“Come on, Derek! Let’s dance! Please?”

How could he have resisted her pleading eyes, and playful, frowning smile?

As another one of the cheesy love songs, which he found unusually un-cheesy at the moment, started to play, she swept him up from his metal chair with her laughter, and pulled him right into the gently rocking crowd in the middle of the gymnasium.

As they swayed together, collapsed upon each other as if their spinal columns had suddenly disappeared, both of their smiles grew in oblivion to each other.

They turned slowly, close to each other, perfume and cologne inhabiting their nostrils. Their slow rhythm, back and forth, matched that of the throbbing crowd around them. The whole gymnasium moved, in and out, back and forth, like a small mass of joy.

She and Derek moved, just one part of the whole, back and forth, happy together.