Her

Loud music fills the room, making it hard to hear anything else. 

It's the type of music that takes over every bodily sense. The type in which even its smallest background beats demand to be heard. 

I’ve heard colleagues complain about this bar more than once; bothered by the noise, and if not the noise, then the flashing lights, all blues, reds, and greens. But I like it. The music is like an invitation, one wherein its offer to you is to become a part of its entity.

I frequent this place often and in doing so, I have become a part of this place. At least as much as a lone sunflower can be a part of a bush of roses in a vast garden. 

I always remain at the bar, placed a few feet away from the dance floor. Always so close to the action but never willing enough, confident enough, to join the throng. But even so, the music has a way of including even the people who dwell in the farthest corners of the establishment.

It’s the tremors, I think.

The tremors enter through the soles of my feet, even while sitting down. They fill me up. They root me to this place, like how seedlings are rooted to their new forever homes in the spring. 

It says you’re here now. Stay here with me.

The bar is stifling. I had already put my long, curly hair up into a bun for work today, as I do every day. Hair-up is more professional, I’ve been told.

Despite the relief it should have given me from the humidity that comes with any room underground, much less one where its patrons are clumped together and moving erratically, I feel a small bead of sweat make its way down back. It starts from the nape of my neck and feels its way down and over each of the columns of my spine. I imagine that’s where my zipper would be if I had one. I wish. That way I could step out of this skin, the expectations, the responsibilities that come with it and be something new. 

Oh, what a relief that would be. I could get up from this bar and instead of studying the rest of its members from over the top of my glass, I could join the crowd, let the music fill me up and mesh me together with whoever else moves to it. 

I could be her.

Her.

I come to this bar alone a lot, more than I’d like to admit. But I’ve scanned this room more times than I can count and I’ve never seen anyone, anything, like her before. No matter where I look tonight, my eyes always find their way back to her. 

Her dress shimmers, the blues, reds, and greens, bounce off of the material and it creates a sort of halo effect around her. One that says you can look but can’t touch. 

I’m looking. 

She’s come with friends, it’s obvious from the way they form a sort of barrier around themselves. Not necessarily all interacting yet connected by some invisible string that has their personal bubbles all overlapping with one another. They dance together, but whereas her friends dance as well, there’s something restricted about the way they move. Something that glances around the room asks is this okay? Is this too much?

Not her though.

She dances as if the music is flowing through her, at a rate so overwhelming that its power is too much to simply stay still. She dances as if it’s the only thing that will help the pent-up energy leave through her skin. She dances as if the bass is filling her through the soles of her feet and she must move, lest she become rooted in place.

I know I shouldn’t stare. I know it’s creepy. If I were a man I would be promptly scolded. But I can’t help it. She’s like a magnet, my eyes drawn to her against their will. 

She makes me think. She makes me wonder why I always insist on wearing a dress that’s just enough to show skin but not too much. She makes me want to channel her, that energy she gives off. One that's confident and sure and happy. I think of the over-expensive suit I just bought for my new job, too much of my savings dedicated to the thing hanging in my closet. One that I made sure says feminine but still demands respect because we live in a world, I work in a place, where both cannot always be true. I bet she wouldn’t care about that. She would probably just wear what she wanted.

She probably doesn’t care like I do. Doesn’t feel like she’s being watched like I do. 

And I feel that I’m being watched, all the time. Not only by everyone else counting on me to perform, as a new financial advisor, as a woman in America, but by myself who’s counting on me the most. When I open my eyes, I am looking at others but not really; I’m always looking at myself through others' eyes. 

Even now. I’m scanning the dance floor, flicking between the men who loiter at the edges of the floor, waiting for an invitation to join a special someone in the crowd, to the gaggles of women, glittering and brilliant, sticking close together with one another. I wonder if they glance over here. I wonder if they wonder what a woman in her mid-20s is doing at the same bar every Friday night in the same dress, alone. 

I bet she doesn’t think so though. Ms. Translucent dress with the dark curls, and the languid movements and the radiating confidence. 

