Evie’s Tango
A piece of flash fiction
One step back, a step to the side, Josh crosses to me takes one step forward, and ends it all with another step to the side.
One step back, a step to the side, Josh crosses to me, takes one step forward, and ends it all with another step to the side.
One step back, a step to the side, Josh crosses to me, one step forward and ends it with another step to the side.
Josh was dancing, twirling me from left to right, from side to side. Dazzling them with his eye contact, how his arm was wrapped oh so gently around my waist, trying to convince the audience that this dance, this play, this was something much more than just a teasing tango. It was.
My grip on him was hard. One step back — he forgot my birthday. A step to the side — he told me loved me but that he wasn’t ready for that kind of commitment, Josh crosses to me — he sent me pictures and selfies that we had taken on what I thought had been dates, takes one step forward — he sent me flowers that smelled like lavender mixed with rose, and ends it all with another step to the side: him telling me he loved me deeply, just not as much as he was in love with her. Josh was dancing, I was not.
My brain was doing the most complex of mathematics — the kind that involves throwing the most intense of variables into already complex equations — human nature. I loved Josh. He did not love me. I cherished Josh, he did not cherish me. And most importantly, I was good to Josh, he was not good to me.
He stepped to the side, crossing around me. Again and again and again. We were doing a physical manifestation of what had gone on between us in real life. But look at him now, smiling at me, dancing for an audience with me, looking so happy to be seen with me. What was real life?
Real-life was the texts you sent to your girlfriends at 2 a.m., your voice was unusually husky because you just “couldn’t” anymore. Real-life was the glimpse of sadness in your mom's eyes as she saw you wait in your pretty dress by the doorstep after another cancelled date and real-life was the pink glittery knife you’d taken to hiding under your pillow as amassed in dried blood as it was in rhinestones. And it didn’t matter what everyone else saw, it didn’t matter how dazzling his smile was or how happy he looked to be with you — those drops of blood — the very essence of existence: that was real life.
One step forward, you reached for the garter on your thigh; and end it all with another step to the side — the pink glittery rhinestone knife once so emerged in your skin, was now emerged in his. You watch red blood spread across a white shirt. You hear the oohs and ahs of the audience turn into gasps and screams and you smelled the iron — a scent so much sweeter than the flowers he had sent you — fill the room.
Ross Lynn
