Page 12 of Dancing in the Dark

I lie awake in the dark in my brand-new bed, on a mattress I swear was manufactured in the same factory they make clouds, in a room that sits at a perfect seventy degrees. I wear silky boxer shorts, since Mia has a habit of sneaking into my room at some point each night, and sleeping without clothes is simply not done once a man has kids. With a sheet pulled over my bottom half, one hand behind my head for support, I hold my phone with the other and stare without squinting at the harsh light.

Because I’ve been studying the screen for hours already,

The clock ticks toward one forty-five. Fuck knows I should’ve gone to sleep hours ago, but here I am anyway, taking a moment in the quiet while I watch videos other people send me.

Mia’s innocent laughter crackles through the phone speakers as she swings on the swings in the park downtown, her legs flailing high, her skirt flying with the wind, and her messy hair wild from a summer day spent with her nanny.

Penny sent that video.

Then there’s the one I got from Cato, complete with a “you’re welcome, bitch” message accompanying it.

This video was taken at the park too, but not on the same day as the last one. Mia’s clothes are different. Penny’s clothes are different.

And then there’s the part that squeezes my heart.

While Cato and Penny stay back, Mia and Sera duck away like thieves in the night, hand in hand, wild laughter floating in the breeze, and then, a moment later, the video changes as Cato sneaks after them and catches blurry footage of them dancing together.

They’re real-life ballerinas momentarily standing on their toes and spinning amongst the thick foliage of a weeping tree.

They didn’t want to dance where anyone else could see. Not even Cato or Penny. And especially not me.

It’s cruelly ironic that when they’re all alone and could do anything in the entire world, they choose the one thing that absolutely fucking terrifies me. Because Mia’s mother was a real-life ballerina, too. Stage lights lit up her face, audiences fell in love, and all that adoration built her up to an impossibly high pedestal.

Then came the crash, and I think, sometimes, it wouldn’t have been quite so damaging if she’d never climbed so high in the first place.

Now Mia swears this is what she wants, too. She claims to want to dance, begs for studio time, and never, ever complains that she’s too tired for class. She signs up for more recitals than we know what to do with, and practices so damn hard, I have no clue how she possibly keeps up.

But then she steps onto a stage and… does nothing.

She freezes. Terrified. Unmoving.

I’ll never tell her she can’t dance. I refuse to squash her dreams. But her dreams scare the shit out of me, and tragically, it seems they scare the shit out of her, too.

Still, I watch the video Cato took, a little blurry, a little shaky, but their smiles, so fucking big and real and heart-wrenching, come through clear as day. They giggle and squeal and spin on their toes, and when they can’t help but want to touch, they pretend to stumble, and like magic, they stumble straight into each other’s arms.

My pulse jumps as countless aching thoughts pass through my mind, and each time the ninety-second video ends, I go back to the start and hit play again.

Again.

Again.

A million fucking times.

When I’m done with that one, I go to the videos I received from a different ballerina. I never asked for them, never even hinted at it. Yet, Sophia Solomon thought to send me footage of a teenage Seraphina Lewis on a stage.

She doesn’t smile in these videos. Not even the sneaky, side-smirk kind of smile. She doesn’t laugh or fall or break character. She simply bounds across a stage in the exact style of tutu I saw a thousand times in my youth. The same kind I touched. I peeled away. I hugged.

I fell in love with my very own dancer back when my age still started with a one.

I watched Jada practice. I attended her recitals. I touched her backstage. I bathed in our romance with abandon, and eventually, we created a little one just like her.

Watching her back then wasn’t like watching these videos now. Where Jada seemed to thrive on the waves of devotion tossed her way, Sera appears other. Despite the crowd oohing and aahing over her graceful routine, it’s like she doesn’t notice her admirers or the flowers they throw at her feet.

A sound in the hallway draws my eyes away from my screen and across to my open door. I hold my breath and tamp down the nerves swirling in my belly. Please don’t be awake. Please don’t be awake. Please don’t be awake. But my wishes go unanswered, because I catch the telltale sound of Mia’s footsteps on the floor, then for the briefest second, the flash of our bathroom light flicking on before she hisses and shuts the door with an accidental slam.

Dropping my head back, I stare up at the ceiling and hate myself for not going to sleep three hours ago when I should have.

My phone vibrates with an incoming message, and in the bathroom, I hear the loud splash of my baby girl emptying her tiny bladder.