Dancing is liberating.

I position my toes in pointe and carefully rise up till I am balancing on no more than two points of my body. Blood propels throughout me and I forget how to even breathe. Then, from pointe, I raise my left leg and transition into pirouette, spinning until the world disappears before me.

In life, most people search for their one escape, but most never find it. I am lucky. I am blessed to be a dancer, to love, and to sell my soul to the art. It is times like now, when I spin too fast for the tears in my eyes to fall, that I am most thankful. Dancing blocks out worldly pains.

I need to dance.

Faster.

I don’t want to stop. If I stop…

I stop.

There is a click as the soft ballet melody rasps to a jerking halt. I stumble into a closing position before raising my eyes to meet the dance hall mirror. He is standing there, reflected within the glass, watching me. He knows.

“Analise,” he states simply.

I stay still, holding my arms in outwards position, waiting for him to restart the tape. His blue eyes edge on the shade of ashen gray today. They are strained as they gloss over my body. I wonder if he sees the trembling in my legs.

“Analise,” he repeats.

I bite down on my lip, habitably gnawing at its left corner. The metallic taste of iron seeps into my mouth when I break skin without noticing. There is slight pain, but it only serves to null the clenching in my heart. Can he hear it? My heart is cracking.

“Analise,” he begs, “please talk to me.”

He has a low voice. Just a few months ago, I would have been satisfied to spend the rest of my days melting under the velvet of his voice. Just a few hours ago, I would have ran to him. I would have performed my newest routine for him…the routine I’ve been practicing in secret for half a year now.

One step at a time, he nears me and I am pulled to him by gravitational attraction. My breath catches and the thuds of my heart echo in my ears because he is coming closer and my mind is confounded with thoughts only of how I am not good enough for him anymore. I’ll never be good enough again. By now my reflection in the mirror has turned sheet white. Sweat rolls down the side of my neck. Cold sweat.

I let out a half strangled cry, the call of a wounded animal, when his lean, toned arms wrap around me. He holds me close to his chest and I can feel the pulse of his heart beating within his ribcage. It is strong and he is warm, so warm. In his arms, I am allowed to drown within a falsified reverie.

“Lukas,” I whisper, “Lukas.” Again and again I repeat his name.

He holds me tighter.

“I know Analise, I know.”

I know Lukas meant well, but he doesn’t know. Dance is my escape. I need to dance. Without it, without it…I am nothing without it. How much of me would still remain if I lost the act I tied my soul to.

My body collapses in his arms and breaks from ballet position. The temporary illusion dance brought me fragments into shards of crystal and each sliver pierces my heart. Tears I can no longer hold in fall from my eyes, down my cheeks, and onto his arms. In the mirror, my reflection stares back at me. I am red faced, puffy, and pitiful and once again reminded of how I will never be whole again.

“I won’t be able to dance with you again.”

He only nods and buries his head in my hair. I can’t see his expression but I can hear his almost silent sobs. My heart shatters slightly more, because next to dance, Lukas is and always will be most important.

***

There is a knock on the door and I give a slight smile before calling the knocker in. I cannot rise and open the door myself, but I know that he will not mind. Lukas is like that, always mindful of others. Even back in our grade school years, he was protective of me.

A soft snort exits my throat when I remember how he used to give me all his jolly ranchers, even the apple flavored ones, his favorite, because he knew I had a sweet tooth. Maybe that was what I fell for – his sweetness.

“Well Analise, laughing at me already?”

“Of course not Lukas. I just think you’re cute, that’s all.”

I catch a light blush on his face before he turns his head to the side and cause light chestnut locks to block his side profile. He sets his college bag down next to the television before approaching my side and taking a seat down next to my bed. My eyes linger on his navy blue Jansport bag and I wince.

“How long has it been?”

He fakes a confused expression but I know he is only avoiding the topic.

“How long since when?”

“How long since you danced.”

He is silent and I am too. Neither of us speaks for a long time and time seems to freeze between us. It’s been three weeks since my operation. He’s visited me a total of fifteen times after the surgery and whenever he did, he carried his Jansport backpack instead of his dance duffle bag.

“Three weeks,” he finally says.

“Don’t do this to yourself, Lukas. Don’t do this to me.”

Lukas shakes his head and stares down towards me with regretful eyes.

