A/N: Well, I was planning on updating last night but I fell asleep halfway through editing and it was only like 10 so that was pathetic. I've been planning this chapter for a while. Took freaking forever to find all of them dressed nicely and not in ripped jeans or band shirts. (I'm looking at you, Jenna and Lynn) But twas worth. Also, shout out to @TheSharpestEmo on Wattpad who helped me chose one of the songs in here. Hope you all enjoy. Love you, guys!

I finish getting dressed earlier than anticipated. I feel rather stupid for going. Dances don't seem like my thing and I don't know why I'm starting to make them one. I've never been to one and I'm picturing some 18th-century movie scene with ballroom dancing as well as some modern day club provocative dancing. I flop on my bed, probably wrinkling something I'm wearing, not that I care.

So Cody asked Amelia out to the dance and they're going together. Are they like a real couple now? I doubt they are right now yet but they probably will become an item. Jenna and Lynn are going. Brendon and Audrey are together, they're surprising meeting with us for pictures. I don't know how that turned out but it's happening. I also think Patrick and Hayley are going together but as a platonic couple. Then there's Gerard and me...

Obviously, it's a possibility between us. Jen and Lynn are together so maybe Gerard and I couple be the male gay couple. I wish. I don't know why I'm so anxious. No, that's a lie. I want to go as Gerard's date, I want to dance with him, I want to do all those stupid cutesy things like matching colors and slow dance. Well, my attire is all black so as long as he has something black, I can make a mental check mark.

Uh, this is ruining my cold-hearted persona of being a tough guy. Not that I ever really was but I'm not supposed to want this stupid mushy bullshit. Stop with the romance cliches, Frank. It's ruining your reputation. And I've heard it's unhealthy for having so many emotions at once. It causes terrible things like feelings.

A faint buzzing it heard in the distance. What the? I brush my hand over my pants pocket and realize my phone isn't there. The buzzing occurs again and I sit up, rummaging through my blanket on my bed, looking for my phone. Where did I put it? I shake my blanket then hear a thud tumbling down. My phone falls on the floor and I snatch it up. 2 text notifications from Gerard.

-Hey-

-I'm like...done early so if you want to kill time together, that's cool- I force myself to not smile while reading this. Speak of the devil.

-I'm done too, want me to head over??-

After a moment, Gerard's text comes up. -Hell yea-

-Be over soon- I pock my phone and grab my bag, tossing the strap over my shoulder. I'm crashing at Jenna's afterward so I might as well grab it now instead of making two trips here.

Going downstairs, I don't anticipate my mother ready with a camera. Or my father smiling and standing next to her? Sure, I get they'd want to snap a photo or two but they're so...calm together. For a moment, I forget that it's a mess. For a moment, I don't even remember that they practically hate each other. And that moment isn't disrupted. My dad offers to drop me off at Gerard's even though it's just down the street. I take the offer since it'll save time. During the car ride, he doesn't make any nagging remarks about my mom. He just tells me to not do anything too stupid for a teenager and if we do, then don't get caught.

Gerard answers his door and my heart almost stops. "Hey, you," he says, leaning against the door and glancing me up and down. "You look sharp."

"You do too," I say with a stunned smile. He's wearing well-fitting slacks and his dress shirt is tucked in. He's not wearing his jacket, instead, he has it slung over his shoulder. "No tie?" I ask, stepping into his house.

Gerard shuts the door sighing. "You know, I tried, I really really tired but it just wouldn't work."

"Do you want help?" I ask.

He sways his head side to side. "I mean, if you're offering." The two of us hustle upstairs to his room and I take off my jacket in his room, resting it on his bed. "Here," he says, handing me a red tie off the back of his desk chair.

"Black and red, huh?" I say, straightening the fabric out. "This to match your date's dress?"

He furrows his eyebrows at me and snickers. "Yeah, totally." He rolls his eyes at me while laughing. "Like I have the capability to date."

I bite my bottom lip. "Well, you have the compassion." I reach up and slide the fabric through his collar and then even it out. "If you cared about someone enough, you could be able to." It remains silent as I wrap the fabric in a loop. "No comments?"

