May 14, 1999

Jenna is sleeping over and she's already fallen asleep. There was a dance tonight, and it was so fun! Mark couldn't go but that was okay, because I wanted to flirt with other guys anyway. I wore a pink shirt that is skin-tight and comes down almost to my boobs.

I was talking to Tyler, and he said, "Will you dance with me on the next slow song?" I said yes, so when the next slow song came on we started dancing. I put my head against his shoulder and closed my eyes. It was so comfortable. Then the song ended and we parted, and I went over sit on the bleachers.

Zach came over and was being quite talkative. I realized that I'm starting to feel comfortable around him, for the first time ever. We started to talk about when we went to third base, and he said, "I'm so sorry for everything that happened after that. Really." He looked like he genuinely meant it, and so of course I believed him. He still has that hold on me. I decided I wanted to dance with him. [Uh, oh.]

But there was just fast song after fast song, no slow songs, so I kept talking to him and waiting. Zach decided to get up on Matt's shoulders, so they'd be really tall. [Naturally.] Then Zach looked at me and said, "No, Emily, you get on my shoulders!" I was like, "I am too scared to get on anyone's shoulders!"

Then a slow song came on and Stacy pulled me aside and said, "Oh, my god, I think Zach likes you again. You should dance with him!" Then Zach was right there, and I covered my face and hid in Stacy's shoulder, so she whispered to him, "Will you dance with Emily?" And I heard him say, "Yeah." Then I looked up and started shaking my head no.

Zach opened his arms and said, "Come on." So I wrapped my arms around his neck and leaned close against him. Matt was flicking Altoids at us. [Seriously, Matt?] Everyone who passed by raised their eyebrows and whispered something, sometimes something mean, but I felt like I belonged in Zach's arms. I felt like holding him was the way it should be.