Take A Risk

Absorbing

            Take a risk.  It sounded like a story I could write.  It sounded like something one of my characters would say.  Which character?  Where?  Why?  It could be anything.

            Take a risk.  Anything could happen.

            “You know what, sure.”

            I knew I never would have said that a couple weeks ago.

            We finished the story the day before the dance.  Mrs. Meyer was excited and immensely pleased with the product.  I was sad it was over.

            The dance was loud.

            The room was dark, scintillating lights zipping back and forth through the air.  Music pumping.  People everywhere, crowding, shouting, jumping and dancing.  The thumping of the beat pushed against me as I skirted the fringe of my comfort zone.  Pushing through the throng of people, to the back wall, it was like I had moved from the swirling currents of mighty river to a placid pond.  I could relax, lean back.  And watch.

            Kiera appeared, hair whirling around her, eyes alight.

            “Emery, come dance!” she shouted.

            Before I could object, she grabbed my hand and drew me back into the current.

            Kiera taught me how to feel the language of the music as I had taught her the language of words.  I was hesitant at first, reluctant to let myself be fully immersed in the chilling waters of the unknown.  I listened to the music and let it show me how to swim.  We jumped and threw our hands in the air and moved to the sounds.

            We danced.

            I felt the music, felt each note as it ran through me.  I lost track of people, of time. 

            Then things changed.

            The music— slow, slow.  It set my heart to pounding.  My stomach went jittery.  I turned, saw the people in snippets from the flashing lights— slow motion— searching the faces for Kiera.

            It was running through my mind a million times a second—

            “Hey,” I would say.

            Everything would be frozen around us.

            “Dance with me, Kiera.”

            I would see her eyes, so sharp in the darkness, hear her say—

            Piano keys, a low mournful voice.  The whole room of people swaying.  Back and forth.  Back and forth.           

            There—

            Through a gap, I see her.

            I see her.

            Kiera is with a boy, her arms on his shoulders, swaying softly.  Moving back and forth.  Smiling shyly.  They’re holding each other close and she nestles her head down on his shoulder.

            You have to give your friend a second chance.

            And in my mind she’s saying yes and it’s me who gets to hold her close, to know what it feels like to put my hands around her hips.

            In my mind, it’s me who looks into her eyes and sees love.  I feel each note pass through me, feel each word entwine itself to the music.  I lift my hand to the back of her head and lean in until our lips press together.  My eyes close and my mouth moves.

            It tastes like trust.

*** 

            When I think of Kiera, I remember her standing on the desk and I remember her pulling me from the wall and into the dance.  It was the greatest gift she gave me.  A push into the unkown.  A pull from the quiet stillness of comfortability and into the raging unpredictability of risk.  I think I was pulling on her too, but in the other direction.  

***

             It was that night I lay on my bed with a pad of paper and a pen and thought of the dance.  The words came then, faster than I could write them, each fragment exploding into a hundred more, flinging themselves across the blank spaces of possibility.  Each a different color— a dust mote, a galaxy— colliding, recoiling and absorbing.