Mr. Parker didn't make any statement over the following days, so there was no news about Alex's donation to the school. In the eyes of the students, Alex was still that poor loser.
He would rehearse with Leona whenever he had the time. However, after several previous incidents, Leona's attitude toward him had become even colder.
In the twinkling of an eye, it was the day of the New Year's party.
On the campus grounds of Richmond University, a stage on a steel structure had been set up in the morning. In the afternoon, when the sun started going down, the stage was lit up with blue lights, waiting for nightfall and the party to begin.
Alex had a good nap in the afternoon. When he got up, he washed, dressed, and ran over to the stage.
He arrived at the area behind the stage where the performers were getting ready. Leona and Colin weren't there yet. Alex saw several members of the student union, all dressed in suits, maintaining order at the venue. His roommate Eddie was also there.
Alex realized that he would be jumping around on the stage a lot during his performance, so he ran over to Eddie and asked him to hold his phone for him. He would get it back after the show.
The performers were all making their final preparations. Fiona, Alex's dance partner, was angry. She had just been to an off-campus restaurant with a classmate and had left a very important prop, her hairband, behind.
Fiona was wondering whether to go and retrieve her hairband but decided that the restaurant was too far away.
When she saw Alex, she came up with an idea. With his long legs, he could surely run fast. She decided to ask him to go and get it for her.
"Alex, I left my main prop, my hairband, in an off-campus restaurant. Would you find it for me?" she asked him anxiously.
"You, yourself can go. We still have more than an hour before the show starts. You can make it in time," Alex said.
"Fiona's such a fool. Why does she lose things? And then she expects me to find them for her", he thought.
"Well, if you go, I can help Leona put on her costume. If I'm gone, who else will help her? Do you want Colin to help her?" she asked. After many days of watching him, Fiona knew that Alex was secretly in love with Leona.
"Are you serious?" Alex asked.
"You don't want to go? Okay, I'll go by myself and let Colin help Leona get dressed," Fiona retorted.
"Okay, I'll help you find it. You stay here." Alex quickly stood up. The image of Colin dressing Leona scared him. So, without giving it another thought, he ran out to the avenue.
"Hmm, you little loser, you really are in love with Leona", Fiona said to herself. She sighed and sat down leisurely on the chair with a smile on her face.
At that moment, Colin and Leona came along. They had already put on their makeup and their costumes.
"Hasn't Alex arrived yet?" Colin asked with a frown.
"Well, Colin, as you can see, this boy doesn't take the party too seriously," Leona replied.
Colin snorted, "What this boy should do is not make a fool of himself on stage."
Leona's cell phone rang. It was her sister, Lindsey. She put the phone to her ear.
"Hello, Leona, are you having a New Year's party tonight? I want to go to it." Lindsey's sweet voice came over the phone.
"Yes, get in a taxi and get yourself over here. My performance is in the second half. You'll be able to see it when you come over," Leona said with a smile.
"I want to, but it's dark, and I'm afraid of going alone. Why don't you let Alex come to pick me up? I feel at ease with him," Lindsey said with a bit of embarrassment in her voice.
Leona wanted to tell Lindsey that Alex was also performing, but she knew that her sister really wanted him to accompany her. As her performance wasn't until later on in the evening, she decided that there would be plenty of time for him to fetch her and return, so she said, "Okay, I get him to go and pick you up now."
"Thank you, sister. I'm here at KFC. Please ask him to call me." Lindsey hung up the phone.
Leona shook her head. She found Alex's phone number in a directory of performers. She entered the number and was about to call him when she suddenly thought that if he received a call from her, he might think that she was beginning to have feelings for him.
In the end, she decided not to call but to send him a short text message instead, asking him to pick up Lindsey.
At eight o'clock in the evening, a crowd of people was sitting next to the stage. All were freshmen at Richmond University. Around them sat two or three circles of sophomores and juniors. After a burst of dazzling lights, the party officially began. A set of performers, one after another appeared on the stage, and cheers and applause rose from the audience.
Alex managed to find Fiona's lost hairband and finally returned. Fiona welcomed him back and thanked him.
Seeing that Leona was dressed and ready, he asked, "Leona's already outfitted?"
Fiona touched her nose and said with a smile, "Don't worry, I helped her. Colin didn't put a finger on her."
Alex felt relieved. He was tired after running to get Fiona's hairband, but it had been worth it.
He slowly walked over to Leona and sat down. When she saw him, Leona wondered why he had taken so long to fetch Lindsey, and asked, "Did you manage it?"
As she seldom talked to him, Alex felt flattered. He thought that she was asking whether he had brought back Fiona's hairband. He nodded and said with a smile, "Yes."
"That's good." Leona saw that her turn to go on stage was coming up and there was no need to rush to meet Lindsey.
The host of the event said loudly, "The next program is 'Dream of a Child's Heart.' I know that you're all looking forward to it. The performers are Colin, Leona, Doug, Fiona, and Alex."
