"What?" Olivia stammers.
"I'm not ready to tell anyone yet, so I would really appreciate it if you just keep this between the two of us," Ty says quickly, nervously. After all, maybe she is going to be angry. Pain causes anger, more often than not. Maybe his best friend is going to be so angry at him that she is going to tell everyone his secret.
"Of course not, I'm just glad you told me," she says, seeming to have been hurt by the insinuation that she would tell anyone.
They dance in silence for a few long seconds until the dance ends, and another one begins. The moments of silence between the two dances are enough to push the words out of their mouths.
"I'm sorry," Ty says.
"Sorry you told me?" she asks.
He shakes his head, "No, I didn't know that… I would have told you a lot sooner if I knew that you liked me. I would never want to hurt you, Olivia."
She liked him for more than a year, but what she didn't want, what she really didn't want, was the pity of this boy, "Who says I like you?"
Ty gives her a look which was a perfect imitation of his grandfather's "You've got to be kidding me" look.
"Ok, so I did, a little," Olivia confesses.
"I think if I was going to like any girl," he whispers that word after checking to make sure they are far enough away from the other couples that they are not going to be overheard, "It would be you."
Olivia smiles, "That's probably a lie. You always said that you thought of me like a sister. I should have known before now."
"I hope we can still be friends," Ty says.
"Of course!" Olivia exclaims. It's bad enough that she has to lose all of her plans for a future where she and Ty make lots of babies. It would be a whole lot worse if she also had to give up her best friend.
Ty's shoulders slump with relief, "Well, I'm relieved to hear that."
"In fact, maybe we should… it would help both of us!" Olivia says with shinning eyes.
"I think you left out the content of that sentence," Ty tells her.
"What if we pretended we were dating?" Olivia asks in excitement.
Ty gives her another perfect Jacob Carter look of disbelieve.
"No, just hear me out. You said you didn't want people to know about you. Well, they would be a whole lot less likely to suspect if you walked around school with your girlfriend on your elbow."
"What is in it for you?" Ty asks suspiciously.
"You know as well as I do that whatever girls have a boyfriend in junior high school are rocked to instant fame."
"Would we have to, like, kiss and stuff?" Ty asks, crinkling up his nose at the thought. This is harder for Olivia to take than the actual news that he was gay, but she presses on as if he hadn't just injured her.
"No, we might have to hold hands and stuff every now and again. For the rest of it, we could just say that our parents are against public displays of affection. I'm pretty sure that my dad really is, so that shouldn't be a big deal. If all else fails, we could show them a picture of our 'uncle' Teal'c, and tell them that he told us to knock it off."
"That would be quite believable," Ty agrees.
"I'm sure people would buy it, especially if they saw the way that you dance," Olivia says, allowing a dreamy little sigh to escape her lips.
"Is it going to be too hard for you, considering the way that you feel?" he asks suddenly. He can see that this whole idea could so easily end in disaster. That she could fall for him even more than she already had. That he could end up breaking her heart, and be minus one best friend. All of these were things that he really didn't think he could bear.
"I'll be fine. I know where you stand. It will just be a friendship. We've been friends for years," Olivia says lightly. She doesn't mention how many of those years she was constructing for the two of them a perfect life in her head.
"My parents are going to know. I mean, I'll have to tell them that this is fake or they'd think I'm a monster. They know that I'm gay. I've also been meaning to tell Grandpa."
"I don't want dad to know. He already said that I could date you. I might tell Cassie, though. This seems like exactly the kind of thing that would bring us closer together as two gossipy sisters."
Ty understands how the distance between the two sisters has grown ever since Janet's death. It's too bad, because Olivia could really use someone to talk about her mother with. Olivia and Ty had tried talking about it a couple of times right after it had happened. It was awkward, though. He didn't really understand grief, and she had a bit too intimate knowledge of it after having lost three parents in all.
He's listened, but after the first sharing, Olivia hadn't come back for more. Ty had been secretly relieved.
"Ok, I don't mind if you change your mind and end up telling your family that I'm gay, and this is fake. Only, please don't tell anyone at school."
Olivia nods her head, and then bites her lip, some small worry having worked away at her for some time now, "You know that it's nothing to be ashamed of, right?"
"Adults are a lot more understanding than teenagers about this type of thing. Even kids in high school seem to be more understanding than kids in middle school. I don't plan on keeping this a secret forever. I'm just waiting for a time when it will be less scary to come out," Ty says.
Olivia nods, and they dance in silence for a couple of seconds. Already, they are attracting the attention of the other dance goers. No-one dances for three songs in a row. No-one, not even the few people who are already dating as seventh graders.
Ty and Olivia are oblivious to the attention that makes the announcement of their "going out" old news by the time Olivia whispers it to a couple of her friends at the end of the night.
Olivia starts to giggle in Ty's arms.
"What's so funny?" he demands.
"I'm just thinking… I should have known. You taught me how to play with dolls," she says, burying her mouth in his shoulder to stop more laughter from coming out.
"You needed to learn to use your imagination a little bit more," he defends himself.
"You wore a dress to your parent's wedding," she continues.
"I am not a cross-dresser anymore. Get that straight, little missy. I like men's clothing," he says proudly.
"So, what color is your tie?" Olivia asks.
"Periwinkle," he says without missing a beat.
Another roll of giggles come out of her.
"What exactly about my," whispering again, "sexual orientation is so funny to you?"
