the neck.
"You look like one of those new age emos." He told me after some consideration.
"What's a new age emo?" I asked him.
"An emo just with a hint of color."
"I'm going." I told him, walking out of the hall.
"Alex?" I turned back round and found I was looking at Marissa, as well as Seth, stood in the doorway. "You leaving?"
"I don't dance." I told her.
She laughed as she walked towards me, she grabbed my hand and pulled me back into the hall and pointed.
"Do you really think any of these guys do?" She asked me as I watched the uncomfortable teenagers be instructed round the hall by the angry, shorthaired woman from the day before. "Besides, if you go who am I going to talk to?"
"Your friends still ignoring you over the whole you being gay thing?" Seth asked.
"Yup," she nodded, "its nice. Come on I'll introduce you to your dancing partners." She walked us across the room and she grabbed a clipboard from one of the tables. "I had to re-organise everything since me and Luke broke up." She sighed as her eyes ran up and down the list. "But thankfully, Holly volunteered to be his partner at the last minute. Okay Seth you are with Anna Stern."
"Who?" He asked taking the list from her hands, "Does Summer have a partner, because I don't mind-"
"Oh that's really nice." Seth turned away from the list and looked at the blonde who had just spoken.
"Anna Stern?" The blonde girl nodded.
"Anna, this is Seth Cohen," Marissa pointed at Seth, taking back her list, "Anna's just moved here from Pittsburgh."
"Can we just get this over with?" Anna asked, Marissa simply pointed to the dance floor, which Seth led her onto.
"Alex you've got one of the water polo players, but I made sure that he's not one of Luke's friends, so there shouldn't be a problem." Marissa told me as she walked me over to the only kid standing by himself. "Alex this is Zach. Zach, Alex." She pointed.
He held out his hand, which I ignored.
"Hey, it's not that bad." Marissa leaned and whispered to me, "Don't be rude." She warned as her warm breath tickled my ear. I begrudgingly took his hand and shook it.
"Hey," I nodded at him.
"Was that so hard?" Marissa smiled at me.
"No, that's going to be the dancing." I sighed.
"Well, I can help you. Okay. So you guys will be over here." She nudged me onto the dance floor and closer to Zach "If you wanna go ahead and get into waltz position." He and I stared blankly at each other and he just shrugged when Marissa looked at him. "Which means Alex, you put your left hand on Zach's shoulder."
I placed my palm on Zach's shoulder.
"Um. No. Not like that." She moved Zach aside and stood in front of me "Here. Watch." She moved my hands so that they were in the right place, "Okay? So, Zach, you'll put your right hand on Alex's back." She slid her hand down to my waist and looked into my eyes, "Like this." She told him, not taking her eyes off mine.
"I knew it." Marissa jumped at the sound of his voice and away from me. I simply glared at Luke. "You told me I was paranoid."
"You are man." Zach told him. "Quit giving the new girl a hard time, just cause you're a biggotted twat."
"Anyway," I shrugged going to stand next to Zach, "Marissa's straight. Just leave her alone, get out of the bitter barn and play in the hay."
"'Play in the hay'?" Luke questioned.
"Yeah its from Friend's, its called a pop-culture reference." I told him.
"Whatever." He waved me off and went to join Holly on the dance floor.
"Thanks you guys." Marissa told us.
"For what?" Zach asked her.
"Defending my heterosexuality."
"It's a weird situation when you have to defend a person's heterosexuality. I've been more used to defending my homosexuality recently." I smiled at her.
"Just goes to show everyone's equal." Zach laughed. "So, uh, what are we doing again?" he asked Marissa who went back to teaching us to dance.
I was sitting on my bed, reading a magazine with Hard-Fi playing on my stereo, when Seth entered the pool house, already in his tuxedo.
"What are you doing?" he asked, "Why aren't you dressed yet?"
"What are you talking about?" I asked him, looking up from my article, "it takes like two minutes to get ready."
"Well can you get ready now?"
"Okay." I said, trying to find my place in the magazine.
"As in now, now." Seth pushed.
"Oh my god, okay Ross." I laughed at him, putting my magazine down and walking out of my room.
"Why aren't you dressed?" Kirsten asked me, standing between me and the fridge.
"I will be in like two minutes." I said as I walked past her, "I just want to get a Diet Coke."
"It takes you two minutes to get ready?"