Not that he is obligated to reply, I hope he says something. I don't know if he doesn't want to date people but I want to be with him. I want him to say something because it feels like we should be together. I don't think I'm just saying that because I want it. I'm not a child saying that I need Gerard but I know we should be together. Maybe I'm crazy, maybe it's all in my head and there's nothing between us. But we're born with intuition and I know my gut believes these things for a reason.

Instead of answering me, Gerard just smiles softly at me. "Thank you," he says when I finish. I nod at him, acknowledging his thanks. He glances at his mirror and smiles. "I watch you do it but I still have no idea how you make it so nicely."

"Maybe it's harder because you're doing it to yourself and you can't see it works," I say, loosening my tie.

Gerard raises an eyebrow. "What are you doing?" he asks.

"Letting you try it on me."

"What, no, stop." He catches my hands and holds them still. "Don't, you did it so nicely and pretty, I'm going to ruin it."

"Gee, we have like an hour-ish to kill, I don't mind." I undo the tie and slide it off at me, handing him the fabric. "Here, do me." I instantly regret wording it that way but it's whatever, it's fine. It's fine, everything is fine...

Gerard glances at me wearily and reluctantly starts. He wraps it around my neck, and he's trying to balance it out. "I have no idea what I'm doing," he sings softly. It takes two tries to wrap it correctly but then he has difficulty trying to loop it through. He starts leaning closer and closer to me in attempts to concentrate. He's so freaking close.

He pulls the fabric through and slides it down rather quickly, choking me abruptly. It tightens around my neck and I open my mouth to speak up but I falter, gagging slightly. "Ger-" I put my hands to my neck to stop him.

Gerard winces. "Oh my god." He freezes and I yank it looser to breathe. "Oh my god, I'm so sorry."

"It's all good," I laugh while inhaling. Glancing in the mirror, I straighten it out and adjust it properly. I won't lie by saying he did better than me but I still like it because he tied it. "I like it."

"It was better before when you did it," he says.

"Well, I like how you did it. And I'll keep it this way."

We hang out for a bit, playing Injustice on his gaming console before we have to go. Gerard drives us to Cody's place. All the girls are upstairs and Brendon is on the way. Cody has black suits with a white dress shirt, sharply contrasting. Patrick's is navy tinted.

The girls come down and they're all dolled up. Because of their shoes, they are much taller than usual and I don't like it. I'm all now either their height or shorter. Jenna and Amelia are wearing the black dresses they bought at the store and Lynn has on a woman's suit, the style matching with Jenna's. Hayley has a dark navy dress that goes with Patrick. Sarah is wearing a smokey grey dress with ruffles all over on the bottom. There's a bold red trim over each layer of ruffles, the color similar to Gerard's tie.

"Well done, everyone," Hayley says, walking down the stairs toward us. "We have officially given ourselves the emo squad label."

"Did we plan to all wear black or a near black?" Cody laughs.

"I don't think so," Jenna says. "I mean, I had a bunch of ones I liked but this was the nicest style and it happened to be black."

"Technically, I'm wearing grey," Sarah points out.

Hayley looks back at her. "Honey, it's a dark grey." Sarah giggles, knowing she isn't any better than the rest of us.

"Yeah, same," Amelia says. "I had like a light blue but it was more expensive."

"Well, you girls had more options of wearing colors," Gerard says. "Guys usually wear black suits."

"What's the matter, Gee?" Amelia asks. "You should wear a Blue suit with an orange shirt and tie to prom!"

Gerard stares at Amelia mortified while she starts giggles. "The day I wear that, the day I've lost my senses. Like I said, guys don't have as many options."

"Yeah, but they can have colored dress shirts," Hayley says. "I think Patrick has the most color."

Patrick glances at her. "Uh, not really. It's a faded blue shirt and dark navy. And Gerard has a red tie."

"Besides that, he's a black hole," Amelia says. Gerard glances at her confused. "I'm not wrong."

"Good job Cody for having white," I point out.

