"Why the heck did you run away, you fuzzbrain?" Kaelyn asked me as we entered the cafeteria.  Ember muttered something about being an only child, as she tagged along.  I rolled my eyes, pretending to sound annoyed.  "Why's it matter to you?"

"Dylan was worried about you."

"Why's it matter to you?"

"We almost called the police."

"Why's it matter to you?"

"I was worried about you." Kaelyn admitted.

"Good, now let's move on." Embed piped up.  And so we did.  It was awkward at first, Ember kept looking up and down, or at the group of basketball players to the left, pretending something interesting was going on elsewhere.  I kept fidgeting, adjusting the way I sat at the lunch table.  First I had my legs crossed, then I was folding my arms across my chest, and so on and so on.  Kaelyn kept playing with one of her blond curls.  "So," I said, "how much did you here when we talked to the vice principal, Kaelyn?"

"All of it, Megan." Kaelyn replied.

"Um, are you going to, like, try to stop us?" Ember asked my sister.

"As a matter of fact, no, Ember." Kaelyn said a bit bitterly because we thought she was a villain, "I am now on Team Gay Rights."

"There's actually no 'Team'...yet." Ember mumbled.

"Okay, whatever.  Look, guys, I'm your best bet." Kaelyn said, "I have lots of friends in Grade Eleven, so I can get the word out easily.  I might have thought the stuff you guys believe in was just down right weird, but, when Megan left, I took a different look on things.  I think all types of love are normal, so please, let me help!"

I looked at Ember and Ember looked at me.  "Sure," I said, "you can help."

Kaelyn's eyes sparkled joyously.

Over the weeks we had, lesbian awareness posters started appearing on the walls of Peternan High.  I stayed at Ember's house pretty much every night for two weeks, Mom knowing where I was as well as Dylan and Kaelyn.  But, slowly, I Mom did some reading on lesbians, and grew more and more acceptant of me, so I came home.

Finally, the night of the dance was here.  Kaelyn looked absolutely stunning in her silvery blue dress, with fake crystals sewed along her shoulders and tule flowing down from her waistline of black fabric.  Black trimming was twisted in a complicated French Twist in her blonde hair.  Her black heels, with silver straps  finished off the look.  Kaelyn is beautiful, I thought, inside and out.

The doorbell rang at our house, and there was Ember Wilson, in a bright red dress.  It fell to the floor and had a slit at her left leg.  Then, the satin fabric was pulled up to her left shoulder, revealing a lovely tulle rose with golden flakes in it.  Ember's freckles made her face so young that I didn't notice any zits.  Her hair was wrapped up in braids, along the back of her head, almost like Princess Leia's from Star Wars.  Her gold heels had red studs and she looked gorgeous.  She hugged me and asked, "Are you ready?"

I had worn a floral dress, to show off the rainbow theme for lesbians and gays, and also, it was darn beautiful.  It was a high-low sleeveless gown, with a cream base and fuschia and marigold coloured flowers with evergreen leaves on it.  The material was lacy on the outside, but comfortable on the inside.  Kaelyn had helped me brush my brown bangs to the side, and twist my hair up in complicated knots, like a movie star's.  My hair finally cooperated for once!  I wore tan heels, with pink straps, and little coral flowers around each toe.  I grabbed my best friend and my older sister's hands and replied to Ember as bravely as I could muster, "Yes, I am ready."

As we arrived at the dance, in the gym, I noticed the bluish hue coming from the lights in the ceiling.  White lights, however, brightened up a platform.  That was where I acted out the final phase of the plan- I was going to make a speech.  I ebbed my way through tall trees of balloons and students, boys and girls, laughing and going on sugar highs.  I was suddenly tapped on the shoulder, and I saw my vice principal standing there.  "Okay Megan, you're going to make the speech at seven thirty, right before I thank the students who made this dance work.  You'll have about five minutes, is that okay?" Mrs.  MacKenzie asked me.

