Dancers

The music starts up. I grit my teeth and paste on a smile. 

“Take my hand,” he hisses.

A muscle in my jaw tightens, but I comply. His palm is icy in mine, but I can’t let go. The lights come up around us, and I almost squint at the sudden brightness. His dark eyes stare into mine. I used to find them charming – warm even – but there’s something cold and distorted about that gaze now, like a reflection seen through a dark window.

Tinny piano music fills my ears. The steps are second nature to me now. To both of us. I step backwards; he moves forward. He raises his arm; I spin around.

“So, are we going to talk about this?”

“No.” I don’t meet his eyes. “I’m concentrating on the steps.”

He snorts. “You haven’t had to concentrate on the steps in years.”

I don’t reply. His hand grips my waist so tightly it hurts.

“So, let’s talk.”

“I have nothing to say to you that I haven’t said already.”

“Perhaps I was just hoping you’d have given up on this by now.” He seems flippant, but I can feel a steely tension in the air. “What are you really hoping to achieve with this?”

“You know what I want.”

“And you know I don’t agree.”

“Oh, you do. You just can’t admit that you’re too scared to stop.”

He’s quiet at that, but it’s the kind of quiet that promises rage hidden just around the corner. My fingers begin to pale in his grip. He spins me again, but neither of us care to listen out for the audience’s applause. We have heard it all before.

“Why –” His shirt is drenched in sweat; I can almost smell it pouring off him – “would I be scared? Do you really think you’re doing so much for me that I wouldn’t be fine without you?”

He’s breathing heavier now, like a beast about to charge. It seems so incongruous with that familiar, twinkling music playing around us. Yet that soulless smile doesn’t shift from his face.

“I think you don’t know what you’re like without me. And I think that terrifies you.”

He glowers at that, and leans in closer, all teeth, like a shark. “You don’t know anything about me. I am ten times the dancer, ten times the person you will ever be. And don’t think about crawling back when this doesn’t work out.”

He thinks that it helps him win, all this childish sniping and bullying. It’s been years of his endless posturing, and it’s only grown worse since I told him I wanted to leave. I was restrained at first. I told him all the right things, everything I thought would soften the blow: it’s not you, it’s me. I just need to do something else. And I hadn’t lied. It’s not just him I want to leave behind – it’s this whole dance, the one I was forced into years ago. The same costume; the same song; the same partner. No one could fault me for wanting to go. 

Except, apparently, he can.

The last note plays, and, finally, we are able to stop. 

“This isn’t over,” he hisses in my ear, his hold on me unyielding.

The hands of the audience reach towards us, and we are shut back inside the dark of the music box.