The Last Slow Dance

Thea had spent most of senior year perfecting the art of not looking at Declan directly. It was a skill that required constant, exhausting vigilance and had, as far as she could tell, accomplished nothing except making her extremely good at seeing him in her peripheral vision instead. They had two classes together, a handful of overlapping friends, and roughly four years of near-conversations that had never quite become an actual one. It wasn't out of dislike, she was sure, but out of the particular cowardice that convinces two shy people they are reading each other correctly when neither has said anything real enough to read. Had either of them simply asked, freshman year, four years of peripheral vision might have been unnecessary entirely.

高三这一年，西娅大半的时间都花在练一门技艺上：不直视德克兰。这门技艺需要时刻保持警惕，累人得很，而据她看来，除了让她特别擅长用余光看到他之外，什么成果也没有。他们一起上两门课，有几个共同的朋友，还有大约四年的话到嘴边，却始终没能变成一次真正的交谈。她确信这不是因为讨厌，而是出于一种特殊的怯懦：两个害羞的人，在谁都没说出足够真实的话可供解读的时候，却都认定自己读懂了对方。要是高一那年他们中随便哪一个开口问一问，这四年的余光也许根本就不必要。

The graduation dance was, by unofficial tradition, the last chance anyone got to fix that kind of thing before it became permanent. Rarely had a gymnasium held so much unspoken material in one place. Thea knew this. She suspected Declan knew it too, given how carefully he'd been avoiding the same section of the gym she was avoiding, in what had started to resemble a very inefficient, very mutual game of chicken.

毕业舞会按不成文的传统，是大家在这类事情变成定局之前，最后一次补救的机会。体育馆里很少一下子装着这么多没说出口的话。西娅知道这一点。她猜德克兰也知道，因为他一直小心地躲着体育馆里她躲着的那一片，两个人玩起了一场看上去效率极低、却又极有默契的比胆量游戏。

It was Priyanka, tired of watching both of them fail to act on the obvious, who finally intervened. She physically steered Thea toward the drink table where Declan happened to be standing, with the subtlety of someone who had clearly been recruited for exactly this purpose.

最后是普里扬卡出面干预了，她看够了这两个人对明摆着的事迟迟不行动。她直接把西娅推到饮料桌旁，德克兰碰巧就站在那儿，那份不动声色，一看就是被人专门招募来干这件事的。

"You two are genuinely exhausting to watch," Priyanka said, and left.

“看你们俩真是累死人了，”普里扬卡说完就走了。

Neither of them spoke for a moment that felt considerably longer than it was. Then the DJ, with timing so convenient it bordered on suspicious, put on the last slow song of the night.

两个人都没说话，那一刻显得比实际长得多。接着，DJ放起了当晚最后一首慢歌，时机巧得近乎可疑。

"We could," Declan said, not quite finishing the sentence, gesturing vaguely toward the dance floor with an expression that suggested he was fairly certain he was about to be turned down.

“我们可以……”德克兰说，话没说完，含糊地朝舞池比画了一下，神情好像相当确定自己就要被拒绝了。

"We could," Thea agreed, in the same unfinished way, and somehow that was enough.

“我们可以……”西娅同样没说完地附和道，不知怎么，这样就够了。

Dancing badly, at a respectful distance that gradually stopped being respectful and started being simply closer, Thea found herself doing something she hadn't managed in four years. She was actually saying the thing, instead of performing elaborate peripheral-vision choreography around it. "I've liked you since junior year. I never said anything because I genuinely thought you'd say no."

两个人跳得很糟，保持着一个有礼貌的距离，那距离渐渐不再有礼貌，只是变得越来越近。西娅发现自己做到了四年来一直没做到的事。她真的把话说了出来，而不是围着它编排精心的余光舞步。“我从高二起就喜欢你了。我一直没说，是因为我真心觉得你会拒绝。”

"I've liked you since the hallway thing in tenth grade," Declan said. "I never said anything because I assumed you were out of my league and didn't want to find out I was right."

“我从十年级走廊里那件事起就喜欢你了，”德克兰说，“我一直没说，是因为我觉得你远在我够不着的地方，而且不想去证实我是对的。”

"We're both idiots."

“我们俩都是傻瓜。”

"Catastrophically. We had four years."

“傻得惊天动地。我们明明有四年。”

"We have tonight," she said, "and apparently a group chat's worth of friends who've been planning this exact moment since October."

“我们还有今晚，”她说，“还有一群朋友，显然从十月起就在策划这一刻了，一个群聊的人。”

He laughed, and didn't let go when the song ended, and neither of them looked over to check whether Priyanka was watching, though both of them were fairly sure she was.

他笑了，歌曲结束时也没有松开手，两个人谁都没有回头去看普里扬卡是不是在看，尽管两个人都相当确定她在看。