Chapter Text
Avery watches as her best friend dances with his now girlfriend as prom king and queen. She smiles as best as she can but it does not reach her eyes. After a while she turns and walks of to the table filled with food untouched as everyone enjoys the festivities of the night.
She fills up her plate with a few chips, some chicken and puts a soda on the center.
"Hungry aren't ya?" She hears from behind.
She turns with one of her eyebrows raised.
"Well, I sure ain't planning to let good food go to waste. After all, everyone seems more focused on the festivities rather than the food."
Daniel nods his head and fills a plate for himself. Seeing the bigger pile of food on his plate, Avery smirks.
"Hungry aren't ya?" She chuckles as she returns his words.
He smiles, and nods his head. "Like you said, it ain't good to let good food go to waste."
He leads Avery to an empty table not far from the gathered crowd and takes a seat beside her.
"So, lovely weather we'ee having huh?"
Avery looks at him weirdly, an eyebrow raised and her head tilted.
Daniel laughs at her confusion. "Just making conversation." He explains.
Avery smiles and shakes her head. "For a library partner, you sure don't know how to make small talk."
Daniel swallows the food he is currently chewing before he replies. "Well, we usually hang out in a library after all. Not much leeway for conversation or small talk."
She shrugs, "I guess. But there must be something better to start a conversation with than the weather? Especially since we are at a party after all. And it's night time."
Daniels mimics her shrug, "Well I was trying to steer clear of the topic of the party, since I saw you being all melancholic before you approached the refreshments table and I was trying to be sensitive."
There was a short silence as Daniel takes another bite from his chips and Avery stares at him.
He realizes what he said a quickly attempts to recover, "I'm sorry, here I was trying to be nice and I ended up lecturing you in an offensive way."
Avery snaps out from her daze and quickly shakes her head. "No, no, you were right, I'm sorry. You were being nice."
She pauses, before looking back at Daniel who was now looking at his drink as if it was very interesting.
"Wait, you were watching me?"
Daniel looks at her and smiles sheepishly from being caught. He laughs awkwardly rubbing the back of his neck.
"Well, yeah. Everyone was starting to dance and I was about to ask you for one, but when I saw the look on your face, I thought you might not be up for it."
Avery's expression softened. During the school year, other than Jason, her best friend, crowned prom king and a couple of class friends, Daniel was the only person she hung out with that shared her interest in books. They might not haved talked much outside of being library assistants and the occasional book club gatherings, but she grew fond of the guy over the course of high school.
"Thanks Danny." She smiles. "If you're still up for dancing, I would like to take up on your offer."
Daniel's hands halt from feeding himself another chip, his face sporting a surprised look. He quickly closes his mouth and nods, not trusting his words.
Avery nods in turn and begins finishing up her plate.
When they finish their plate, Daniel stands up and asks for Avery's hand and proceeds to lead her to the dance floor. As if fate had eyes, the DJ announced that it was the final dance of the night and proceeds to play a slow dance.
Avery looks at Daniel with a hesitant look, but to her surprise, Daniel smiles and begins to slowdance with her.
"You're too tense." He whispers to her ear.
As if electricity shot through her, Avery tensed even more before calming down. She sighs and shakes her head, a small smile on her face.
"A penny for your thoughts?" Daniels asks.
"Nothing, my thoughts are pretty much scattered right now that I don't really have thoughts."
Daniel twirls her gently, before dipping her.
"Well, to take your mind of your scattered thoughts, I'm gonna start a conversation." Taking Avery from her dipped position, he proceeds to sway her.
"Okay then, shoot."
"Okay, we never really talked about this before, with finals and the events we have before graduation. But I was curious, where are you planning to go for college?"
Avery had a contemplating look on her face, before she answered. "I was actually thinking if I should go through with college."
Daniel raised an eyebrow, expression curious. "Why so?"
Avery shrugged, here eyes looking far away, as if recalling something. "Well, although I applied for multiple schools my parents and some peers think I shouldn't pursue it."
Avery blinked to look back to Daniel and sa when had a blank expression on his face. She sensed that he was upset and tilted her head towards his face.
Daniel blinked in surprise, snapping out of his blank stare.
"Isn't psychology your passion? Why would you let other people discourage you so easily?"
Avery sighs. "Yeah, it is."
"Then, why?" Daniel pushes. Avery remains silent, a hesitant look on her face. Daniel looks behind him to see Jason laughing and dancing with his date, Macy.
"It's because Jason said so, isn't it?" He sighs and shakes his head, expressing his disapproval.
Avery's eyes widens, but she quickly replaces her shock with a blank expression. Acting unbothered, she negates his statement and changes the topic.
"How about you? Are you going to pursue journalism?"
Noticing her dislike to continue the topic, he follows her lead. "Yeap, I'm already preparing my things to go to college too."
Avery smiles at that and begins to tease him. "Ever the early bird aren't you? Vacation hasn't even started yet and you are already getting ready to end it."
Daniel laughs at that. "I'm planning to stay at the university's dorm after all, I need to get used to the place, plus, I wanna check out what they have, specially the organizations and library."
"Of course you would do that." Avery rolls her eyes at his statement as they continue to sway to the music. She hums along Abit before quickly turning back to Daniel.
"Wait, you never told me where you applied for! Which university are you going to?"
He chuckles and raises his eyebrow. " Why don't you guess?"
Realization sinks in and she laughs aloud, causing the other people surrounding them to stare. She notices and hides her flushed face on Daniel's chest. Once she recovers, she smacks him on his arm.
"Ow!!! Geez woman, what did I do?" Daniel rubs his arm.
"If you said you were going there I would have made my decision quicker! Now I'm sure that I wanna go to college." She says, hugging him.
Daniel smiles, but it was quickly wiped away by a thought. "I don't want you to go to that uni just because I'm going there though. Are you sure? From what you said before, what your parents and peers said seems to matter to you."
"I did say that, but that was just something I was thinking about. Overall I really want to go to uni and pursue psychology, so it won't be me going because of you entirely. Having you with me would be simply a bonus."
He was surprised by her quick reply, but satisfied that she is happy.
The song finishes and they go back to their table.
"Well then, I guess I'll see you in uni." Daniel says, raising his cup.
"Yes, yes you will." Avery clicks hers.