Trusting In Love

The music coming from the school's gym is loud and muffled as I pull into the parking lot and find a space to park my car. As I get out and start walking towards the gym doors, I hear someone wolf-whistle in my direction. I turn around to see which immature high school boy decided that would be a good idea, but quickly realize it was my friend, Jess. 

"Dang Emma! Look at you! Where did you find that dress?" Jess asks as I approach her. 

"Macy's," I say with a smile. I was wearing a knee-length, sparkly midnight blue dress with a lace back that I had paired with strappy, silver heels. It took me forever to find the dress, so I was glad that it was already a hit with my friend. "You look amazing."

"Why, thank you!" Jess said, attempting to do a little curtsy while walking, but just looked like she was about to faceplant. Her black lace, long-sleeved romper amazingly complimented her figure.

"So, do you have your eyes on anybody tonight?" I asked her as we walked into the gym. 

"Nope! I'm going solo. I don't need a guy when there is a perfectly good snack table open during the slow dances," She responds. I let out a laugh. I'm not surprised that was her response. Jess has always been super confident and never really showed any interest in going out with guys. 

"Where's Rylee and Marc?" I ask her as we show the front table our tickets. Rylee was the other friend in our group and was more on the shy side, but had recently gotten her first boyfriend. Jess and I had practically forced Rylee to talk to Marc when we saw her face turn beet red the first time we met him. 

"What's up, guys?" I hear Rylee say as she and Marc walk, hand in hand, into the gym behind us. 

"Hey!" I exclaimed as I gave her a quick hug. Marc shows the front table their couples ticket and we all begin walking through the crowd of dancing teenagers, towards the snack table.

"Rylee, you look beautiful! Doesn't she look beautiful Marc?" Jess says as Rylee blushes. 

"Absolutely," Marc says, turning his gaze toward Rylee which makes her blush even more. She looked incredible in her emerald green, velvet, floor-length dress.

"Emma, where's Jeremy?" Rylee asks with a tease to her tone. 

"I don't know," I shrug my shoulders, trying to play it cool. 

Jeremy was a transfer student from Fort Worth, Texas. He came to our high school, Jensen High, about a month ago. We lived in Miami, Florida, so all of us were a little shocked the day we saw a country boy walk into our school. From day one, I was attracted to him. We became pretty good friends when my English teacher sat him next to me on his first day at Jensen. Rylee and Jess knew I liked him and felt the need to remind me whenever we saw him. 

"I do! Found him!" Jess practically shouts as she points her finger across the gym to the back corner, where Jeremy was standing with a couple of guys from our English class. 

"Jess!" I say quickly, as I grab her arm and pull it back down to her side. "If he wants to talk to me then he'll come over here on his own."

"Oh, come on Emma! This is KILLING you!" Marc says, laughing.

"What is?" I was trying to act like I didn't care about any of this, but I was failing miserably. 

"The fact that you're even in the same room as him," Rylee says. "Emma, we can see right through you. I saw the way your eyes lit up when Jess pointed at him." 

"I don't know what you're talking about. We're just friends and I am perfectly fine with where things are," I say as I turn around to grab a cup of punch. 

"Well, here comes your "friend" now," Jess announces. "Hi, Jeremy!"

"What?!" I say in a panic. I turn back around so fast that my blood, red punch swishes around and flies out of my cup... and right onto Jeremy's baby blue shirt. Marc, Rylee, and Jess all let out a unified gasp. 

"Oh my gosh!! I'm so sorry!! I didn't know you were right there!!" I started spitting out any apologies that ran through my mind. I frantically grabbed a handful of napkins from the snack table and began trying to wipe the punch off of his shirt, but I just ended up rubbing in the punch even more. I avoid looking up at Jeremy to hide the tears welling up in my eyes. I can't believe that I just humiliated myself at Jeremy's first dance at Jensen High. 

"Hey, hey. It's ok," Jeremy says kindly. He takes the napkins from me and throws them in the trash can by the table. He then stands in front of me, looks down at his shirt, then up at me and spreads out his arms. "How do I look?" he says in his adorable southern drawl. I let out a sigh of relief and laugh. 

"You look great," I answered

Minus the red punch stain, he looked super cute. A baby blue button-up with black jeans and black cowboy boots. I couldn't help but blush.

"I'm sorry I ruined your shirt," I said. 

"I've had this for years. I needed a reason to get rid of it," he says as he gives me a sweet smile and immediately I feel my heart pound so hard that it feels like it's about to jump out of my chest. Before I know it, my eyes lock with Jeremy's. For a few moments, it felt like I couldn't look away. I was captivated. 

"I have to go to the bathroom. Rylee?" Jess says as she nudges Rylee in the side.

"Oh, yeah, me too," Rylee catches on and they begin to walk away.

 "I'll walk you guys over," Marc says and follows them.

Jeremy clears his throat like he's looking for something to say, but before he could say anything, the D.J. turns on his mic and his voice booms throughout the gym. 

"Hellooo Jensen High!!! Welcome to this year's Spring Formal!!" 

Everybody in the gym cheers. Jeremy and I clap along with the rest of the students. 

"Go ahead and grab that boy or that girl next to you because we're gonna slow the music down," the D.J. says into his mic. All the students start to pair up. 

"Well, you heard him," Jeremy says. He puts his hand out for me to take. I hesitate and look nervously at his hand. 

"What's wrong?" he asks me, his eyes searching mine. 

"Um, it's just-" 

"Just what?" Jeremy says softly. 

I look in his eyes. 

"I've never danced before," I tell him. 

"There's no way you've never danced before. Not even alone in your room?" Jeremy asks.

"No. I've never danced with a guy before," I look down at my feet. I felt like that was the stupidest thing I've ever said. What junior girl hasn't ever danced with a guy before?

