I watched as a new person stepped onto the stage. The music started as she sang karaoke, it didn’t sound particularly lovely.

I noticed a girl, probably fourteen or fifteen, walking down the row of chairs toward me. Well, I thought toward me. She was walking behind my chair toward our parish’s group.

The girl immediately started to sing and dance with the others. Her voice was a little pitchy and her dancing was all over the place. Yet, the excitement and happiness coming off her was like a magnet. It made me want to get up and join in.

But I didn’t. I just watched her jump up and down, yelling the words of the song. She knew every line, every pause, and every beat.

When the song ended, her chest rose up and down quickly as she smiled and talked with the girl beside her. I couldn’t look away from her bright brown eyes.

She was beautiful. Her hair was long and pulled into a ponytail with a few stragglers tucked behind her ears. She had clear glasses that made her abundance of freckles and long eyelashes pop. She was wearing the same shirt as me but somehow it looked better on her, even though it was one size too big. The shorts she was wearing were black athletic ones that exposed her strong legs. I noticed how she never stood with both knees locked. She was always leaning into her hip with a knee bent. Odd.

The next song that came on was slower so people started waving their arms high. As did the girl. She noticed that I wasn’t waving mine, so she told me, “Come on, you’ve gotta wave.” Then she pulled my arms over my head and swayed my wrists side to side. Her grip wasn’t too tight, as if she was allowing me to pull out of it. She had small hands with extremely short nails that looked like she picked them nervously.

Once I started waving, she smiled and took the seat next to me. We started to talk about casual things until another song came on. She immediately jumped out of her seat and rushed to the empty space behind me to dance. “I love this song!” She said happily.

The singer on the stage started to sing, but I only watched the girl singing passionately behind me.

I watched her intently and smiled as she danced around. She looked over at me and smiled. “Why are you staring? Come dance!”

So I did. I joined her and bopped my head. This song wasn’t what I normally listened to. It was a Taylor Swift song about some boy called You Belong With Me. At first I didn’t like it, but when the girl beside me pointed at me and sang loudly “You belong with meeeeee” it became my new favorite. I knew that she was joking and just singing the lyrics, yet I still felt myself blush.