After the host opened the curtains, cheers rose from the audience. All the students were happy. Colin was prince charming in the eyes of the girls, and Leona was a goddess in the eyes of the boys. They were the perfect combination.
Before Colin and his colleagues stepped onto the stage, the atmosphere was incandescent.
The boys yelled "Leona, Leona, Leona!"
The girls, not willing to be outdone, shouted, "Colin, Colin, Colin!"
When Colin and the rest of the group appeared from backstage, some members of the audience covered their mouths and jumped up in excitement.
When the lights went out, there was total silence.
As the lighting gradually brightened the stage and the first chords of the musical accompaniment sounded, Leona began to sing.
"Where is the world full of flowers?
If it really exists, then I will go to it.
I want to stand on the highest mountain there.
I don't care whether it is a precipice or not."
She stopped singing and Colin's voice rang out.
"Live hard and love hard.
Even if I can't be satisfied with anyone,
As long as I can live up to myself,
I never choose to give up on my ideals,
Even in the days of dishonor."
They each sang in turn, and Alex ran, jumped, and stretched behind them to express the fighting spirit of the song "The Atmosphere."
Alex's heart began to ache when he saw the affectionate way Colin gazed at Leona when he was singing. He hadn't gotten that kind of feeling during rehearsals. Now, with the lighting, music, and thousands of people in the audience watching, the sensation hit him hard.
He was dancing mechanically.
The next song to come up was 'Tide." Leona and Colin's voices were perfectly matched, and a chorus joined them in the background.
"Running forward to meet the cold eyes and ridicule,
How can we feel the vastness of life without suffering?
Fate can't make us kneel down and beg for mercy,
Even if blood is spilled over our arms."
Leona and Colin held hands and, to the rhythm of the music, the two or three thousand members of the audience began singing along with them.
The effect was spectacular.
Alex continued noticing the affectionate way they looked at each other. He was supposed to sprint from the left side of the stage to the right side, but he stopped. He stood behind Leona and looked at them both.
He couldn't hear Doug and Fiona reminding him to keep moving.
Fortunately, the audience was so immersed in the songs that they didn't notice a dancer standing still on the stage.
"No compromise until you get old."
At the end of the song, Leona and Colin hugged each other and thunderous applause broke out. It wasn't clear where it started at first, but someone yelled "Together, together..." Shortly, the whole audience was shouting in unison. "Together, together," resounded throughout the campus.
Colin took Leona's hand. He stared into her eyes and felt agitation drumming in his heart as his face slowly moved toward hers. Leona's emotions were in flux. With so much noise around her, she was in a state of confusion and didn't know how to react. Colin's mouth was almost touching hers.
All of a sudden, Colin was pushed away. He staggered a few times and nearly fell down. Alex grabbed Leona and shoved Colin again to the side. He was furious.
The audience started to get angry. Alex was destroying the fairy tale image that had been unfolding in front of them. They yelled at Alex and roared up onto the stage like waves.
"What the hell are you doing?" came a voice.
"Boy, you don't want to live", screamed someone else.
"You're robbing my goddess", yelled a young man from the soccer team.
"Push him away! He's looking for death", screamed some girls.
"How can you do this?" said someone from the front row.
A lot of such screams were coming from the audience but Alex paid heed to none.
"Follow me!" Alex didn't pay attention to what they were saying. He just couldn't bear the thought of someone else kissing Leona. He grabbed hold of her and ran with her backstage.
"Shit, you're making trouble on purpose, aren't you?" Ian and several of the performers surrounded Alex, and by then, Colin had also appeared.
"Get me some sports jocks to give him a good beating," Colin angrily said to Ian, who was the event's director.
"Don't do it," said Leona suddenly.
"Leona, why are you protecting him?" Colin asked.
Leona glanced at Alex, then looked at Colin and said, "I'm not protecting him. He didn't do anything wrong, so why do you want to find someone to beat him up?"
When she said this, Colin understood that he had offended her when he was preparing to kiss her on the stage, and Alex had done nothing wrong.
With that, Leona went to a chair and sat down.
Colin realized that he had acted badly. He had wanted to use the audience's enthusiasm to further his relationship with Leona. But unexpectedly, he had made her angry.
"Colin, are you still in the physical-education department?" Ian asked.
Colin glared at him and immediately walked over to and sat down beside Leona. Ian shrank back in fear and stood by to see if he could help persuade Leona to warm up to him.
"Leona, I'm sorry. I got so excited on the stage just now. I was acting irrationally when I did that. Can you forgive me?" Colin said earnestly.
Leona listened to him sincerely and realized that she was not really touched by him. She still appreciated Colin's talent, so she nodded. "Forget it this time. By the way, our performance on the stage just now seemed to have been quite successful, and the audience liked it very much."
"Did you notice how everyone sang along with us?" Seeing Leona forgive him, Colin was relieved.
"Leona, Colin, you performed very well, but you didn't see that when you sang 'High and High Tide,' that dancer stood still on the stage. If it wasn't for your excellent singing, this boy would have ruined the program," Ian said, pointing at Alex.