I Dance Alone

This was a story I wrote a couple of years ago based after a real incident in fourth grade....but I still often feel this way today. I still dance alone.

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I dance alone. I dance alone in the moonlight in the backyard. I dance alone because I have no friends. All of the other boys and girls are inside, dancing with each other, but I dance alone. Nobody wants to come out in the backyard with me. It’s a warm spring night, and the moon is really bright, but I dance alone.

This is my first boy-girl birthday party, and I dance alone. I bet I was only invited because everybody in my fourth-grade class was. The girls don’t want me here. They are all pretty and have long hair and wear dresses with ruffles on the skirts. I’m not pretty at all. I’m too tall and my hair is short and I already have a chest and I’m fat. None of the other girls are fat, or tall, or have a chest in fourth grade.

I dance alone, because none of the boys will dance with me. They dance the slow songs with the pretty girls, but I dance alone. Even Ryan, who is tall and thin and doesn’t smile, and Dan, who is fat and round, won’t dance with me. Dan’s sorta nice to me sometimes in school, and he won’t dance with me. The other boys don’t even see me.

I dance alone because it’s easier that way. I can do what I want when I’m alone, and no one else will complain or say I’m not doing it right. It’s cool in the backyard, not stuffy, like the living room where all of the other kids are. The living room smells like greasy food and too many people, but the backyard smells fresh. The grass under my sneakers is softer than any carpet.

I dance alone because there’s more room for me outside, and the crickets and the owls aren’t going to tell me I’m not wanted. Well, the kids didn’t say that, either, but most of them acted like I wasn’t there. The crickets and the owls don’t mind if I like things that the other kids don’t, like old music our parents listened to and weird science fiction movies with light swords and stuff. They don’t mind that I look funny, walk funny, or talk to myself because there isn’t anyone else to talk to. Crickets and owls don’t crowd you out when they play Spin the Bottle, or make fun of the book you gave Laurie the birthday girl, or call you a baby because you’d rather talk to Laurie’s mom than watch horror movies.

I dance alone because I always have, and I probably always will. I can be myself out here in the moonlight. Crickets and owls don’t care if you aren’t normal, if all the other kids think you’re nuts. Sometimes I wish I was in there, dancing with a boy, but then I remember that they don’t like me because I’m not like the other girls who are pretty and fun. I spend all my time alone. The boys at school call me “Fatty” and put glue on my chair, and the girls ignore me at lunch when I talk about old music or light swords.

I dance alone because you can’t dance with someone else when there’s only one of you.

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I really did go to a boys-girls party towards the end of fourth grade. Although I changed their names to protect the (not-so) innocent, "Dan," "Laurie," and "Ryan" were real classmates at the time. I really did spend a lot of the night talking to the birthday girl's mother and avoiding the other kids. I felt awkward playing Spin the Bottle, and when none of the boys wanted to dance with me, I went outside in the backyard and danced by myself.

I still vividly remember that night, how it felt to dance all alone in the cool air of a night in late spring, to know that an older woman and the owls and crickets were the only ones who wanted you, that the darkness would never hurt you.