Chapter 23

[The following chapter contains strong language. Reader caution is advised.]

Thursday 17th December 1998

Somehow, I’d not really noticed the approach of Christmas until recently. Even with festive adverts on TV and decorations on houses multiplying like rabbits, it had taken weeks for it to actually hit me. I’m honestly not sure why. Maybe I’m just that dense.

In any case, we’d headed into town to do some Christmas shopping at the weekend. Zahid had initially insisted on not coming as he doesn’t celebrate Christmas, but ultimately, we’d convinced him to come along and at least buy us each something small. The compromise was him setting himself a tiny budget, but it’s the thought that counts.

One present for each person. That was the rule we’d set ourselves. And I couldn’t help but break it for Dakota. I’d already purchased her a big Corrs poster from a CD store, and then I walked past this jewellery place and…

I just couldn’t help it. My eyes caught sight of a pristine silver pendant, amongst all the glinting metal and gems, and I immediately ground to a halt. Somehow, the elegant and ornate shape of that little piece of metal felt perfect for Dakota. And despite the rule, despite how it impacted my budget, I felt no choice but to buy it for her.

Besides, what’s £32 on a necklace for the girl I’m hopelessly in love with? It’s only, like, three times the maximum I spent on anything else… and it made me feel better when that poster was only a couple of quid… even if it was something she’d probably enjoy…

With all that done, the next hurdle was the annual Sixth Form Christmas Party, on the evening of our (abridged) final day of term (yes, an entire third of the school year had already passed… how time flies, huh?). Naturally that didn’t really interest me, and just as naturally my disinterest in it came under scrutiny. That’s how it goes when you’re weird, I guess.

“You’re definitely not coming?” Kendal checked as the five of us abandoned her car to brave the cold outside Dakota’s house.

“I’m definitely not coming,” I insisted, rubbing my hands together while Dakota rushed to the door with keys at the ready.

“You’re no fun,” Bao complained with an overexaggerated attitude. I practically heard my subconscious urging ‘don’t rise to it, don’t rise to it’… thankfully, I’d prepared an ace for this anticipated circumstance.

“You’re just saying that because I beat your arse at Mortal Kombat 4.”

I flashed him a victorious smirk before turning to follow Dakota and Zahid through the now-opened door.

“Fluke! It was a fluke!” he yapped desperately, marching after me.

“Really?” I asked, stepping aside for him and Kendal in the hallway while slipping off a shoe. “But you were boasting how well you were doing about ten seconds earlier…”

“I must’ve… made a tactical error!”

“Guess you want a rematch, then?” I grinned, earning a vigorous nod from him.

“You will fall, Alex Matthews!” he roared with what I can only assume was the voice of one of the game’s characters.

“Soooo, remind me again how we’re doing this?” Kendal spoke up as we funnelled into the living room. Dakota flicked the heaters on, having decided to start leaving them off in the day to save power. Accordingly, we all grabbed blankets from the sofa to keep warm while the room heated up.

“We get homework out of the way,” Dakota began, wrapping herself up tightly, “then you go with Bao and Zahid, pick up your clothes-”

“Right, yeah! Then we get Harriet, come back here, and get ready to paaartaaaay!”

Kendal threw her hands in the air, as though she just didn’t care.

We at least waited for the room to heat up before settling down to plough through our homework. While we could have easily taken advantage of our few extra free hours, Dakota insisted we tackle everything we had to do – right down to any essays to be written – right away. Admittedly, it took us a while to get started, especially as Bao wandered off and prepared lunch for us after about ten minutes. It was just past 4pm by the time we’d all finished.

“Never again…” I whimpered, resting back on my elbows in an attempt to recover.

“Never again,” Dakota nodded affirmatively, before adding, “until next year.”

I groaned loudly in response to that, and moved my elbows so as to collapse to the floor for comedic effect. It worked, as she giggled adorably, and my heart fluttered in joy.

“Okay!”

Kendal jumped to her feet like a Jack-in-the-Box springing up.

“Let’s go, boys!”

“I’m seriously expecting you to just crash and fall asleep on the dancefloor…” Zahid sighed, taking far more effort to stand up.

“Juuuust checking over this quickly…” Bao noted, reading over a sheet of completed homework in his hands.

“You do that, I’ll get the car started!” Kendal spoke in an excited blur, dashing off to the hallway. Zahid followed, giving us the lightest of waves.

“See you in a bit, then,” he addressed Dakota and me.

“Aaaaand… done!”

