The dark room throbs with a heart it built itself, purple light sweeping in circles, and no one is dancing at the center of it. This is the most extraordinary thing I have seen and I have seen the whole of the afternoon.
Look: the tall ones have arranged themselves along the walls, boys pressed to one side, girls to the other, a whole gulf of shining floor between them that nobody crosses. They have music. They have light. They have exactly the amount of time I have, which is all of it, and they are spending it standing still, thumbs on their glowing rectangles, waiting.
One of them said "maybe later." Later. As if the room will still be here. As if this song will come around again.
And then it happens. A slow song, someone whispers, and two of them meet in the middle, hands landing on shoulders like they have never held a shoulder before, swaying in a small careful circle, eyes everywhere but each other. Their faces are on fire. Their friends are shrieking. This is a first, I understand, the very first, and I understand firsts, they are the only kind I get.
But I hear the terrible word passing between the ones on the wall. "There's always next year." Next year. They believe in a next year, and it has made them shy. It has made them wait out the purple light with their arms crossed.
Little tall ones. I have one dance and I am dancing it, up and down over the water in the last gold light, and it is enough, it is everything.
Cross the floor.
The song is playing now.