Chance Encounters

Dancing

The first time Elliott sees Em, she's whirling her way across a dance studio. Elliott's just walking by, trying to get to music theory, but something stops her just in front of the window.

That something is Em; she's wearing a green leotard and pink tights and has her light brown hair pulled up into a bun that looks like a cinnamon roll, but each time she whips around another piece of hair escapes its bobby-pinned prison. Elliott knows this is creepy, knows she's going to be late, but she can't stop staring, transfixed by the girl in the center of the room. The teacher yells something Elliott can't hear through the door, and the dancers scurry to the corner of the room, conveniently passing by the window through which Elliott is peering. They ignore her for the most part, or shoot her a side eye she's found dancers are particularly good at. Em doesn't do either of these things. She pauses for a second, glances at Elliott, then cracks a smile. Elliott barely registers it and doesn't have time to smile back before the girl is off again, leaping and twirling in perpetual motion. Elliott doesn't know much about ballet, but she thinks she could stand here forever and maybe she'd figure it out.

Elliott's newfound passion for dance is interrupted by Adam flicking her on the back of the head. Elliott recoils instantly, annoyed. She's always surprised by the delicacy and gentleness with which Adam plays his cello, given that his hands are usually dedicated to making her life difficult.

"Elliott. They're half-naked. It's hot, I get it." Elliott tries to explain that it's not the class, it's just this one girl.

"You know what else is hot? Seventh chords. Which you're gonna miss." Elliott sighs, hating that Adam's right. She follows him down the hallway, resisting the urge to take one last glance at the girl in the green leotard.

~

The second time Em sees Elliott, it's in the dining hall. Em nearly drops her stir-fry, not because she recognizes Elliott, because truthfully she doesn't. It's because Elliott, composing a sonata in her head, walks directly into Em. Elliott grabs the tray right before it teeters over, handing it back to its stunned owner.

"Shit. Are you okay?" Em can tell this was Elliot's fault, but something about the way her curly hair is falling across her shoulders has temporarily paralyzed Em's sense of judgement. Elliott straightens up, flushed and apologetic. There's a moment where Em sees something in the other girl's eyes, recognition maybe? But then the busy dining hall resumes its bustling chatter and movement and the two girls are swept away, back to their separate lives.

~

The third time, neither of them see each other, and that's the whole problem because Em grabs a yoga mat off the top shelf at the gym, causing the two underneath it to tumble and land on the unsuspecting person behind her with a soft thud. Em's grabbing them in a second, going to put them away when she sees the girl from the stir fry incident on Monday. There's a quick moment of recognition between the two before Elliott takes the hand Em's offered her and stands.

"Payback, I'm assuming?"

"All a part of my master plan." Em thinks that'll be the end of it, but Elliott grabs one of the offending mats, because of course they're taking the same yoga class.

Elliott realizes this as well as she grabs her mat, and is very aware that this girl, whose name she still doesn't know, could potentially make it very difficult to concentrate in yoga class.

As it turns out, she's right, but it's not for the reason she thinks. The dancer puts her mat down right next to Elliott's, and spends the whole class running a quiet commentary about the unfortunate resemblance of their teacher to a certain Soviet Union dictator.

Class ends, and they're putting up their mats when Elliott finally decides that enough is enough. She sticks out her hand, cringing at the overt formality of it all.

"Elliott. Music major, I play piano." Em, to her credit, doesn't laugh at the method of introduction, but takes the offered hand.

"Em. I'm a dance major." Elliott resists the urge to say "Yeah, I know. I saw you dancing," because there's a pretty girl talking to her and it'd be really great if she didn't fuck this up.

~

The sixth time Elliott sees Em, it's on their second date, and Elliott's still as moonstruck as she was the first time their eyes locked. Em rushes into the restaurant 10 minutes late, apologizing a mile a minute about rehearsal going way over. Elliott doesn't respond right away, because she's staring at the way Em's hair, still damp from the shower, is clinging to her neck. Elliott wants nothing more than to brush it away and kiss her while she's at it, but it's only their second date and Elliott really needs to get ahold of herself.

Food comes, but Em barely notices what she's eating over the sound of Elliott's laugh, careless and melodic and often. Em tells Elliott that her real name is Emmeline, but that she's

"-willing to murder anyone who calls me that." As Em says this though, she thinks that she really wouldn't mind hearing it come out of Elliott's mouth.

There's the customary amount of fumbling about with the check, which Elliott finally wins, though Em insists she gets to pay for dessert.

She takes them to a little ice cream place off the main drag, and Elliott orders a root beer float with chocolate ice cream, to Em's chagrin.

"You're undermining the whole institution of root beer floats." Elliott is inclined to argue, but the way Em's eyes are shining makes her think that she'd probably agree with anything the brunette said right now.

Em orders a sundae with vanilla ice cream, and Elliott laughs and calls her boring, though she's thinking to herself that there's no worse word to describe Em.

They sit in comfortable silence for a while, and then, in a tribute to how closely they've bonded, have the same idea at the same time.

The two girls lean in, and bump noses initially. They giggle a little and get it figured out the second time around. The kiss is all blurred edges and smiles, bumping teeth. Elliott thinks that Em tastes like hot fudge and Em thinks that she could probably stay like this forever, with Elliott's fingers tangled in her hair.

~

After a while, Elliott stops keeping track of how many times she's seen Em because it increases until it's almost every day. They find empty studios and Elliott plays while Em just moves through the space, and little by little they find themselves creating something. Something that's new and a little scary, that neither of them have seen before.

They figure it out though, one chord and one step at a time. It's all handholding in the hallways and stolen kisses by the water fountains. They don't talk about it a lot, because they don't have to. Em can say more with her body then she'd ever be able to with her voice, and she dances every "I'm so happy I've found you."

Elliott isn't very good with her words either, but she writes Em music full of all the things she doesn't think words can capture.

They're an odd couple by any means: tall and short, light and dark, dancer and musician. But they're both artists, and when the muse moves them one day they turn to each other at the same time, beaming.

"I love you."