"I think Brendon is the same as me just without a tie. And Audrey has a white dress."

"Well, she doesn't count," Gerard mutters under his breath. "We were talking about squad."

Brendon and Audrey show up shortly after and we take pictures using Jenna's camera. Cody's mom and Jenna's dad have us standing staggered on one of the staircases. They also have the couples together. Cody and Amelia, Brendon and Audrey, Jenna and Lynn. After hanging out a bit, we all head out. Cody drives Amelia and Lynn and Jenna join them. Brendon and Audrey drive together and Hayley offers to drive Patrick, Gerard, Sarah, and I.

"Gerard, you're the tallest, you sit up front," Hayley says, walking to her car.

"Noted," he says, getting in. I sit behind Gerard and Sarah sits in the middle, Patrick behind the driver seat. Cody is the first one to pull out of the driveway. Brendon hasn't started his car yet so Hayley goes next.

"Yo, turn on the radio," Patrick says.

"Gee, you do it," Hayley says, checking for oncoming traffic.

Gerard switches on the radio but Sarah groans. "Please change this, it's overplayed and I can guarantee they'll play this tonight."

Gerard switches the station, flipping through the commercials. "Oh my god! Stop!" Patrick cries out.

Mr. Brightside's intro plays. "Hell yeah!" he says.

"Coming out of my cafe and I've been doing just fine," the five of us sing in unison. "Gotta gotta be down because I want it all!" Hayley bobs her head side to side while Gerard is full on dancing in the front seat.

We get to the school, following Cody through the parking lot. "Dude, why are we parking in the teacher's parking lot," Hayley calls over to him when getting out of the car.

Cody walks over. "So when we leave, we have the right of way and can get out of traffic."

"Smart thinking," Gerard says. The group of us walk in, nearly at the entrance, realizing we didn't wait for Brendon or Audrey.

"Should we wait for them?" Amelia asks.

It's quiet because no one wants to but they also don't want to seem like a jerk. "I don't know about you, but I'm cold," Jenna says softly. "We'll meet them inside." Amelia doesn't argue. She's not overly enthusiastic about waiting either. If only he didn't go with Audrey.

Inside, the lights are all off but there are colorful strobe lights at the front, illuminating the commons. Even though it's obviously the school, it feels like I haven't been there before. The fluorescent lights aren't blaring down but soft rainbows bounce around the walls, twinkling lights sparkle on the ceiling. The windows are all painted from the art club. It doesn't seem like the same droning place everyone hates.

The girls suddenly become world famous, unable to take 5 steps without running into a group of people they have to say hello to.

"Oh my god!"

"Ah, oh, you look beautiful!"

"I love your dress!"

"Your hair is so cute!"

"You look fabulous in your dress!"

Then the group of girls glances at us guys and bubbly says hi to us to be courteous. I don't know who half the other girls are but Jenna, Amelia, Lynn, Hayley, and Sarah seem to know everyone here. Maybe it's just a girl thing. Unless their personality is bitch, girls are usually always supportive of another girl. They're always so positive. Guys are boring and lame and "too cool" to allow those things called feelings take place. Girls deserve better than the guys we have in society.

"Oh, Sarah, I love your dress," a girl I think I have math with says.

"Awe, thank you! I got it at Macy's and you look so cute with your hair in curls," Sarah replies. Another thing they do. They always repay a compliment by another compliment.

"Oh, thank you." The girl glances at Gerard and then black at Sarah. "Is he your date?"

Sarah glances at Gerard and he looks just as confused at her. "Oh, uh, no," she says. "We're all going together as friends."

"Oh, okay. It just looks like you guys are because the reds match."

Gerard looks at his tie as if he forgot suddenly what color it was. "Oh, yeah. We're matching, how about that," he laughs with a friendly smile.