I bet she doesn’t care what I’m doing at all. 

It is during a break between songs, an interruption in the flow of energy through her body when she stops dancing for a moment. Her friends crowd her a little more, maybe realizing it’s their rare chance to speak to her, she has become rooted again, there’s been a break in the transcendence. There is talking and despite the energy of her friends, talking quickly, hands moving, she stays grounded, still and rapt in her attention.

I envy her friends. They probably know the colour of her eyes.

I look away, sighing and fixing my gaze on the remnants of the scotch in my glass. I don’t even like the drink. I just wanted to seem classy. I glance at my phone to the right of me. I know I should flip it over, and check the time to make sure I’m back home by 12:30am at least. Any later and the questions start about what I could be working on that takes so long. 

I don’t want to check the time though. I want to keep feeling the thrum of the bass in my blood. Still feel the potential to shed the body I have taken on, the role I have stepped into. I can already feel the person I am pulling me towards the exit sign, sneering and laughing, saying what are you doing here? 

I look up, hoping to rekindle that feeling of freedom that I get when I look at her. Except this time, when I look at her, she’s in front of me.

I can’t help the jump that goes through me and don’t have enough time to school my face into an expression unlike shock.

This seems to amuse her and a small smile grows on her face.

Brown. Her eyes are a light brown. 

“Sorry.” She starts and she doesn’t sound sorry at all. Her voice is just as I thought it would be. Like honey. Like if I hear it enough, it’ll coat my insides and calm the constant buzzing in my head. She slides into the seat next to me at the bar and I straighten, trying to give her as much space as possible. 

She doesn’t seem to mind taking up space though and she angles herself towards me, our knees almost touching. She invites me into her bubble.

When I slowly drag my eyes up to hers again, she’s staring at me, her lips quirked in a smile, as if she knows something I don’t. Usually, my hackles would rise with the fear of seeming ignorant. My coworkers look at me like that all the time. Middle-aged white men, readying to dumb down whatever needs to be said for the girl. And, like always, I have to prove myself over and over to discard that look on their faces. I should hate that look. But not with her. She makes me want to find out what she knows.

“Hi.” I try to make my voice strong and sure, try to channel the voice I speak to clients with at the office, the one that got me the bump from intern to employee in the first place. But that’s not the voice that comes out. The voice is shy and a little rough and, unfortunately, wholly mine. It makes me cringe.

She doesn’t cringe though. Instead, something like intrigue sparks in her eyes and she leans forward as if about to share a secret with me.

“My friend told me she saw you staring at me.”

Any type of composure I’ve attempted to retain leaves me. I open and close my mouth, my usual quick responses slowed, possibly by the two scotches, possibly by the beautiful woman in front of me.

“I stare at everyone here.”

I settle on the answer and wonder if she can hear the half-truth in my voice. Instead, she nods, seemingly fine with the answer. But then she pouts.

“So I’m not special then?”

And I have never heard anything so wrong, so inaccurate, come out of anyone’s mouth. My head shakes out of its own accord.

“No. No. That’s not it.”

The pout goes away immediately, replaced by a brilliant smile. It’s hypnotic. 

“Would you like to dance with me?”

I feel my eyes widen at the sudden offer. “Um… I don’t really dance. As you can see.”

She lets out a laugh and I feel myself relax even more, draw to her even more. 

“Oh, so you weren’t waiting for someone to come up to you to ask you to dance?”

I raise my hands in defence, letting a smile creep up on my face. “Quite the opposite actually. I was hoping to stay as invisible as possible. You know, like one of those I can see everyone but they can’t see me?”

She doesn’t miss a beat at my strange explanation instead she tilts her head at me. “How would anyone ever think you’re invisible?”

I shrug even though I know the answer. I’m invisible every day. I’m invisible until I make myself seen, until I make them listen to me. Hear me.

She just shakes her head. “Well, you’re not invisible. I saw you.”

I don’t know why it makes warmth burst over my chest, makes it burrow itself in the coldest parts of my heart.

I saw you.

