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The crowd of middle and high schoolers awkwardly danced to the soft and slow rhythm of the song. Amidst the multitude, Will could see Lucas slow-dancing with Max, who pretended to dislike it but smiled wide when she thought Lucas wasn’t looking. On the other side of the gym, just slightly apart from everyone else, Mike danced with Eleven. Will grinned as he saw them laughing; he couldn’t remember the last time he had seen Mike so happy.
The smile on Will’s face began to taste bitter as he turned to look at the girl who was dancing with. She towered a good 4 inches over him, and she was pretty and popular, so why was he not enjoying himself? Never until then had he been asked to dance, so it should have been exciting. He was uncomfortable as his hands, stiff and just barely grazing her waist, sweat and became clammy. He had stepped on her gold heels at least twice in the past ten seconds, and his arm had twisted wrong when he tried to spin her around. Desperately, he glanced around for an excuse to escape without making her feel bad.
Was wanting some punch a good excuse? No, it wasn’t.
His eyes landed on the bathrooms next to bleachers, and he got an idea.
“Are you okay?” she asked, noticing how Will had stopped swaying.
Will let go of her waist. “Yeah, yeah, I’m okay,” he said, taking a step back. “I just gotta, uh, use the bathroom.”
He quickly camouflaged himself in the cluster of middle schoolers to avoid hearing her response. He squeezed past them, muttering several Excuse me’s and sorry’s until he was able to slip out.
Grabbing a brownie and a cup of punch by the snacks table, walked in the general direction of the bathroom, unnoticed. A few people sat scattered on the bleachers, most of them people who were too shy to ask anyone to dance. Or had been rejected. Either-or.
Will scanned the seats leisurely, much like one does when window-shopping, until something made him stop in his tracks and choke on his brownie.
Dustin sat at the top of the bleachers, head down and one hand on covering his eyes, his curls hiding his face. Will frowned. He clambered up the bleachers, careful not to spill his punch, and as he sat next to his friend, he looked up at him.
Tear streaks lined his face, but Dustin quickly wiped them away.
Will put his hand on Dustin’s shoulder. “Are you crying?”
“No!”
He put his hand down. Will had been in the same situation many times himself, where someone would find him crying alone and he’d pretend he wasn’t. Eventually he gave up on lying about it. “It’s okay, I’m not one to judge.”
Dustin turned to face him, looking crestfallen. “I’m fine. Can I have some of that?” he asked, pointing to the blue cup.
“Sure, I haven’t touched it.”
He took the cup and downed it. Immediately, his face contorted to an expression of revulsion, scrunching up his face and frowning deeply, and he set the cup aside. He coughed.
“Someone spiked it,” he explained.
Will laughed airily. They stayed quiet for a moment, watching the other kids dancing.
“Why are you here?” Dustin asked suddenly.
“Huh?”
“You got asked to dance by the prettiest and most popular girl in our grade, and you’re not even dancing with her. You’re sitting on the bleachers. Why?”
Will thought carefully. “I dunno,” he said after a few seconds. “I guess I didn’t really want to, so I made an excuse to get away.”
Dustin whipped his head to look at him, bewildered. The smaller of the two merely shrugged in response.
“You’re sitting on the bleachers too,” Will said, raising an eyebrow, “Are you gonna tell me why?”
His friend sighed and scowled. Will nudged him.
“C’mon, tell me!”
Rolling his eyes, he finally conceded. “Nobody wanted to dance with me, and that’s all I wanted to do,” he muttered. “I asked, like, half the girls in our class, and most of them straight-up rejected me. The others just ignored me.”
Then, he added, “It’s really not a big deal.”
Will tried to hide a grin. “Well, if it’s not a big deal then why were you crying?”
“I wasn’t!”
“Dustin, you’re a terrible liar.”
Dustin huffed, resting his face on his hand. “I just don’t get why? Did I do something wrong? Should I have been more subtle? Is it the hair? It’s the hair, isn’t it?”
Will laughed. “You’re overreacting. We’re literally the biggest losers of our grade, so I’m pretty sure that’s the reason.”
“But how come you got asked to dance?”
“I’m the kid who, according to them, died for a week and came back to life. She probably just wanted to be able to brag about dancing with Zombie Boy,” he deadpanned.
Dustin stayed quiet.
“And for the record,” Will remarked, “I think your hair looks pretty damn cool.”
At this, he smiled. “I’ve never heard you swear.”
“And you never will again.”
Once again, the two friends turned to the crowd. It seemed to sway in perfect sync. As the first slow song ended, another one started. This would be the last slow song of the night, the DJ announced, and hence, their last chance to grab a partner.
“Hey, Dustin?”
“Yeah?”
“Wanna dance?”
“What?” Dustin furrowed his brows, clearly having been taken aback.
Will beamed, deep dimples forming on his cheeks.
“Do you wanna dance?”
His friend frowned even deeper, still confused. “W-with you?”
“Uh, yeah?”
“But you’re a boy.”
“So? Two seconds ago you were crying because nobody wanted to dance with you, and now you’re telling you don’t want to dance with me? You sure changed your mind quickly,” the smaller boy teased.
Dustin rolled his eyes. “I wasn’t, and that’s not what I mean. I mean people are gonna look at us weird.”
“I’m used to it, and you kinda should be, too. Besides, I did not come back from the Upside Down, get possessed by the Shadow Monster, and practice with my mom for you to deny me a dance.”
Dustin laughed.
“Alright, fine,” he said a moment later.
The pair stood from the bleachers and clambered off. The rattling of the metal attracted the attention of some bored students momentarily, but they became disinterested just as quickly.
They stood at the margins of the group. Will put his hands of Dustin’s shoulders. His friend, in return, looked at his hands, and then to Will, and back at his hands, as if looking for where to put them.
“On my waist.”
“Oh.”
During the first few seconds, Dustin moved robotically and stepped on Will twice.
“Have you ever even danced before?” Will asked.
“No.”
“I can tell. Dude, you’re even worse than me!”
“Shut up!”
Will stopped moving. “Try to follow my lead now.” He swayed left, then right, and Dustin followed suit, staggering, at first, but after a few swings in he got it at last.
Dustin looked down at his feet for a while, mouthing left, right, left, right until he got the hang of it. He looked up at his friend and grinned.
A minute later, the song ended. Not much happened, other than they got a handful of weird looks from a few other students. But, at least Dustin would be able to say that he danced with someone at the Snowball, and Will would later on contemplate how much better easier and it was to dance with a boy than with a girl.