Her face goes somber in a second, "I'm sorry, Ty. I swear I wasn't laughing at you. I was laughing at myself, and how stupid I was to ever have a crush on you! I should have known. We are best friends, and all the signs pointed to us never being more than best friends. I'm laughing at myself because I didn't see it before. I was a fool to ever fall for you."
Ty pauses, measuring his words carefully. "You say best friends like it's a second place trophy, Olivia, it's not."
"I know, being best friends with you is good. Really good."
He twirls her out the length of his arm, and then pulls her back in for a 'cuddle' as another song ends. Their bodies at the end of it, are much farther away than is typical for adults doing that dance move, but they are still close enough that a chaperone moves in to break it up.
"You're cheapening the idea of friendship," he says, releasing her, and standing in front of her in the minutes that lapse before the next dance starts. "Junior high romance, that isn't the kind of thing that lasts. Now a friendship, it can go on and on forever. It's family that you choose. It's better than dating."
Olivia looks at the boy before her. The one she'd pictured having her first kiss with. The one she thought would ask her to prom. The one she thought would get down on one knee and propose to her (how small-minded she was, she thought, a Ty engagement would be a big thing indeed, only it would never be her that he asked). This was the one that she thought would be the father to all of her children. This is the one that she thought she would love for all of time.
Surely friendship was less than all of that?
"I was an idiot to fall for someone who didn't even like gender I belong to," she says taking his hands in hers as the music starts up again. This one is a fast dance, and they keep a lot of space between them as it starts. Olivia tries to convince herself that the reason for the space is not the conversation that they are having.
"No more stupid than me," Ty confesses.
She looks in his face, "Tyler Charles O'Neill, you've got a crush?" she whispers.
His face turns scarlet.
"Spill!" she demands.
"Are you sure we're ok to talk about all of this, considering?" he asks softly, careful of her feelings.
"Yes, now give me the dirt!" she exclaims.
His eyes fall on the longed-for football player, and Olivia squeals in vicarious excitement.
Heads turn, and in the lore of Cheyenne Mountain Junior High that was the moment when they became "a couple".
-0-
"How did the dance go?" Daniel asks when Olivia twirls into the living room after the O'Neill's drop her off.
"Great, Ty and I are dating!" she announces.
Stunned silence greet her. Daniel looks first at Cassie, and then at Vala. They are obviously thinking the same thing he is. Someone has got to tell that girl the truth before she gets her heart broken. Actually, the other two are not thinking the exact same thing as him. They are both hoping that he will be the one to break the bad news to his daughter. After all, he is her father.
"Are you sure, you're dating, dating? Maybe you just misunderstood him," Daniel hedges.
Olivia rolls her eyes, "I think I can correctly interpret the words, 'Would you like to date me, Olivia?'. We're dating," she says with a proud nod of her head.
"I don't think that this is such a good idea," Daniel says carefully.
"No way, you already approved him. You said I could go to the dance with him. You've known Ty for like forever, and you APPROVED of him. You can't change your mind now!"
"This is not about Ty…"
"Really, so it's about me? You don't think that I'm good enough to date Ty? Really? I'm your daughter, you're supposed to be on my side all of the time," Olivia says, carefully turning all of his arguments inside out before he even really has a chance to use them.
"Ty is gay," Daniels says suddenly, involuntarily, without knowing that it was going to come out of his mouth before he said it. Perhaps it was better that way, because even if he had reflected before he said it, he still would have said it. He would do anything to protect his daughter.
Olivia blinks at him in surprise, "How did you know? Did his dad out him?"
"I didn't officially know, I just guessed. Wait, you knew that Ty was gay? What are you doing dating him, then?" Daniel asks befuddled.
"Well, we're not really dating, of course. That would be ridiculous. We're just pretending that we are dating," Olivia says cheerfully. Then she bites her lip, "You won't tell Ty that I told you, will you? He doesn't want anyone to know, and the only reason I admitted it was because I thought you already knew."
"Explain to me how pretending to date your gay crush is less ridiculous than actually dating him," Daniel says with his arms crossed.
"See, Ty doesn't want to come out yet. Well, no-one is going to suspect him of being gay when he's got a girlfriend…" Olivia begins.
Daniel cuts her off, "And you get to pretend that he's your boyfriend. I think you are playing with fire, little girl. I don't want to see you get burned."
"That's not what this is about. See, you get to be very popular when you are one of the first girls to start dating," Olivia says proudly.
"She's not wrong," Vala says, adding in her head that you get to be even more popular if you are one of the first girls to start having sex, although that is only with the boys.
"I don't want my daughter being popular for that reason!" Daniel booms, as if he'd read Vala's mind.
"Chill, dad; it's just dating, not even real dating," Olivia says.
"No, I am putting my foot down. This is going to end badly. You might not have the forethought to see it, but luckily you have a father who does have the forethought. I forbid you to pretend to date Ty. You can go and tell your friends what an evil monster your father is for not letting you date. That should win you almost as many popularity points as if you dated him."
Olivia hangs her head, and walks out of the room looking completely defeated. In her head she is doing a happy dance. Not only is she getting to pretend to date Ty, but it's a forbidden romance. He actually used the word forbid. She might as well be a Capulet. The only way this could be any better was if the romance was real!
Daniel is completely fooled by his daughter's dejected appearance.
Vala is not.