Bao shoved the sheet messily in his bag, and scurried swiftly after the others.

“Back soon, don’t do anything naughty while we’re gone!”

He stopped dead in his tracks, wide-eyed; if what he’d said in-passing hadn’t freaked me out, his reaction upon realising certainly did.

“Erm, cos like, y’know, naughty’s my middle name- well, I don’t have one, but it’d be pretty cool to change it to that by deed-poll or whatever it’s called. That always makes me think of Deadpool. I guess you guys wouldn’t know him… maybe you do, Alex?”

Miraculously, realisation hit him a second time in quick succession, and he jolted to attention.

“So, be good and don’t be bad and I’ll see you soon!” he concluded, gracing us with two thumbs up as he vanished into the hallway.

Dakota looked at me with equal parts bewilderment and amusement. I shrugged as I smiled back, just in case she suspected me of knowing what had Bao so worked up.

The others were gone for almost half an hour, leaving Dakota and me alone to fill the time with light conversation. She kept the topic off of the party – whether that was coincidence or courtesy, I can’t say for sure – and I had no intention of bringing it up myself. See… Ricardo had continued his pursuit of her over the past couple of weeks. I was convinced that he would have invited her to the party, and what reason would she have to refuse him? Nothing had been said of it until this point, and I didn’t want to have it confirmed for me.

Plan was, I’d stay while everyone got ready, and then walk home while Kendal drove the others to the venue. It hadn’t really dawned on me that I might just feel like a spare part until the others returned. Bao and Harriet started smooching almost as soon as they got indoors, to which-

Look, it’s been a few months now and I’m totally at ease with them as a couple, but I’m still not that comfortable being there when they’re kissing. My efforts to distract myself amounted to rummaging through my school bag, complete with an “uuuhmm…” to pointlessly help the impression that I was looking for something.

The moment the kissing sounds stopped:

“Hi, Alex!”

I turned suddenly to see Harriet smiling at me.

“Hey,” I smiled back, a little awkwardly as I now felt stupid despite myself.

Time passed. I felt every bit the spare part I thought I might, hanging around and giving occasional thoughts on my friends’ change of clothes. The thought that this was intended as a punishment for not going with them bubbled up a few times. But hey, they looked good, and they were having fun preparing, so that was something.

And at one point, Bao decided to use a tonne of hair gel to spike his hair up. Harriet was not impressed. She claimed he looked like he’d been electrocuted.

Dakota was the only one who didn’t come down and ask my opinion on her clothes. For the best, I reasoned. The less I saw of her in the dress in which she’d be spending the evening with Ricardo, the better.

This was it, as far as I was concerned. Alone in the living room, my thoughts swirled downwards: I had forfeited. I’d lost. And as much as it burned me, it was right. Not fair, but right.

I must have been glowering at the floor, as a hand placed itself comfortingly on my shoulder.

“Are you okay, Alex?” Dakota asked warmly.

That’s when I did the most stupid thing I could’ve possibly done in that moment. Of a thousand possible options, I chose the one that would doom me.

I looked up at her.

At the beautiful, immaculate green dress she was wearing.

At her dark hair neat and wavy like I’d never seen.

At her face, her smile, so radiant.

My eyes widened, my jaw hung open.

“Earth to Alex, do you read me?” she giggled.

“Uhssaaahh you did what and yes I’m fine thank you wow holy crap wow.”

“I’m glad, and… wait, what?”

“Aaaand finally ready!” Harriet announced, entering the living room with Bao, Kendal and Zahid in-tow. All of them looked positively glammed-up, and Bao’s hair had been restyled into something that seemed almost too formal on him.

“You all look fab!” Dakota enthused, bouncing a little in glee. “Lemme take a photo!”

“You’re lucky I don’t feel like a dweeb in this…” Zahid remarked while Dakota rushed off to get her camera.

“It suits you! You brush up well!” Kendal told him, earning a light (perhaps bashful) scoff.

The camera must have been nearby, as Dakota returned immediately, taking position a short distance back from the others and then gesturing for them to group together a little more.

“Say cheese!”

Cue the expected chorus of “cheeeese!” and the flash of the camera.

“Okay, gang, have fun!” Dakota concluded brightly. Which… confused me.

“You too!” Harriet replied, further confusing me.

Because… it sounded like…

I stood up in a daze, following the others to the hallway. Black shoes and strappy high heels were being put on. Dakota simply stood by and waited. And once all the farewells were said, coats donned and departures made, she was still here with me.

