My Hockey Alpha

Nina

That night, it was finally time for the dance. I put on my new dress and did my hair and makeup with Lori and Jessica, then headed over to the auditorium.

The dean surprisingly put together a lovely dance despite the circumstances. There were streamers and balloons adorning the auditorium, live music being DJ’d by one of the students, and food and drinks being served. As I passed by the big, handmade signs that read “SNOW DANCE” and walked into the auditorium, it almost felt like I was in high school again, like I was just sixteen and going to a winter formal dance. Everyone was dressed up and dancing, and I even caught a few students right off the bat who were secretly sipping out of tiny bottles of alcohol and drinking vodka disguised in water bottles. Even just standing in the doorway and looking around made me smile and temporarily forget all of the horrible things that had been happening recently.

Almost immediately, Justin appeared in front of me with a grin on his face. He was dressed nicely in a pair of trousers and a button-down shirt; I had never seen him wearing anything except sweatpants and hockey shirts before, so it came as a surprise. Seeing him like that made me stifle a laugh, as he looked a little nerdy in his outfit.

“Come on,” he said, grabbing my hand and pulling me toward the dance floor. “Let’s dance.”

I was already tipsy from pre-gaming with Lori and Jessica back in our dorm, so I obliged and followed him to the dance floor. As we began to dance, I couldn’t help but smile a bit. Spending a bit of time just having fun and letting go relieved a lot of tension that had been built up lately, and I knew that Enzo would want me to have fun at least once while he was gone. Besides, the alcohol helped, and before I knew it my friends were secretly passing around water bottles filled with vodka and soda cans filled with other various forms of alcohol.

We danced for a long time, only taking breaks to drink more and take food from the buffet. Finally, however, the dean walked up on the stage and stopped the music. She leaned into the microphone with a smile on her face and an envelope in her hand.

“Thanks for coming to the Snow Dance, everyone,” she said. “So far, we’ve raised over five thousand dollars in donations from you guys and our local community.”

The dance erupted into cheers, myself included. The dean waited for the cheers to die down with a smile, then pulled a piece of paper out of the envelope.

to announce tonight’s Snow Dance

opened the paper. From afar, I swore I could see her eyes

Snow Queen, we

and shoved me forward, forcing me up onto the stage. I was rather drunk as I stumbled over to the dean in my high heels, but I couldn’t help but laugh as she placed a plastic tiara on my head. When I looked out at my friends’ smirks, I knew that they and the hockey team must have voted for me to

But it wasn’t.

Snow King… Is our new student, Eli Johnson!”

to the stage, tall and lanky, and walked up the steps. Meanwhile, his girlfriend glared up at me from the crowd. As I looked at her, I couldn’t help but wonder if she had planned on being the dance royalty with

head; I thought it was over then, but

had to

we walked down the steps together. I felt everyone’s eyes on me as we nervously began dancing, with our hands clasped uncomfortably together and his other hand on my waist while I rested one hand on his shoulder. Aside from the music, the auditorium

we danced. “Do you… I mean… Does the dress fit okay? I hope I got the

I said, “you were the one who bought me

felt bad because Se— I mean, Sadie ruined the other

didn’t know what to say. “Th-Thanks,” I muttered, feeling my

“Good,” he replied.