Every turn, every sweep of her arms, every line of her body... it's all so fluid that I swear time slows down just to make room for her.
The world shrinks to that spotlight.
Just her.
Only her.
Watching her dance pulls me straight back to our childhood—like someone quietly cracks open a door in my head and suddenly I'm five years old again, standing in her living room while she twirls in a tiny pink tutu.
I remember the exact moment my heart did that stupid thing for the first time—paused, stumbled, then took off like it had somewhere urgent to be.
And even back then, before I knew anything about anything, it whispered,Oh. It's her. It's always going to be her.
I never stood a chance.
She was magic long before she knew she was magic.
And now?
Now she moves across that stage and I can't look anywhere else. Every spin, every lift of her arm, every graceful line she makes—my eyes follow like they're hooked. She's not dancing; she's bending the whole damn room around her. The air shifts with her. The lights obey her.
It feels ridiculous, honestly—how one girl can walk onstage and turn my entire brain into a malfunctioning fire alarm: loud, frantic, impossible to ignore. My heart keeps knocking against my ribs like it's trying to crawl out just to get closer to her.
And I sit there, absolutely gone for her, like I haven't already been gone for my almost my whole life.
And then Adam appears beside her for the pas de deux.
My entire soul sours.
Great. Fantastic. Amazing.
Here comes this annoying guy again, sliding in beside her like he owns the damn stage.
I glare daggers at his hands.
If he even thinks about placing them any lower, I'm snapping his fingers off like breakaway chocolate bars. One by one. Slowly. On principle.
Not my proudest thought, but also not my most untrue.
The dance is beautiful — stupidly, flawlessly beautiful — the kind that locks the whole room in place. You can feel the shift in the audience, that collective inhale people do when something onstage justhits.
There's a wave of applause rolling through the seats, a few whistles scattered from the upper rows, the kind that slip out when people can't help themselves. Even the older folks in front straighten up like they don't want to miss a single turn she makes.
And yeah... I get it.
She's that breathtaking.
As if Adam showing up beside her isn't annoying enough, I catch voices from the row right in front of me — two guys, leaning in, whispering like middle-schoolers discovering crushes for the first time.
"Dude... whoisshe?"
"I've never seen her around campus."
"Okay but I'm asking her out after—"
Nope.
Absolutely not.