She turned to me, a mischievous look on her face.

“Go up to the loft.”

“Okay…” I spoke lowly from ever-growing befuddlement. I began my journey up the stairs, hoping that I would find the answers because I simply couldn’t figure out what was going on. I could hear Dakota following me as I went.

In short order, I reached the loft – its heaters had apparently been on for a while, as it was as toasty as the rest of the house. Placed on the piano stool was a set of formal clothes… jacket, shirt, trousers.

“Get changed,” Dakota instructed me from the loft stairwell. As I drew closer to the stool, recognition dawned upon me. These clothes…

“These are mine…”

I looked at her in ever-deepening confusion… and honestly, shock.

“How did you get my clothes here?”

“Kendal picked them up earlier,” my friend told me, brimming with pride. “She called Lucy and asked her to get them out.”

“But she broke her phone a week ago! And why does she have my sister’s number, anyway?”

“You’ll have to ask her about all of that. Come on, fancy clothes on, boy!”

I forced the storm of questions in my head aside in the face of her firm insistence, leaving me with only one response.

“Can you, err… gimme a little privacy, then?”

“Oh!”

She seemed to have genuinely not realised.

“Right, sorry, yeah, call for me when you’re done!” she spoke while sinking down the stairs.

I took a few moments before I started undressing, just to try and gather my bearings. This was completely not what I expected my evening to entail… but then, I wasn’t yet sure what “this” even was.

Once I’d put on my formal clothes, and dumped my school uniform in the corner of the room, I made me way to the top of the short flight of stairs.

“I’m ready, Dakota. I think…”

Because who knew what I was actually setting myself up for? … well, Dakota knew, obviously…

She leapt excitedly into view at the foot of the stairs, and smiled in amazement as she set eyes on me.

“Wow… Alex, you look…”

Her sentence trailed off as she ascended the stairs; I stepped aside for her.

“So… why are you still here…?”

“Where else should I be?” she asked as though my question was completely stupid.

“I… I thought… Ricardo…” I muttered, utterly failing to be coherent thanks to how awkward I felt discussing it.

On Dakota’s part, she was now the one to be confused.

“Ricardo? What about him?”

“That… you’d want to… y’know… go with him or whatever…”

“Pfft-”

She was dismissing it on impulse. Was it really that stupid a suggestion?

“I mean… he invited me, as a friend. I turned him down.”

… apparently, it was that stupid a suggestion…

“What?” I blurted in disbelief. It made no sense at all. He… he was into her! Surely! And… and he was… the attractive charming Portuguese guy that got every girl’s heart racing! And now I was supposed to believe that not only was he not pursuing Dakota, but that she wasn’t even interested in him?

“Why…?”

“Duh, I don’t wanna go to some party. And I’m hardly gonna leave you on your own,” she explained sweetly, looking me right in the eye.

I don’t know quite what expression I pulled in response to that, but she giggled.

“Is that so strange?”

“I mean… it… I…” I struggled, trying my hardest to acclimatise to this new reality I had found myself abruptly thrust into.

Dakota frowned now.

“Alex. Why wouldn’t I want to spend time with you?”

I pulled my finest trick here, and utterly avoided that dangerous area of discussion. More important things to discuss, anyway.

“So… we’re all dressed up and, what, we’re gonna have a two-person party?” I asked, pulling my jacket lapels a little for random emphasis.

“Yep! We’re gonna party our way.”

“Right! Wh-What’s our way…?”

My Irish companion paused momentarily, appearing to mull over her words.

“Okay, maybe it’s my way…” she confessed, gracing past me and heading over to the CD player. “Buuuut I was thinking about teaching you to dance? Just the basics, at least, and then we can dance together which I thought would be nice and you’re looking at me funny…”

“Am I?” I asked, genuinely surprised. As much as I had no faith in my ability to learn movements within a few hours, this sounded – to me, at least – remarkably romantic.

“We don’t have to-”

“No, let’s! Let’s do it!” I enthused, taking a few steps forward as if to cement my interest.

“Y’sure? You don’t have to do it on my account.” Despite that, she was already beaming brightly in excitement.

“Dakota Radley, it would be my honour,” I assured her with my best attempt at a dashing smile. She laughed, so I imagine it didn’t work.

“Great! Might wanna take your socks off just to be safe. The floor can be pretty slippy up here,” she advised me. While she tended to the CD player, I whipped my socks off and threw them in the general vicinity of my discarded school uniform.