"Yeah," I said, sipping from the can, "how long does it take you to get ready?"
"You don't want to know." She sighed, handing me a glass.
"Thanks." I nodded at her, pouring my coke into the glass and throwing the empty can at the trash. "Though I can't believe I've got to dance again," I sighed at her, "the three hour rehearsal this afternoon nearly killed me."
"Yeah well they take Cotillion very seriously here." Kirsten smiled at me. "No go get ready, I want to take pictures before we leave." She told me, ushering me out of the house and to my room.
"If you think I'm going to let you watch me change, Seth, you are sadly mistaken." I told him as I unhooked the dress from the back of the bathroom door and laid it out on my bed.
"I'm gone." He said, walking out of my room and towards Kirsten in the house.
I took off my T and threw it onto the chair in the corner; I slid the dress over my head and pulled it down my body before I removed my jeans and my bra. I walked over to the full-length mirror and played about with my hair, eventually settling with putting it in a bun, with a strand of hair hanging down each side of my face. I looked back at my reflection and saw that the purple streak had nearly grown out completely.
I picked up the end of the dress and walked barefoot into the kitchen.
"You look beautiful." Kirsten smiled at me, handing me a white box. I opened it and looked at a pair of white shoes wrapped in amongst tissue paper inside it. "I wore those to my Cotillion." She told me. "Now put them on so I can take pictures."
"Of the shoes?" I frowned at her.
"You doing that funny thing again?"
"I do it occasionally." I told her, pulling out one of the table chairs and sitting down so I could put the heals on.
Seth and I walked into the changing rooms and watched as people rushed around us. There seemed to be more adults milling around, than there were teenagers in formal wear.
"Wow," Marissa stepped out from one of the changing rooms, "you look beautiful." She smiled at me.
"You, you, you don't look so bad your self." I told her.
"I'll take that as a good thing." She smiled.
"Your date, is one lucky guy."
"I'm, uh, going 'stag' much to my mother's disappointment."
"Stag?" Seth questioned.
"Yeah," she shrugged, "why do I need a man to present me to the world?"
"How very feminist of you." I laughed.
"Yes incredibly enlightened." Seth nodded.
"Okay, so I ran out of white knights," Marissa admitted, "but the feminist thing sounded better."
"Should have asked me," I told her, "I'd have been you're date."
"Thank you." She smiled at me, "That's very sweet."
"Okay," Seth said slowly looking between us, "I'm going to find Anna, I'm feeling very much like a spare part in this conversation." He said before walking away.
"So…" I said slowly.
"Why are you so nervous?" She asked me.
"Because, I, uh, because, I, uh-"
"And again with the stuttering." She smiled, I scratched the back of my neck awkwardly. "If I didn't know better I would say it was me that made you nervous."
"No," I told her quickly, "I, uh, I'm not sure I can dance in these heals." I pulled up the bottom of my dress so that she could see the shoes Kirsten had leant me.
"I thought you looked taller." She smiled, dragging me into a changing room with her. She rummaged though her bag of clothes, "here." She presented me with a pair of flats.
"I can't, Kirsten wore these shoes at her Cotillion, I think this is a foster-mother-foster-daughter-bonding-though-shoes thing."
"And I think you're wearing a floor length dress. She won't notice." Marissa smiled, "Wear these for the ceremony and as soon as all the dancing and bowing is over you can put the heals back on."
"Plan." I conceded, moving her bag and sitting on the stool to take the heals off and put Marissa's flats on.
"Come on," she smiled at me once I was standing again, "you have a debut to make."
I followed her out of the fitting room and queued up in front of her in the line of girls.
"Anna Stern. Daughter of Cameron and Patricia Stern." Peggy announced.
Anna walked up onto the stage, and greeted her dad. Seth went up to get her, bowing proudly as Kirsten applauded loudly. He walked Anna down onto the dance floor and she placed her bouquet on a table with the other flowers.
"Alexandra Attwood." I walked onto the stage, "Daughter of Sanford and Kirsten Cohen."
Sandy ran on to the stage quickly, a tuxedo jacket clearly thrown hastily over his blue shirt. "Hey kid," he smiled at me, "sorry I'm late." He said before indicating for me to walk over to Zach, we walked onto the dance floor and I placed my bouquet next to Anna's before Zach and I joined the circle facing the stage, Kirsten having finally stopped clapping.