“I can’t dance without my partner. I’ll wait for you to get better, and then we’ll dance together again.”

I scoot upward in my bed and place a hand on either side of his face. He is forced to meet my eyes and when he does, I perceive every ounce of pain within his heart directly. It hurts. Lukas never was good at hiding his emotions.

“Lukas. Look, I had desmoplastic fibroma. A tumor that ate away my bone. My bone, Lukas,” I stretch out my words, “my leg bone.”

“I know you had that rare bone disease, but it’s gone now and it doesn’t matter. You had the tumor removed. It’ll be fine.”

“Sure, I removed it. It’s just that removing it cost me my right leg.” I pause and steady my voice before continuing, “That day three months ago, when you held me in our studio, that was the last time I will ever dance.” My voice breaks regardless of my efforts.

“You don’t know that!”

Lukas pulls up from my side and then returns to his backpack. He unzips the front pocket and pulls out a clear cassette container. There is a single record inside. Lukas gives it a long glance before setting it down next to the television.

“Analise, I know you, you’ll dance again.”

He shrugs on his backpack and then makes his way to the door. Before he opens it, he gives me one last gaze.

“Listen to it later. I’ll come again tomorrow.”

The door is opened then shut and I am left alone again in the cold, empty patient room. My cheek stings like I have just been slapped. I deserve it though. I deserve every ounce of pain Lukas inflicts on me because I am a coward. He believes in me, but I’m tired. I’m tired of looking down towards where my leg used to be and finding nothing.

***

Mom comes into my room later after Lukas left. She gives a curious look towards the cassette but says nothing. Instead she waits for me to initiate conversation. I am thankful for her consideration, but it wasn’t necessary.

“I want to hear it. Mom, will you play it for me?”

“Sure darling.”

She takes the record carefully out of the cassette case before popping open the player resting next to the television. The tape winds and my heartbeat accelerates to match the rhythm of its churning as it does. I do not breathe until the red play button on the player pops down and the tape begins to sing. No sooner had I relaxed, though, I tense up once again.

It is our song.

He finally finished composing it.

Octave by octave, piano notes harmonize as a flute trill echoes in the background. Soft bells give the piece a beating backbone as the piano and the flute resonate in the air. The piece starts out soft and melodic then accelerates and magnifies with a delicately placed crescendo.

The crescendo is where I would have performed a grand jete.

It is also the section of the piece that correlated time wise with when Lukas and I first admitted our feelings for one another. That day it was raining and when he kissed my cheek as the tears of angels cast down around us, I would have given anything to pause time.

Then slowly, the music softens into a progression of light, fluttery notes on a piccolo. I close my eyes and see myself in the dance hall with his arms around me as we spin down the ballet room. In the mirror we appear as though we have sprouted wings and are flying through the air. We have become the soul of the music; the vision of the dance.

This is our dance.

I open my eyes when the music fades and the player churns to a stop. Mom has a concerned expression painted all over her worn face and I calm her with a smile. It is a strained one, but it is real.

“I should have listened, mom, when you warned me about people like him,” I say.

Then she smiles too and I know everything will be alright.
Mom used to always warn me that I should stay away from people who are either too talented, too perfect, or too loving. People who were flawless, she told me, were too addicting and too easy to lose oneself in.

I think I understand what mom meant now.

Lukas isn’t perfect – he slacks off in Advanced English, dislikes the outdoors altogether, and can’t cook to save his life, or my life for that matter – but he is perfect. He is perfect for me. He loves me, shares my dreams, and supports me without reason.

For him, I want to dance again. For him, I want to try.

When I fell in love with Lukas, I lost to him a part of my heart that I will never get back. Mom warned me not to fall for someone perfect and she’s right. Once you give someone a part of your heart, you aren’t able to control what they do with it, and what you do because of it. There are people like dad, who left mom before I was born. There are people like brother, who betray their loved ones. But now I am sure there are always people like Lukas.

“Mom, will you play it again?”

She nods and pushes the blessed play button again.

I fall back onto my patient cot as music refills the room. Mom warned me, but I think she understands too. Warnings can only do so much; they can’t prevent me from making my own choices. Lukas is perfect, he is everything I could ever want, and I will hurt myself because I love him too much. But at this moment, I think only one thought.

To this song, with him, I will dance again.

Dancing is liberating. Dancing with Lukas is perfection.