I see Jeremy's feet move toward me. He lifts my chin with his fingers. 

"Can I be the first?" 

I notice that Jeremy hasn't put his hand down since he first offered it to me. I smile and take it. Jeremy leads me down to the dance floor, puts his hands around my waist, and I put mine around his neck as we begin swaying to the music. 

"You look beautiful, Emma," Jeremy says sweetly. I smile and look to the floor again, feeling like all of this is a dream.

"You know, you really shouldn't look down so much when you have such pretty eyes," Jeremy lifts my head back up and pushes away a loose strand of hair from my face. 

"You really think my eyes are pretty?"

"Of course I do. They were the first thing I saw when I met you," Jeremy said. 

All I could do was smile at him. The feeling of his arms wrapped around me left me speechless. I didn't want to say anything that could ruin this moment.

After a minute or two, the song ended and the students went back to dancing to more upbeat music. 

"Emma!" I heard Jess yell my name over the music as she, Rylee, and Marc made their way through all the students. 

"We need to talk," Rylee says as she grabs my arm and starts pulling me away from Jeremy. 

"I guess I'll be right back," I said over my shoulder to Jeremy right before I was pulled out of earshot. Rylee pulled me out to the hall, with Jess and Marc following behind us. 

"Soooo...." Rylee says. She raises her eyebrows and gives me a look.

"What??" I act like I don't know what she's talking about, but I know that she saw me and Jeremy.

"Oh, you know what we're saying. We saw the two of you together. You guys' looked like a little more than "friends"." Jess says smiling. 

"So, are you two dating now??" Marc asks me. 

"I don't know. I really like him, but-" I pause. 

"But what?" Rylee says.

"I guess I'm just scared," I admit. 

"Why would you be scared?" Marc asks me.

"Because I've never been in a relationship before. And I've never had an example of a good relationship either. My dad ditched when I was nine and my mom has been in and out of relationships with guys who never treat her right ever since," I told him. 

"Emma, Jeremy would never hurt you. He cares about you. I don't know if you've noticed, but whenever he looks at you it's like you're the only person in his world," Rylee said. 

"Rylee is right. But enough standing around here. Let's go find him and enjoy the dance," Jess said as she put her arm around me and pulled me back into the gym. 

We made our way through the dance floor and found Jeremy waiting at an empty table. 

"Hey! Is everything ok?" Jeremy says, looking at me. 

"Yeah. Everything's fine," I look at my friends. "Let's go dance!" We all run to the dance floor and get lost in the music. 

Soon, the hours flew by and the dance was ending. Rylee and Marc started getting ready to leave.

"Well, we're gonna get going. See you guys later," Marc said as he and Rylee began walking out of the gym. 

"I'm gonna head out too," Jess said as she put the shoes that had come off hours before back on. 

"Ok, bye. Drive safe," I said as I hugged her goodbye. She walked out of the gym, leaving Jeremy and I standing alone together. 

"Do you have a ride home, Emma?" Jeremy asks me.

"Yeah, I drove here," 

"I'll walk you to your car if that's ok," Jeremy says. 

"I'd like that," I said, smiling. 

As we began walking to my car, I felt Jeremy grab my hand and intertwine his fingers with mine. I glanced down at our hands. 

I wasn't used to this. To someone smiling so bright when they saw me. Someone looking at me in a way that made me instantly love myself. I wasn't used to someone treating me like I was worth the world to them, and them making me believe that I made an impact in not only his life, but in the lives of everyone around me. I took a deep breath in. I didn't know if I was ready for this. 

Jeremy looks at me, concerned. "Are you sure your ok? You've seemed kinda off the whole night."

We got to my car and I leaned up against the driver's side door, looking up at Jeremy. 

"Can I be honest with you?" I ask him, needing to know that the answer is yes.

"Of course you can," Jeremy says reassuringly. He runs his hand up and down my arm.

"I've never been in a relationship before. It's always been something that's scared me."

"How come?" Jeremy asks, the look on his face the most genuine thing I've ever seen. 

"My dad left seven years ago. When he was around, I would do everything with him. He was the person that I confided in. At nights before I would go to bed, I would run up to him with a book that I had chosen. He would pull me up into his lap, take the book, and read to me as I laid my head on his chest, listening to his voice. Most nights, I would fall asleep before he finished reading so he would carry me up to my room and put me in my bed. In the mornings, he would come into my room and wake me up, singing a goofy morning song he made up when I was a little girl," I stopped and inhaled sharply, trying my best not to cry. Jeremy looked at me in my eyes.

"It's ok. You can talk to me," 

I finally let the tears that I had been holding back fall and roll down my face. 

"One morning, I woke up and my dad wasn't in my room. I didn't wake up to that goofy song. Instead, all I heard was my mom sobbing on the living room couch. I remember waiting by the front door all day, convinced that at any moment my dad was going to walk through it. But when he wasn't there for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. To read to me before I fell asleep in his lap, I knew that he wasn't coming back home. That night, when I had to go to bed without him there, I swore that I would never let anyone hurt me like that again. I guarded my heart and wouldn't let anyone else get close enough to leave me," I started crying even harder. Jeremy leaned in and wrapped me in the tightest hug of my life. When he let me go, he put his hands on my shoulders and looked at me. 

"Emma, I will never hurt you like that, I promise. You are one of the most important people in my life," I looked in his eyes and saw that he too was holding back tears, like my pain was his pain. 

"How can you promise that?" I needed to know that he meant every word he said.

Jeremy took my face in his hands. "I love you, Emma." 

At that moment, I knew that I was finally letting down that wall I had kept up for so many years. I knew that I could trust him and confide in someone again. 

"I love you too, Jeremy."