"Marissa Cooper." Marissa smiled at me as she walked onto the stage. "Daughter of James and Julie Cooper."
I watched her as her dad kissed her on the cheek before sending her down onto the dance floor. She placed her bouquet on the table and stood next to me.
"And now, ladies and gentlemen. Please join me in congratulating this year's debutantes." The clapping died away as the waltz started to play.
"Now what are you going to do?" I asked turned to ask her, as Zach placed his hands on me.
"Watch." She smiled at me, as Zach led me around the dance floor.
"Could you want her more?" He laughed in my ear, as I just watched her standing on the edge watching me in return.
I just shrugged at him.
"From the way she's looking at you though," he whispered, "she might just want you too."
I opened my mouth to reply, but found myself cut off by Mr Cooper who was knocked onto the floor, in amongst the other couples.
"You son of a bitch!" The man, standing over him, yelled.
I looked away from Mr Cooper and scanned the suddenly standing crowd for Marissa. She was still on the edge of the dance floor, but with her hands covering her mouth.
"You thief!" The man hit Mr Cooper back down, as he'd tried to stand. "You took my money!"
Sandy pushed between the teenage couples and went to pull the man away from Mr Cooper.
"Get off me!" he yelled at Sandy as he tried to get to Mr Cooper "You're a thief! You're a thief!" He spat at Mr Cooper, struggling to get free of Sandy and another man, who'd come to Marissa's dad's aid. "Get off me!" he shook Sandy and the other guy off, hitting Sandy in the process. "He's a thief!"
"Leave. Now." Sandy told him, having pushed him a good distance from Mr Cooper.
"You're a thief… He's a thief!" The man yelled as a couple of other father's led him out of the room.
The dance floor was left clear and there was space for Marissa to run to her father and crouch over him. I watched as she tenderly touched his lip before helping him up and leading him out of the hall.
I left Zach, who'd finally released me from the waltz position no longer frozen in the moment, and walked across to Seth and Anna.
"And Mum and Dad were worried you'd make trouble." He sighed.
"Yeah…" I said not really thinking.
"This would be your cue, as the friend, to go see if she's okay." Anna told me.
"Oh, yeah, right." I nodded and walked out the door Marissa and her father had left by.
I found her in one of the girls' toilets dabbing a damp paper towel at Jimmy's lip. She looked up and saw me leaning on the doorframe, 'Not now' she mouthed at me. I nodded once more before walking back the way I came.
I walked outside and sat on a bench facing the golf course and the stars. I looked up at them and as much as I tried to wonder what the fight had been about, I could only think about what Zach had said to me. I thought about all the signs Marissa had given me that she, might just, like me too.
I thought about all that happened; jail, abandonment, running away, jail again and then the Cohens'. I thought about how life had taught me to expect nothing but disappointment.
But then I thought about how stupidly gay she made me feel. How just by smiling she could make me smile too. How by laughing I wanted nothing more than to laugh with her. And how I just spent all my time with her wanting so much to kiss her, to feel her lips against mine.
I felt a body join me on the bench. I turned to face her and instantly wrapped an arm around her, Marissa simply leaned against my shoulder as I pulled her closer to me.
"You okay?" I asked her quietly.
"What happened in there?" she asked me, I could feel her tears rolling from her face and onto my shoulder.
"I don't know."
"Well, what's going to happen now?"
"I don't know… I'm not so good at this am I?" She continued to cry.
She wiped tears off her cheek and looked up at me. She looked so fragile as she looked into my eyes, like the simplest thing could cause her to break. I watched her and she just kept looking into my eyes, as if trying to concentrate on not crying.
She moved closer towards me, and then her lips were on mine. I had all I'd wanted and knew instantly that I would find it hard to want anything else. But I reluctantly found myself pulling away from her.
"Are you kissing me to kiss me, or are you kissing me to forget?" I asked her quietly.
She frowned at me, "Does it matter?" she asked after a while.
"Yes." I said, "It has to."
"Why couldn't you have just left it alone?" She asked me, standing quickly before running back into the hall.
It was strange, I realised as I turned back to looking at the stars, after spending the day quoting Friends my life had very suddenly turned into something out of One Tree Hill.
So I just sat there, staring out at the stars and waiting for Sandy and Kirsten to find me to take me home.
R&R, thank you. Circus.
