Pick Michelle

“It was a close call, but I think… I’m going to pick Michelle,” you say, giving her a cheery wave from across the room.

There’s a moment of stunned silence, and then:

“WHAT!? You fucker!” Tatiana exclaims, as Imogen blurts out a “But you can’t do that!”

“Stop messing with them,” Michelle says, folding her arms across her chest.

“No, I’m dead serious,” you tell her. “I’m picking you. C’mere, sit!” You pat the space next to you on the couch. Savannah, sitting on your other side, gestures to Michelle eagerly, and Michelle slowly makes her way over to you, regarding both you and the other girls suspicion.

“I don’t understand. Why would you pick her over either one of us?” Imogen says once Michelle has seated herself by you.

“It’s because he’s a fucking idiotic freshman who can’t stay in his lane. Look at that smile on his face. He thinks this shit is fucking hilarious, doesn’t he,” Tatiana says. She’s not wrong, but you did also genuinely think that Michelle was the hottest one in the room.

“God, this shit was stupid,” Imogen says, shaking her head. “Let’s just go to the party and pick up guys there.”

“Yeah, screw these two idiots,” Tatiana says, leaving the room with Imogen close behind her. The other girls in the room follow suit, leaving you alone with Michelle.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” Michelle says, sighing next you.

“What’s the matter? Is this about us working together? Or is it the other girls?” You see her expression shift slightly. “But it can’t be the other girls, why would they get angry? It’s not like they’d be jealous or catty or…”

“You’re kidding me.”

Michelle stares back at you incredulously, her dark green eyes boring into yours.

“It’s going to be bad?” you ask.

“I’ll deal,” she shrugs.

Just as you’re about to reach out with a comforting arm, she stands up, facing you.

“So, you going to head down to the party?” she asks.

“Uh… yeah, sure,” you say, caught a little off guard.

Downstairs, the party is alive and thumping, the crowd a tide that rises and falls with the hard EDM bassline. While the rest of the girls have mixed into the thick of the party, Michelle is hanging back by the side, standing next to you.

“Look at them go,” she says derisively. She’s looking over at the bar, where Imogen and Tatiana are surrounded by several guys. The men, classics jocks in sleeveless shirts, coo over the girls and fight each other for the right to buy them drinks.

“Don’t you want a drink?” you ask. “I can be like those guys too!” You wiggle your eyebrows suggestively.

She snorts.

“God, I’m so done with this shit. I’ve got a mountain-load of work to do, and it’s fucking Saturday already,” she says, checking her watch.

Technically, it is past midnight, and therefore Sunday, but you don’t bother correcting her. Instead, you put an arm around a shoulder. She shrugs it off, and you look at her, concerned.

“Yeah, I still haven’t really looked at any of the stuff I’m supposed to do for Styles,” you say sheepishly. “But! I’ll get to it tomorrow. Or some time early next week. I promise.”

“You’d better,” Michelle says. Her attention’s captivated by the dancing masses, by the shining faces of the revellers in this dark, noisy space.

“Uh… want to dance?” you ask, silently bracing yourself for a second soft rejection in a row.

“If you want to, you lead,” she says, shrugging.

With that vote of confidence, you make your way towards the thick of people, only looking back two or three times to make sure that she’s following you. Surrounded by dancing bodie, you meet eyes with Michelle again. She’s watching you expectantly, and you suddenly feel a little self-conscious. How do you dance? What are the correct motions to put your body through? What if you look stupid? You feel much more at home behind the DJ booth.

Fuck it.

People are screaming, raving, high on fifty **** and drunk on one universal one. As the beat builds up, you begin raising your arms in line with it, mirroring another of the guys around you; and when the beat drops, down you go in some foolish facsimile of a b-boy, hands planted on the ground as your legs attempt to twirl around your body.

You kind of make it almost halfway around a circle before you collapse on the ground, and a drunk guy next to you hollers his approval, drawing several looks the people around you.

“You’re an idiot,” Michelle says, laughing now.

She reaches out an arm and helps you up, and all of a sudden, the ice is broken. She grooves along to the song with little arm motions and shoulder bumps against you; it’s pretty adorable, all things said, and you dance along with her, letting the music and the antics of the larger crowd around you take you away.

The hours pass this way, the two of you with your little dances and shared laughs. By the time you find yourself stumbling out of the sorority house drunk and exhausted in the wee hours of the morning, Michelle waves you goodbye and gives you a hug a touch too tight, before disappearing back into the depths of the house.

You walk back to your room, alone.

Imogen -35
Tatiana -35
Michelle +30