Posted:
Dance with Me
Prom.
Everyone's sneaking in alcohol, getting wasted. There's a couple in every corner of the hall getting dramatic and questioning their relationship. Everyone else is either clicking "selfies" at the speed of light, bitching about someone's dress, having sex in the stalls/grinding on the dance floor, or on the committee running around making sure this bandwagon of a dance is running "smoothly". I honestly feel bad for these guys, putting in so much effort and all.
And then there's the minority (us) who expected Prom to be like one of those Disney movies. But I don't see any emotional goodbyes, promises to stay in touch, nothing. We the "lameo-coolios" (don't ask) are on our 42nd-43rd glass of soda. Mountain Dew is holy.
Zoya was ranting about...something. At this point I don't even remember what. Ayaan and Humeira's mushy-couple-talk was causing an overload of mental-puke. Palak and Jazz were still there because Humeira was their ride, poor girls, they're snoring, for god's sake take them home someone!
I'm still here 'cause I promised myself I would man up today.
Zoe and I always had this "thing" for the lack of a better, more appropriate term, that neither of chose to acknowledge, and we both goddamn knew of it's existence. Trust me. But we were buds from the start, (literally the start, I'm talking 3 year old tots) and it was just one of those things you didn't want to take the slightest risks of ruining.
We dated other people, got over other people, befriended other people, and other "Chaddi-Buddy" stuff. We never made a formal pact, or even talked about it, but I think we both understood why. With a boyfriend, fiance, or even husband, there's a chance of breaking up. Your stuck with friends no matter how much you hate 'em. Get the point? I don't know, it's kind of confusing, relationships...pffftt.
But it dawned upon me last week, my lightbulb is kind of slow I blame the wires, that we were all going off to college. That it would never be the same. There was no next year after this summer. No more seeing her every single day. It was going to be over.
And the once in a while high-school friend gathers weren't going to be enough. So essentially I'm doing this because I want to be able to annoy her more often then the rest (and because I think I'm willing to take the risk because of these "feelings" and how they've grown over the years but let's leave the girly stuff out, she'd probably laugh if she heard it come out of my mouth).
Anyways, enough thinking, just do this. She'll either laugh or she'll laugh. It wasn't hard to tell which laugh was which. Either way she'll get a kick out of it.
"...and I mean seriously! Necklaces made out of elephant teeth? I'm coexisting with people who eat things with a face, isn't that enough, now I have to deal with people who wear them too! Think about the animals!!" She ranted to a sleeping Palak and Jazz.
"Zoe, Palak and Jazz have successfully been punished. Let the poor girls sleep," he handed her another cup filled with Mountain Dew.
"I've had enough soda for a month, and besides how do I know you didn't sip that already."
"Vegetarian Germaphobe,"
"Oh please Rapunzel,"
"I'm going for the Johnny Depp look, god..." Focus Asad focus. I huffed the annoyance out and turned back to her, "So... you having fun?"
"Bad line,"
"Why would you assume I was hitting on you?"
"It's not hard to tell, anyways I'm bored enough. Show me what you got pretty boy,"
"Someone's dying to get hit on. Anyways, well neither of us danced yet so... do you want to? A little lame jig or something."
"Jig? Asad I've never seen you so out of game before? That was bad, even for you. Are you on something?"
"Ok so I suck at this "asking" stuff, just dance with me?" I put my cup down to actually make eye contact. For teenagers, making eye contact was a big deal ok.
"No," she smugly replied.
What? No? I'm attempting to be romantic here! Work with me woman! "I will join you in your Vegetarian Club meets!"
"There's one meet left. And you crash the club anyways. Got anything else?" she smiled that smile. Goddammit, she was having way too much fun with this.
"I will... I will delete that horrible half asleep/half awake picture I have of you on my phone."
"Everyone's seen it anyways," she insisted, "Face it Asad, you can't get me to dance," she gave me that "I-mentally-just-popped-my-nonexistant-collar" look.
Challenge accepted.
"If I get you to dance, will you go out with me? As my girlfriend?" I was determined, she could tell. But rather than choking on air, pulling the omg-surprised expression, or the shell-shocked "O" with her lips, she looked like she'd seen it coming. Not what I'd expected.
"If you can get me dance..." she challenged like the Zoe she was, "...I'll consider it."
This girl... "Fine," I got up, "Be right back,"
My parents were going to kill me for this, but #YOLO right? (Ok that was bad.) "Teenagers are stupid" rather than annoying, I find this common lie to be the perfect excuse. And with that I pressed send.
She sat there wondering what I was going to do. I caught her blushing, it felt pretty nice to be the reason behind it for once. We both knew her answer, but I guess having a story to tell about the "girlfriend" proposal would be nice. I'm sure she was expecting a kneeling-on-one-knee-with-a-rose, in front of the entire class asking her to dance to some overrated cheesy slow song type of a thing, and was probably disappointed.
Zoya begum, you have to give me more credit than that.
***
As planned Zoya was still sitting at our table, being bored, nothing new. Perfect. I gave Michal the signal.
"Jin ke sar ho... Ishq ki chaaon... Paon ke niche... Jannat hogi..."
As expected, her eyes were wider than I had ever seen.
"Jin ke sar ho... Ishq ki chaaon..."
She looked around to make sure her hearing was intact. Oh Zoe...
Everyone looked "confused". The dance floor stood still.
"Chal Chaiyan Chaiyan Chaiyan Chaiyan, Chal Chaiyan Chaiyan Chaiyan Chaiyan!"
Sukhwinder Singh's voice sang out in the middle of a New Jersey prom. She couldn't help her tapping foot.
Ayaan and the "Lameo-Coolios" (again don't ask) started with their obnoxiously terrible bhangra. Then the CDs (Confused Desi's), and then the clueless rest. The CD's and the clueless rest didn't exactly bhangra, let's just say it was the closest a guy who says "Tash Mahaul" can get to a bhangra (basically heavily drunk club dancing).
The stage was set. Texting the entire class of like 300 something people was so worth it.
"So I'm going to get Michal to play an Indian song, just go dance like animals and have fun. And if you're not having fun, pretend. It's a girl thing, help a bro out."
I slid my phone shut. Well off to charm the pants off of her (not literally).
"It's a nice song isn't it? This used to be my anthem back when I was a kid. Are you familiar with it?"
And that was when realization struck her, I saw it in her smile. "You did this."
"Was that a question?"
"What do you think?"
"Answering a question with another question is not polite Ms. Farooqui," I felt a sudden courage to lean in closer.
"Wasting time flirting with me when we could be dancing isn't either,"
"So is that a yes?"
"To what?"
"Zoya!"
"Yes?" she was finding amusement in my irritation.
"Yes?"
"Yes."
***
This was fluff. I hate fluff so by default I hate this. But I fell in love with the story when I came up with it admist taking a shower this morning. But I never actually thought to write it until it got so bad I eventually did. So yeah this was my far-fetched fluff that I will hate on for the genre and me succumbing to it again, but will love for my little story and well for Chaiyan Chaiyan (because it's not hard to figure out that this was my kiddie-anthem that I'm still very much in love with).
Highschool, prom, cliched. I know. Deal. LOL.
It's really late I should be sleeping. Didn't proof it yet. Sowwy. Will do later.
Love,
-Shweta
Bigg Boss 19
Bade Achche Lagte Hain Naya Season
Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi 2