I smile at her. This time she stands, close enough that I have to spread my legs the slightest bit for her to lean in enough to be in hearing range.

My heart starts to pound and I try to school my expression into one of neutrality.

“Please dance with me?”

I want to refuse again but with her standing in front of me like that and looking at me like I’m everything I’ve ever wanted to be, there’s nothing else I can say but yes. 

It’s hard at first, to just let the music fill me like it does her. I feel like everyone is staring at me. But when I meet her eyes and she gives me that grin, dancing the way she’s dancing, I feel something in me loosen. She grabs one of my arms, twirls me around and I feel it. Not just the energy from the music, or the bass, but the energy from her fingertips, filling me up, unrooting me from my spot and freeing me.

This is what it’s like to be free.

It’s heady and it’s amazing and, with her, here, I’m everything I want to be.

Then she pulls me closer, bodies pressed together, a raise of her eyebrows questioning, a glance at my lips. It’s when I feel myself trying to come back into my body, trapped once again.

“I can’t.” I whisper and I feel her grip loosen on me a bit, a flash of embarrassment in her eyes. 

“I want to.” I quickly concede, letting her see the honesty of it in my eyes, letting her feel the want in the way my fingertips brush over her waist. “But I can’t.”

And oh, if that’s not the theme of my life, I don’t know what is. 

The embarrassment in her eyes smooths out into a look of knowing. She nods and gives me a small smile. She leans closer to me and if she would have leaned close enough and closed the distance with her lips, I would have too, but instead, she rests her forehead against mine. I try not to be disappointed and melt into the feeling.  

“Let's just dance then.”

Later, when it’s finally time to go, she lets her hand brush my cheek and gives me a genuine smile.

“I hope one day you get to do all the things you want to do.” 

Her lips brush over the same cheek and then she’s gone as if she hadn’t existed at all.

***

When I leave that night, I am back in my body and it feels heavier than usual.

When I slide my ring back on my finger before slipping into the front door of my house it feels like my chest becomes weighted with metal. Chains wrap around my heart and tug it downward, pulling it inwards. It feels like the beginning of an implosion.

I am rooted to this life. And it's not like how I was rooted to the bar. Here, the roots are thick and gnarled and it would take years of sawing, and maybe even fire, to rip them out of the ground, to destroy them.

The ring is gorgeous but when Dennis offered it to me there was no asking in his eyes, there was a warning. He didn’t even get down on one knee. 

It's the same warning I saw in my parent's eyes, whenever I tried to bring up wanting to change my major or tried to tell them about Dennis.

I hate that look. More than anything else. The look that says you’re about to do something stupid.

It always ends up being an option between what I really want and the feeling of shame that look gives me.

And nothing drives me like shame.

***

I’m not rooted to this place, this life, I realize a couple of weeks later while I’m sitting at my cubicle in the office. 

I’m thinking of her, of the freedom I felt with doing what I wanted to do, being who I wanted to be. 

I’ve been imagining, lately, what would happen if I just stood up one day, discarded all the things that made me this person who works and pleases and impresses, and just left.

Walked out of the confines of myself and impressed myself instead. 

“I hope one day you get to do all the things you want to do.” 

I thought this was what I wanted to do. Great finance, great job, great life, right?

No.

I am not rooted to this life. If I was, I would still grow. 

I don’t grow here. 

I’m stuck. I am stuck here.

There’s an energy that has started to thrum through me lately and it feels similar to what I felt on the dance floor, with her. It feels antsy. It's overwhelming and it makes me want to move. I feel myself glancing around this office, thinking of the looks and the whispers that would follow me if I just got up right now. If I stood, handed in my two weeks' notice, and left right now.

I imagine the rage on Dennis’s face when I return the ring to him.

I imagine the disappointment on my parent's faces when I tell them I’m not going to be what they want me to be.

The thoughts are paralyzing for a moment.

I bet she wouldn’t care though. 

This time it's not the shame that drives me. It's that thought.

Yeah, I think, she wouldn’t care at all.

And for once, as I feel myself start to rise, I don’t think I do either.