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Maybe Donna should have found a date for the Junior year school dance, but it felt so much safer on the outside of the dancing teenagers, photographing all the insecure couples who believed their puppy love would last past high school. Her step-brother Dick had tried to persuade her into coming as a friend group-- him, Kory, and what she suspected was a still bitter Garth and his date-- but there were many things about that she wanted to avoid. If it hadn’t been for their irritating youngest brother having a party at the manor for the Freshman, she would have just stayed there.
She takes a sly candid picture of Dick and Kory as the beautiful girl makes him dance an upbeat song-- Dick is far too used to formal dances as a Wayne-- and she tries not to giggle. Garth is a bit away from them getting punch for his new girlfriend Tula and Donna steps the opposite way, snapping pictures when the light hits the right couple. One of them being a gorgeous Dawn Granger and her football jock boyfriend Hank.
There’s a twist in her stomach as she still presses the button for the sake of the way Dawn’s silver hair shines around her porcelain face and wide earth-shattering smile. Somehow Dawn catches sight of Donna doing so, luckily after the picture had been taken, and Donna sends a smile back while risking the chance of running into Garth as she turns around.
When she hears a fight break out that night, she whips around. Apparently there’s been some beef with Roy Harper-- infamous hothead but still one of her friends-- and… Hank Hall. Of course. Donna straps her camera and rushes forward just as she can see Hank’s brother doing. Who knew why it happened, either way they’re at each other’s throats and about to throw punches. It isn’t Donna who has the chance to pull them apart, though. It’s Dawn, her soft and happy edges turned to silver steel. Brown eyes narrow and furious, the lithe girl shoves them off of each other with strength that makes both of the boys startle.
“Walk away, Roy,” she tells him, a firm voice. Roy catches sight of Donna almost there through the crowd and huffs, indeed leaving. Donna goes to follow him, she does, but she sees in the corner that Dick has spotted him instead. So she indulges herself, even if she shouldn’t, as the teens turn back to dancing and Donna catches the sound of Dawn hissing at Hank, “We’re done. I told you I don’t need another hot-head male in my life.”
Hank is slack-jawed and looking like he’ll beg any second but before he can reach Dawn’s wrist she’s stalked off.
Feeling as though the world has turned sickly as Donna tries to deal with the guilt of allowing Dawn to be alone with her emotions while she takes more pictures, she all too soon gives in. She finds Dawn outside in the beautiful courtyard of their school-- a courtyard gifted by Bruce-- and clears her throat so the girl can wipe her tears before she walks over.
“Oh.” Dawn startles, but nods when Donna gestures that she wants to sit down. With a wry smile, she sadly jokes, “If you want to take a picture you’ll need to lend me some eyeliner. I doubt mine is still on.”
“You look beautiful.” Donna argues, shaking her head. The tightness in her chest gives a squeeze at the way Dawn graciously smiles back at the compliment. “But I don’t like to take posed pictures if I can help it anyway.”
Dawn nods. “I know. I’ve seen your work in the art display cases. It’s gorgeous.” Trying not to blush takes up too much time to cover up that Donna’s surprised, and Dawn smiles before looking away and adds, “Thank you for coming to my ballet recital.”
Now Donna has to clear her throat for a different reason. “My adopted mother is into the arts community, I tour a lot of the live performances.”
If she wanted to comment on how Donna hadn’t exactly taken pictures of the orchestra, she didn’t. Instead she stared seriously for a moment before asking, “How did you find the strength to come out in high school?”
Donna stills, pausing for a moment to find the words. “I never thought it was something that required strength to begin with. I grew up around so many women of all sexualities that it seemed more normal then even being straight.”
“I wish I had that,” Dawn tells her, but her soft eyes are looking wistfully in any place but Donna’s direction.
Curious, she glances back to the beauty. “Which part?”
“All of it,” is the response. “The normality, the strength, the ability to never like men.”
“The ability to like women in the first place?” Donna adds with a wavering tone in her question.
Dawn glances back at her only now, quiet and unreadable, giving her head only a minute shake. “That I have.”
Oh. Oh . Scrambling to figure out what to say that doesn’t sound desperate given the situation, Donna isn’t capable of speaking before Dawn admits, “This is embarrassing and cliche, but-- I’ve always had a crush on you.”
She feels her own eyebrows raised higher than she thought possible. “You’ve had a crush on me ?”
“Yes,” Dawn reaffirms softly, her pale cheeks now turning red enough to be seen under the lamplight. “You’re strong, funny, smart, artistic-- who wouldn’t?” In Donna’s stunned silence, she quickly adds, “Please don’t make fun of me.”
“Can I kiss you?” she asks, because despite the millions of responses available-- it’s not funny, how long have you felt this way, you probably need to get back to the dance you’ll be made prom queen at-- it’s the one that seems the most urgent, proven by the fact that when it happens they all seem irrelevant.