"Guess so, well, it was nice seeing you," Sarah says. A part of me feels threatened suddenly. I know Sarah clarified they weren't together but they didn't really react much to them matching together. Neither of them seemed...I don't know. They seemed cool with it, like they were okay being seen as a couple. Why is this making me upset? Sarah is a nice girl, very sweet and funny and pretty. She's Hayley's good friend, she's new to the school like me and she's joined the friend group the same way I did. Granted, I'm pretty sure Hayley is trying to set her up with Brendon. I shouldn't be thinking like this.

The group of us kind of stop off to the side of the crowd right in front of the speaker. The bass of the music is blasting out of the speakers right in front of us and I can literally feel the vibration of the bass passing through my body. Jenna and Lynn are no longer with us, they've gone AWOL but I'm not the only one who noticed.

"Where're the girls?" Hayley asks, raising her voice over the music.

"Where do you think?" Gerard shouts back with a smirk. He glances toward the center of the crowd.

"Please stop it," Cody sighs.

"Hey, you know I'm not-"

"I know, I know." Cody closes his eyes and winces. "I just don't want to think about that."

"What's in the center?" I ask.

The group looks at me. "Oh, Frank," Gerard sighs, putting a hand on my shoulder. "I know you're still new to public school and this is your first dance, but take a wild guess here. Why do you think all those people are so close in the center?" I stare at him unsure of what he's implying. I start thinking about a possibility but obviously, there's no way it's that going on in the middle. "It's where all the couples get to 'dance'," he says, making air quotes.

"I'm pretty sure what I'm thinking isn't actually what's hap..." I trail off seeing the look on everyone else's face. "Okay, well then, forget I asked."

I know most of the songs playing, unable to really sing along until the second or third chorus comes on when I can try singing what I remember being repeated before. It also doesn't help everything is being remixed to a club beat. The girls eventually take off their shoes and they pile them up near the benches. Back at their usual height, they're jumping around now they don't have to worry about breaking either the heel of their shoe of heel of their foot.

After about 40 minutes, Jenna and Lynn come back and rejoin us. They're both giggling and smiling. "Someone kid threw an open water bottle into the crowd of people and we didn't get wet but it was really funny," Lynn says.

"Is that why everyone started screaming?" Patrick asks.

The group of us form a circle and we just dance around in the circle. By dance, it's mostly jumping in rhythm of the beat, singing along, and waving arms in the air. I honestly feel so stupid but that doesn't mean I don't have fun.

At one point, Hayley jumps in the middle and she starts dancing around, swaying side to side and swishing the skirt of her dress. When she hops out, Patrick hops in right spinning around while rocking out. Jenna jumps in and she moves her arms like water, dancing like Shakira. Cody jumps in swaying side to side with his hands in the air. He jumps out and in line, it's Sarah's turn to jump in the middle of our circle. She hesitates but Cody nudges her in encouragingly. she moves along to the beat as it's tempo increases. In sync with the music, she drops it low as the bass drops and then rises back up to her feet.

Continuously taking turns hopping in and out of the circle, eventually, the music slows soft and softens up. "When I was Your Man" by Bruno Mars plays. The mass of people stop jumping, stop singing as loudly as they can, they stop moving. Cody and Amelia lean against each other and they sort of sway together. Jenna and Lynn to the same but they extend their arms to me. Taking a step over, they pull me in and we sway together. Slow dancing isn't really dancing, it's more like embracing each other while the music plays. You're not singing together, you're listening together. Everyone's thoughts are no long mindlessly singing along but thinking of memories, thinking of each other. It's different.

Looking around, everyone is mostly holding each other. Couples, groups of three, friends slow dancing with friends regardless of gender. It becomes almost somber. Maybe if the slow, love song wasn't as sad, it would be different. "Do all the things I should have done...When I was your man." The music fades out when the next song plays Demi Lavato. People resume to singing along and dancing around.

Brendon joins within the duration of the song. "Hey, where's Audrey?" Amelia asks.

Brendon looks in her direction. "She's...doing her own thing with her other friends," he mutters.

We all exchange glances. "Something happen?" I ask.

He refrains from answering me directly. "No, but that doesn't stop her from being upset." He drops the topic and lightens up, enjoying time with us. We resume our circle of dancing and continue taking turns hopping in and out of the center of it.