Author's Note: I apologize for this. I don't really think it's very good; I just kinda had to let it out.

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It’s just what we do – sit in each other’s basements and watch movies. We wouldn’t have it any other way. Normal kids go have parties and get drunk and wake up the next morning next to someone they only talk to on facebook. We don’t think that’s fun at all. We find comfort in each other’s arms rather than in bottles of beer that burn the throat and break the soul. We would rather listen to acoustic guitar melodies around a camp fire than loud computerized drum beats, intoxicating your brain with ungodly awful music. We’re not weird, we’re different.

When I walk in, the basement already houses a few people plugging guitars into amps and lightly tapping the drum heads with wooden-tipped sticks. He catches my eye from across the room and gives me a wink. I smile. We’ve known each other for four years, and he’s always been good-looking. The way a star never seems to lose its glimmer. Honey-colored hair with natural chocolate highlights; green eyes that seem to look at only you. When he looks away, I feel my cheeks burning. The host asks me if he should turn the heat down. I tell him that no, I'm fine.

It isn't long before the room is filled with guitar melodies and head banging on the part of the males, the females either singing along or just dancing around with each other. I, for one, am given the oh-so-important task of playing the rainstick. It's not really that important. I play viola - there's not really much of a place for a viola in rock music - so instead they hand me the rainstick and tell me to tip it over whenever I most see fit. This is pretty much every moment possible. No song is complete, I believe, without a little rainstick.

After a while, when everyone's necks are sore from head banging and their fingers are bleeding from pressing strings down on necks of guitars, we stop and decide to let the stereo play the music instead of us. Then we fall to the ground and rest our heads on each others' stomachs in one giant cuddle puddle on the floor, looking up at the ceiling as if there's something pretty to look at. There isn't, really - just a drop ceiling reminiscent of an office building. But we close our eyes and pretend there's something pretty up there.

"How's the girlfriend?" someone asks him.

"She's well," he replies. I feel myself tense slightly. I wish more than life itself that there was no girlfriend, or that I was the girlfriend who was being referred to. But I'm not. So I need to just shut up and deal with it.

"How are you?" I ask him.

"Kind of lonely," he says in reply. My heart sinks a little bit. That is, until I feel his hand in mine.

"Will you dance with me?" he asks, turning his head to look at me. Even if I wanted to reject him, with the look on his face that he's making right now, there's no way I could say no.

"Of course I'll dance with you," I say. He stands up first, then takes both of my hands and pulls me to my feet. He lets go of me with his left hand and spins me with his right, and when I turn back to face him, he lets go of me completely. Suddenly, everyone is standing up and dancing again, and we all become one giant mess of bodies, bumping into each other and tripping over each other and spinning each other around in circles. As the beat of the music changes, so does our tempo of dancing. Sometimes we're just rocking out with imaginary guitars, other times we're flailing our arms and legs like we're having heart attacks, and other times we're holding on to each other's hands and swing dancing like we're back in the 1920's. We can't help being crazy. It's what we do.

Then the beat of the music changes again, and I feel a hand on my waist. It doesn't grab me, so to speak, but sweeps me into someone's arms gently and presses our bodies together. I look up. It's him again.

It's strange how a smple dance can make you so excited. Skin on skin, shirt on shirt, skin on shirt, hands on hips. Hearts pounding through chests, blood rushing through ears, heads spinning, eyes closed.

When they finally open, everyone except for us is on the couch, starting up a movie in the DVD player.

He seems to read my thoughts when he says, "Wow, we sure know how to clear the dance floor, huh?" He rocks me to the beat of the music, showing my hips which way to sway so that we will dance as one being.

"I guess so. They all left," I reply.

He looks up and says to me, "I don't really care that much."

I smile. "I don't either."

I won't lie - the face of his griflriend pops into my head as the song comes to a close and we just stare at each other, grinning slightly and blushing faintly. But I'm selfish, and if this will help him realize the illegitimacy of his relationship, then so be it.

We eventually join everyone on the couch. There's barely enough room for the two of us to squeeze in next to each other. We are, once again, a giant cuddle puddle full of lonely teenagers, looking only for some love in a world they can't help but find slightly hateful. He sits me on his lap and puts his arm around me, holding my hand with his free one. It's not a big deal that we're lap-sitting because with all of the bodies on the couch, the only way to tell whose legs are whose are by the pants we're wearing. We all deserve each other, and we're all just doing the best we can to be each other's comfort.

His breath tickles my ear. I don't know if he means to make me shiver like that, but he does.

"Are you cold?" he asks.

Unable to figure out a way to cover up my sudden shiver but not wanting to lie, I say, "Sort of."

He pulls me closer to him and wraps his arms around me. "I'll keep you warm," he says.

After the movie is over, we spend about ten minutes arranging rides home, since only some of us can drive. So and so will bring home blah de blah, and whosit will bring home what's-her-name. His house and mine are relatively close, so he'll drive me home.

We get in the car. He drives. We sit in relative silence, except for the dulcet tones of a mellow indie band playing from his CD player. He's too old-school for an iPod. Both of us have heavy eyelids.

When we reach my house, he turns off the car and we sit there for a moment, again, in relative silence.

I break it by saying, "Thank you for driving me home."

"Of course. We live so close together that it wouldn't make much sense for anyone else to drive you," he says. He opens the door and steps outside, walking around to my side. He opens the door for me with a deep bow.

"After you, miss," he says. A smile plays at the corner of my lips.

"Thank you, sir," I reply, stepping out of the car. I turn towards the house, but he grabs my hand.

"You didn't think you could leave without saying goodbye, did you?"

I grin. "Of course not."

He pulls me in and presses my body to his. He can wrap his arms all the way around me. I can't help but notice how good he smells.

I take a step back from him, but his hands are still on my waist. For a moment, he seems to be searching my face with his deep green eyes. His hand moves to my neck, and I feel him drawing me closer. I can feel the warmth radiating from his lips. I am so close.

I am too close.

I turn my head away. The world stops for a second, and he sighs deeply. I look at him, trying to find some sort of word to say that will help me to explain to him my actions, but nothing comes to me.

He kisses my cheek instead. He's not smiling anymore.

"Goodnight," he says, and his hands finally leave my waist.

He silently gets in the car and turns the key in the ignition. The headlights blind me, and I squint my eyes so I can see. He backs out of the driveway and, looking at me forlornly, pulls away from my house.

I sigh and walk inside. My parents are asleep on their respective chairs in the family room. I look in the office, where my younger sister is playing on the computer.

"You should probably get to bed before Mom and Dad wake up," I advise.

"And who died and made you the queen of the world?" she snaps.

Disgusted, I say, "Well, excuse me."

"There is no excuse for you," she replies harshly, not once taking her eyes off the screen.

For one reason or another, I take more offense to the remark than she meant for me to take. Where I would normally snap a retort at her as punishment for her cheek, I am suddenly angry at ymself because I realize she's right.

There is no excuse for me. Just because his girlfriend is in college, I don't have the right to take him from her. Just because he's attracted to me, it doesn't make him mine. Just because I want him more than I've ever wanted anything in my life, I can't have him for my own. Whereas before I was sympathetic towards myself, now I am repulsed.

And what repulses me even more is the fact that as I slip between the sheets of my bed, I can't help but touch the lips that he almost kissed and wish that I was falling asleep next to him.