"Yep." I responded nervously.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Mrs. MacKenzie asked, voice softening, "It's very brave of you."

"Yes, I think so." I replied with a little more confidence.

"Alright.  I'll let you know when it's time, just try to relax, okay?  Try to relax..."

Relax I did.  I had lots of fun chilling with Ember and Kaelyn, dancing to the songs and eating brownies and cupcakes.  I almost forgot what I had to do later that evening!  That's pretty good, huh?  Anyway, fifteen minutes before the speech, I went to go get everyone drinks, when I bumped into someone familiar.

My girlfriend.

Sorry, my ex-girlfriend.

Marionette had on a sleeveless navy, almost black, flowing dress.  Sequins and flickers of gold material dotted the dress, like constellations of the stars.  Her heels were gold as well with navy straps overlapping each other in a criss-cross format.  Marionette's ebony hair was long and flowing down to her waist with two star barrettes clipped to the side of her head, to keep the hair out of her face.  Her chocolate eyes twinkled under layers of blue eyeshadow, black eyeliner and mascara.  "Wow, Marionette!" I gasped, "You look beautiful!"

"Excuse me." Marionette said.  I thought she was saying that in a rude way, but I realized I was standing in front of all the Diet Coke, when she obviously wanted one.  "Oh yeah, sorry!" I grabbed Kaelyn's drink and slid to the side and grabbed Ember's Ginger Ale.  "Um, Marionette," I continued, "if you want...if you want, you can hang out with Ember and Kaelyn and me.  We're just over there."  I gestured towards Ember and Kaelyn, "Oh, also, I'm really sorr-"

"Megan?  Megan?  Oh, there you are.  It's time." Mrs. MacKenzie entered our chat and touched my arm.  As she lead me away, I peeked back over my shoulder at Marionette.  "Oh, I'll see you...later!"

Marionette just shrugged glumly and barely looked me in the eye.

I arrived at the stage behind my vice principal.  She waved her hands and called for everyone's attention.  The gym fell silent as the students quieted down, but fidgeted impatiently for they wanted to get back to dancing.  I didn't hear the first part of Mrs. MacKenzie's talk, but I stepped forward when I heard, "And now Megan Maxwell would like to share something she has been working on."

I cautiously moved towards the microphone, heart pounding and knees shaking.  I gripped the microphone in my hands as my peers clapped welcoming.  I saw a few in the front row snicker, for I was probably their laughingstock on the Internet right now, but I turned away from them.  I scanned the crowd and saw my best friend Ember smiling at me encouragingly with her thumbs up and Kaelyn with her friends, gesturing for me to breathe.  I sucked air in and blew it out with a sigh.  Marionette's dazzling brown eyes then caught my attention.  Tonight I would apologize to her no matter what, even if this whole entire thing fails, I still want her to know that I love her.  Say it to Marionette, I thought, say it to her.

"Fellow classmates, friends, peers, teachers," I began, "over the course of the past few weeks, there have been posters appearing around the school.  If you stopped and read them, then you would no what I'm talking about.  I'm talking about LGBT rights.  This may seem like an odd time to bring this topic up, for this is a dance not a lecture hall, but I think this should be said right now."

I sighed and felt more confidence as my peers were listening and continued, "This dance is a party.  At parties there is typically romance.  As we were brought up we learned the stereotypical princess and prince story where a boy meets girl, they fall in love, and get married and live happily ever after.  As we grew up, we noticed that that is not the only type of love in this world.  There are gays, where boys love boys, and lesbians, where girls love girls.  There are also people who just can't decide what gender they love.  They are called bisexuals.  There are also people who choose to be a different gender than their birth sex and they are called transgenders.  They may seem different than what you may be used to, but they are not weird or gross.  They are just the same as you.  As normal as the human race can get.  Over the years we have been discriminating against these people- the LGBTs to be exact, even though no matter how hard you want to rid society of them, it's just not going to happen.  They're here, I'm here, you're here, we're all here and as long as there is love there are going to be lesbians, gays, and bisexuals."

