May I Have This Dance
We're in the 1st grade. We are seated in the library, holding hands, while being read a story. She lifts my hand to her lips and kisses it. I'm excited but my response is logical, "if you kiss me, I kiss you back." And so I did.
At the end of the year, I move away. I attend a different school now. We hold vaguely affectionate, distant memories of one another. We cross paths on three different occasions – literally walking past each other in hallways. Inexplicably, we are titillated by sightings of the other. Not a word is exchanged. We don't even remember each other's names anymore. But I point out to my friends, "I know that girl." And she says to hers, "that's him."
We wind up at the same high school. We're aware of each other but don't come into direct contact for nearly a month. We both attend the school's first dance. I'm slow-dancing with the girl standing behind us in the photo. But she doesn't get between us, as it were. Yvette breaks away from her orbit. She makes her move and cuts in, without a word, mid-song.
We picked up right where we left off.
