Chapter 12: The Answer You Did Not Give.
642 Words
Daniel POV
Elena doesn’t look at me.
And that is how I can know that there is something wrong before I even lay my eyes upon the decorations, the noise, how the school is shrinking so much more rapidly, and starting Christmas filling every corner like garbage in a chest and I get a glimpse of her in the hall, her dark hair floating around her, her shoulder stuck, and then she turns and is going back to one of the class-rooms, as if she realized I was watching her.
I stop walking.
Somebody hits me on the shoulder and welcomes me by congratulating me on Friday as though that is the sole thing that matters. I nod, I do smile where I should smile, but I have lost track. It is following the footsteps of her running on the tile, the room that the author had abandoned.
Christmas Eve repeats itself in my mind.
The porch lights. The snow. The shaking of the envelope in her hands.
What I requested--and what were the responses?
She never answered me.
Not yes.
Not no.
Your lady-love, only, the bare sight of her face, you know, as though she were going to walk into something too big to have a decent name assigned to it.
I texted her the next morning. Then again that night. Then nothing. And there they all pile up and are unread, and they are the evidence. I do not know how to get this back on track.
During lunch time, I do not eat with friends. I pass out, tray unnoticed, and I scan the room before I get to a table near the window, where I can see Maya at it. Elena isn’t with her.
“Maya,” I say.
She lifts her eyes, which does not appear to be the case, in a slow manner. “Wow. Bold.”
“Where is she?”
And never here, she says, nor nowhere. I suppose it is an excellent guess.
“I just want to talk to her.”
“She talked,” Maya says flatly. Now you had just not been listening fast enough.
I clench my jaw. “Is she… okay?”
Maya studies me, then sighs. It is an encounter between her and Coach Larkin.
My chest tightens. “About ballet?”
No, says Maya, and rises, packing up. “About what she lost.”
She leaves me there with that.
The rest of the day crawls. I am not even paying attention to the words spoken by the teachers in the classroom. I can still make out--on that porch--the face of Elena--how frightened it had looked, how it had sounded, anyway.
This is the norm when I head to the gym at the end of the day. Halfway there, I stop.
I turn towards the wing of arts.
The corridor is not very crowded in this instance, the walls covered with old performance posters, withered photos of dancers in action. My heart beats faster and I become slower, like a stranger.
The studio door is closed.
I don’t knock.
I am not aware whether I can or can not anymore.
I look through the little window and can see her.
Elena is in the centre of the room, and she is listening to Coach Larkin talking. She stands in an ideal posture. She’s not dancing. She is there, standing and focusing, as she is tightening her backbone.
She looks like herself again.
And I am even more afraid of that.
I move out before she can catch up.
I am able to sense my phone vibrating in my pocket.
Walker: Decree hastily, thou. Offers don’t wait.
I am looking at the screen, and my heart is pounding in my ears.
Elena did not respond to my question.
Today, I am questioning myself about the future.
- Writer
