To my darling, who is always on my mind and in my soul, who stole the key to my heart and will always have it, no matter what may come…
I was the quarterback of the year at my school. I was known for having a friendly attitude, a hard working ethic, and an open heart. The only problem with having the open heart was that every girl wanted it for their own personal use as they see fit. I had gone out with plenty of girls in the school and some from other schools but none of them seemed to be right. Most of them would just date me and then dump me just so that they could have the title of dating me, like I was some sort of prize or treasure to be had. Just about every night, I would pray “Please God, send me someone who will love me for me, not for what I have done or what I will become, but someone who will look past what I am. Someone who will show me what love really means.” I became disheartened when the reply was never answered or seemed to be ignored, but I never lost faith or hope during those trying times. But I had no idea what God was planning for me, not until that fateful year, not until that one weekend, not until that one moment…


Cameras clicked and flashed around me, temporarily blinding me. “That was a nice shot, let’s get another one” Megan’s voice called out. Megan was my date for the dance that had been voted to be junior class queen, with me being her queen. I never really wanted it, mainly because Megan was solely fixated on the spotlight and the attention she got from being voted into that position. Another picture was taken, this time with her lips on my cheek. I just smiled and went on with my life, knowing that it wasn’t worth it to get mad over it. “We need to get to the restaurant because we have an early reservation” I said after all the picture taking was out of the way. So we climbed into my car, which was a restored 69’ Chevy Camaro. Me and my father had spent a lot of time working on it since I was young and to see her get sit in it made my stomach uneasy. I thought to myself “A woman that I love should sit there, not her” as I started the car and we headed off to the restaurant.


When we got there, Megan saw a group of her friends and dragged me over there by my arm to sit with them. For an hour and a half, I had to listen to girls talk about meaningless gossip that filled their hearts, the guys that they think are hot and who are geeks, and all the hate that they talk behind everyone’s back. All of them were looking at me, mainly my body and thinking to themselves what they would do if they had me alone in a room for an hour. I could tell by the look that they had in their eyes, cause I had seen it so many times before. I just brushed it off and continued to eat my dinner, not letting their stares and conversations bog down my delicious meal. When I finished my meal and while they barely touched their expensive dishes, I slipped into a pleasant daydream.


The dreamed that I concurred in my head that always put me in a state of peace and tranquility. It was about a girl. The girl of my dreams, as I put it once to my friend. A girl that was flawed to the world, but perfect in my eyes. A girl that is wanting for love and ready to give it back at a seconds notice. My friend said that she sounds good, but what would she look like. I told him that she has brown hair, brown eyes, beautiful smile, cute nose. All around simply beautiful. She sat there in my dreams, waiting for me to find her and be with her.


A small pinch snapped me out of my dream. “Hey, checks here. You’re paying” Megan said with a wide smile. I looked at their plates, and then flipped to the check. She had barely touched her food and her meal cost me right at twenty-five dollars. Not to mention that she had combined her friends checks into ours. The whole total was almost a hundred dollars. Inside my head, I was furious and ready to shout, but I kept my cool because it wasn’t worth getting into a fight, and I was a nice guy. But even nice guys get angry. So after that expensive meal, we headed to the dance.


People clapped for us as we walked in the door. Megan just looked around and started beaming. She smiled and waved at everyone, trying to make every girl in the room jealous and envious. We walked on, giving the teachers our tickets so that we could enter and dance. Once we passed them, Megan stopped me in my tracks so that we could have our picture taken and put into the local newspaper. So we stopped by there and got a couple of snapshots taken of us before we headed into the gym where all the dancing was going on. When we walked in, Megan looked around, trying to see who she could make jealous and find her friends. From the corner of my eye, I saw a man wave at her and she willingly let go of my arm and ran over to him, hugging and kissing him before they left and went dancing somewhere in the mess of people. I sighed a deep sigh, knowing that I should have expected something like that to happen. Feeling used and slightly heartbroken, I walked over to a table and sat down. As I sat there and watched all the people dance around me. All they ever did was grind on one another, acting like they loved each other, except that the feeling was more of infatuation and excitement more than love. Some people just did it to fit in with the “cool” people. And then you had the people that did their own thing, dancing in goofy fashions and having a fun time. Those were the people that I envied right now.


I noticed two blonde haired girls in skimpy dresses walk towards me, quietly whispering and giggling in each other’s ear. They pulled chairs on each side of me and sat down. “Hey cutie, why so lonely?” one of them asked. “My date left me for another guy.” I replied back, looking straight ahead. “Awww, that’s not nice. You should come dance with me and my friend” the other one said with a smile. “And how would we dance?” I asked both of them with a raised eyebrow. “Well we would grind silly, like everyone else here.” The first one said with a small lustful smile across her face. “Well then I’m sorry ladies, but I’m just not interested in dancing like that” I said while I shook my head. The two of them pouted and walked away, looking for another hot prospect to seduce and sink their claws into. I shook my head and continued to sit there, just waiting.