I let that sink in for a moment as my crowd leaned into listen.  I grinned broadly, as Ember described it later, for I knew that I was getting my point across.  I continued with, "So, why be so mean to them?  Why treat them like they're worth nothing?  They're not- and I know it first hand.  It's because I am a lesbian.  I am a lesbian and I'm proud of whom I love.  However, I can't be the complete victim in the LGBT situation either because I would avoid and treat coldly who was on my side through me discovering my love because I was afraid of being a laughingstock.  And the person I'd like to apologize to is Marionette Talon, my girlfriend.  Marionette, I'm sorry.  I was wrong for avoiding you and giving you the cold shoulder and I think we've all learned a little bit more on being acceptant on the diversity of everyone.  Gay or straight, bisexual or lesbian.  I'd like to give this another shot, if that's okay with you?"

As I finished my speech, I gazed through the crowd, and saw her.  Making her way through the people, shining tears streaming down her cheeks, Marionette made her way up to the stage.  She embraced me and sobbed joyously into my shoulder.  I loved feeling her warmth against my body and leaned in closer.  "That was beautiful," she whispered, "so beautiful."

"Thank you." I whispered back.

"I forgive you," Marionette said, but then, a little louder to the school, "I forgive you!"

Even if this flunked, I would have still been happy.  I had Marionette back and that was all that mattered.  But, as we linked hands and faced the school, an applause with cheers roared up.  "MEGAN! MEGAN!" some students shouted.

"MARIONETTE! MARIONETTE!" others cried.

We waved and curtsied and exited the stage.  Mrs. MacKenzie quickly made a few thank you notes to the dance production crew and the party was back on.  I walked back with Marionette and blushed, but asked confidentially, "So, do you want to dance?"

Marionette was about to reply, when I heard an oh so familiar voice, "Megan, Marionette."

"Dinah." I said, voice cold and hard.  I turned to see Dinah's hair done up in a twist, in a fiery red dress that went down to her knees.  Her heels were super high and had red studs on them.  She looked like the same old Dinah Colby, and I braced myself.

However, she said, raising her hands in surrender, "I don't want to start a fight.  Megan, your speech was really powerful.  I mean, really, really, powerful.  And I'd just like to say, I'm sorry.  I guess I didn't know a lot about LGBTs so I made fun of them, which I didn't have the right to.  Megan, Marionette, I am sorry for drilling a hole (kind of) through your relationship.  I hope I haven't ruined things and I hope we can at least be civil to each other."

"Yes," I said, but then I smirked, "but on two conditions."

"Shoot."

"One:  Apologize to Ember Wilson for starting the rumour about her being lesbian a while back.  Also take down any remaining posts on Ember off your social media sites.  Two:  Do the same for me.  Then, we can maybe be friends and the principal doesn't need to know about this matter."

Dinah looked down and said, "The posts will be off by tomorrow.  I will apologize to Ember right away."  She turned to leave.  I called, "And Colby!"

"Yes?"

"I'll see you around."

"I'll see you soon, Megara." Dinah smiled her Cheshire Cat smile and left.

I turned to Marionette.  "About that dance..." I trailed off as I asked her to dance.  She had already grabbed my hands and had pulled me into a slow waltz.  Marionette said, "Of course I'll dance with you, even if I don't know how."

"I really don't either." I laughed softly.

"I guess we'll do things like we always do.  We'll just see what happens." Marionette said.

"Yeah..."

So I danced with my girlfriend.  I wouldn't have cared if there was no one else doing it, but in the corner of my eye I saw boys dancing with boys, girls dancing with girls, boys dancing with girls, but they all were not afraid to show their love.  I wasn't either.  I had learned my lesson- never be afraid  to show your love for someone.

Even if it was a different kind of love.