“No ulterior motives, I promise. We’re not all like you,” she added playfully.

“Oohf! That was vicious!” I chuckled back, inciting more giggling. “So, uhm… how are we doing this, exactly?”

Dakota’s response was to begin playing some mid-tempo Spanish music.

“I’ll teach you some basics first, and then we’ll go all-in once you’re comfortable.”

“All-in?”

“Songs don’t come with routines, Alex,” she pointed out.

“Some do! Saturday Night… the Macarena…”

Yeah, I have no idea where I was going with that…

“And how boring are those?”

She took my left shoulder, then my right hip, and moved me so I stepped back with my right foot. And then, she stared into my eyes, and I stared back into hers, losing myself for a brief moment.

“It’s so much more personal… intimate… to create your own dance. To live it. So let’s live it together.”

Now, maybe you’d rather be at the party. Maybe this seems totally lame to you. But to me, being with Dakota, learning from her, indulging in something personal and meaningful… I don’t think I’ll ever forget it.

For maybe an hour, she steadily taught me a range of steps, movements, techniques, styles, and I acclimatised like a foal learning to walk, quickly gaining at least a little idea of what I was doing. Then, she switched over to fully-fledged songs, and now we were equals, partners, dancing together with the music and vocals as our stage. Her dress twisted and soared about her as she moved. Her perfect green eyes kept catching mine. It all became effortless, became instinct. This was her art. And like I could see her soul before, now we were sharing each other’s souls. When Dance the Night Away by The Mavericks played, I honestly wanted to. I wanted this to last forever. Her and I.

Eventually, exhausted, we fell into something much simpler: a slow dance together. We held each other and swayed while Extreme serenaded us with More Than Words from the CD player. We were embracing each other, slowly swaying together.

“I’m still amazed at how good you are…” she purred softly.

“I’m still amazed you think I’m good…” I replied with enough warmth to make it seem flippant.

“Mrrr… stop thinking the worst of yourself…”

Somehow, she saw straight through me.

“Sorry…” I uttered.

“Hey… there’s something I need to say…”

My heart accelerated faster than I thought possible. Right here, like this, what could she possibly have to say? Surely – surely – not…?

“Yeah…?”

“I’m not going to be here for Christmas…” she remarked dourly.

Huh…?

“Mam wants me back home. I’ll be flying out next Wednesday and I’ll be back on Boxing Day.”

“Oh… right…”

Of course not. It’d never be that, would it?

“You don’t sound happy about it…”

“No, I mean… it’ll be nice to be back home for a few days. It always looks beautiful at Christmas. Did I ever tell you about it? My house is on top of this little hill and when it snows…”

I glanced down at her fond smile.

“I’m looking forward to it. But I’m gonna miss you guys. It’s gonna be so weird not seeing you.”

“It’ll be weird not seeing you, too…” I told her, holding her a little closer. “Err, or ‘as well’…”

Dakota looked up at me with… I can’t even describe her expression. I’d almost call it adoration.

For a moment, there was nothing but the music, our dancing, her body in my arms, and her gorgeous face inches from mine.

Then, right after the last “more than…” in the song, Dakota’s stomach audibly grumbled.

We both burst into laughter that drowned out the final word and music, still holding onto each other.

…

Our evening wound down with some Pot Noodle, a tub of Celebrations, and an episode of Dinnerladies on TV. Dakota even decided to put her feet in my lap again, though I had the last laugh as I tickled her half-senseless.

… so I guess she also had the last laugh in a way…

It was past 10pm when the others finally returned. Notably, Zahid looked roughed up.

“Yeah, he was flirting with Kayleigh,” Bao explained airily, “and Will got pissed off and they had a fight-”

“That wasn’t a fight,” Zahid interrupted dismissively.

“People had to break it up, it was a fight,” Kendal remarked.

“He barely even hit me…”

“Aaanyway, it was fun!” Harriet spoke up. “I mean, the party! Not the fight!” (Zahid sighed at that last part.)

“How about you two? How was your non-party?” Bao asked, looking at me with oddly-expectant eyes.

I looked over to my phenomenal crush in her shining emerald dress just to let my heart melt some more.

“It was amazing,” I told Bao.

…

“Okay, from the top. We did not kiss, we did not get naked, we did not have sex, we did not play ‘kinky poker games’,” I reiterated to Bao, Kendal, Zahid and Harriet in the Paintermobile fifteen minutes later.

“Dude…” Bao exhaled in disappointment.

I had no idea there was this much expectation on me…