I looked around some more, and to my surprise, I saw someone that caught my eye. A brunette girl sat just a couple of tables away, looking out of place as she sat there all alone. I kept staring at her, like there was some aura that made my eyes lock onto her. As I looked at her, my stomach started to jump and feel squeamish. I sat there, plainly looking at her with a weird feeling growing in my stomach and rising up my throat. I finally decided to walk over there and introduce myself. Walking over, I noticed her brown eyes glancing over at me periodically, and then looking away with embarrassment every time our eyes made contact.
“Hi there, my name is Sean” I said to her as I walked up to her. I extended my hand and she smiled and shook it. “My name is Amanda” she said with a blush in her cheeks. “So are you new here? Cause I haven’t met you yet, and I know everyone” I asked her as I sat across from her. “Yeah, I just transferred in from out of state. But I know who you are” she smiled back. “Really, so who am I?” I asked her. “How could anyone not know who you are? You’re the most popular guy in this entire school” She said. I just smiled and kept looking into her hypnotizing eyes. I sat there and stared at her, and soon enough she noticed and got nervous. “Can I ask why you’re staring at me?” I snapped out of it, saying “I’m sorry if I scared you, but I was lost in your eyes” with a smile. At that point, she blushed hard. “I don’t see why you would, I’m ugly” she said with a slight frown. “No Amanda, you are positively gorgeous. I’ve never met a girl as beautiful as you are” I said while I smiled. I started to blush slightly and she giggled when she took notice. My stomach flipped at her giggles, which almost made me vomit. “I don’t mean to pry, but why is it that you came over here to me? Cause from the looks your giving me, I don’t think that you just wanted to introduce yourself” Amanda asked, breaking the silence between us. “Well, I saw you sitting here all by yourself and I decided to come and talk to you.” I said to her. “Well I am glad that you did” she said with a smile.
So we talked on through the night, slowly finding out neat things about each other that we would never have guessed. Towards the end of the dance, when the last couple of songs were playing, I asked her if she would like to dance with me. “Yes!!” she said with a large smile. So I stood up and gave her my hand to help her out of her chair.
We walked into the crowd of massed classmates, who were all grinding on each other. We picked a spot in the middle, where there was plenty of room to dance. A slow song came on over the speakers. I took her hand in mine and put my hand on her hip. Slowly, we waltzed in the space that we had to ourselves. All around us, people stopped and looked at us. A spotlight pointed down on us. Amanda looked all around and blushed and looked back to me, where I stared passionately into her eyes. She smiled, which caused me to smile back at her and blush. As I stared into her hazel eyes, I was lost in the forest which I found there. People around us began to dance slowly like us, making sure to copy our movements. At the end of the song, we moved closer to one another, slowly leaning closer and closer to one another until I broke the distance and kissed her lips. When our lips met, it was like no feeling that I have ever felt. Time stopped in its tracks and for ten seconds, everything in the world revolved around us. People around us stopped and watched. My stomach flipped itself over several times over, making my knees almost bottom out. When we pulled away from what seemed like an eternity, Amanda blinked several times in shock. I was blushing hard at that point, and so was she. When she finally realized what had transpired, she stepped back and looked down at her watch and freaked out. "I'm sorry, I have to go." She said as she ran out of the door. I stood there dumbstruck at what just happened. Before I knew what was happening, my legs started moving.
When my mind finally caught up to what happened, I was at a sprinting pace, ramming through crowds of people. When I got to the doors, I saw her, soaked by the rain, climbing into her father's truck. I blew through the doors, running after the truck with all my speed and strength in the pouring rain. I almost reached it until it hit the main road and sped off into the darkness. I stood there, rain spattering against my suit, breathing hard, feeling like I just saw a piece of my soul drive away. I turned and headed back to the school, a broken heart dragging me down all the way back.

When I got back to the gym, they called my name and I was elected king of the homecoming court, with my original date being my queen. She held my hand and smiled, waving at the cheering applause of our classmates while I simply stood there, not able to move or let alone think. She smiled and kissed me on the cheek, and quickly went back to waving at all the spotlight she was given. I couldn't stand it anymore. So I shook loose her grip and walked off stage, cutting through the crowd. At the doors, I said "bye" to a couple of my friends and headed home.
The next day, I woke up early and got packed for school. Before I left however, I grabbed my crown, because it was a school tradition to wear it after the weekend of the dance. So I came into school early, finding that people spewed negative things about giving up such a hot girl. I just walked past them and went to the cafeteria to get some breakfast. That’s when in a single moment, my heart stopped. Amanda sat there in a corner, reading a small book by herself. I silently walked over and sat next to her. She looked over and almost dropped her book in shock. Before she could talk, I kissed her on the lips. She opened her eyes in shock, but slowly they eased shut as she wrapped her hand around my neck and back. When we broke apart, I saw that she was blushing hard and I could feel it in my cheeks as well. I lifted the crown that I wore on my head and gently set it on her head. She smiled and blushed even harder. "I want you to be my queen" I said with a smile. She shook her head up and down, almost in tears as she spurred out "Yes!!" I smiled one last time, before I leaned in and kissed her again.