Studio Self

Liam pulled his arm away when Caroline tried leading him into the room.

“I don’t think I’m ready yet,” he muttered. “This will not help my confidence like you think it will.”

Caroline sighed and sat down on the cold hallway floor. She motioned for him to sit across from her, lightly nudging his feet and legs with hers until they both sat with outstretched legs. The bottoms of their bare feet almost touching.

“Do you regret choosing me to work with?” Liam asked shyly. “I'm sorry it's too late to find someone who’s not afraid to look himself in the eye.”

Without speaking, Caroline looked to him and began slow liquid movements while remaining seated. She pulled her knees into her chest one at a time and outstretched her arms. Liam copied the waves of her body, repeating the steps he knew well.

As he copied, he continued, “You can tell me if you want to give up. I won’t be offended, this is my fault and you’ll have a better chance without me weighing you down."

She grabbed his hand, stood swiftly, and started to run down the narrow hallway. All the way to the end where she opened a door on the left and pulled him inside.

There was concrete on all sides of the room, and a chilled feeling ran up their bodies from the frosty concrete floor.

They continued to dance together, performing the same motions over and over. The repetitive pathways came from muscle memory, and they went over Caroline's choreography until their feet were numb from the cold.

Tired, Liam tried to sit but was whisked away by his partner for a second time.

The next room they entered gave way as they stepped inside. Padded flooring for acrobats and death-defying tricks greeted their toes. 

The air from the padding squished with each step they took.

He lifted Caroline into the air and dropped her back down, letting her weight slide beneath him.

She gasped with anticipation and released her tension when she was safely back on the ground. They rehearsed the stunts they were unable to in the concrete room, for fear of injury. As soon as they felt confident in these tricks, they moved to the next room.

Silk hung from hooks around the doorway, the pair taking a scarf-like piece each. They held the silk as they held each other, using the prop to enhance the flow and look of their movements.

“You haven’t smiled this much since we’ve known each other,” Caroline broke the silence and internalized music that had both been listening to.

“I forget how happy dance makes me sometimes,” Liam replied.

He took his phone from his pocket and connected it to a speaker in the corner. A song of which they knew every musical anomaly, beat, and lyric, played out into the silk room. It matched the dance they had replicated many times that evening.

Their eyes locked and their limbs followed the rules set by the music.

Caroline stepped further and further towards the open doorway of the room hung with silk as they continued.

Migrating into the hallway once again, the music followed, fading only slightly. 

“Keeping looking at me,” Caroline whispered.

Liam made a point to see nothing but the young woman in front of him and blurred his peripheral vision. Heading back up the hall towards the room he refused to enter earlier that day.

She grazed the side of his face with her hands, spinning him around in the final few feet of the hallway before the dreaded doorway was reached. 

They entered both looking down to see yet another change of flooring. Shiny wood announced itself to them as being the most welcoming surface they had encountered thus far.

Continuing to spin they stared at each other, not letting their surroundings get the better of them. The music from the previous room echoed from both open doorways as well as the air vents. The sound skipped and repeated itself as it had already done more times than either could have counted.

Caroline restarted her movements along with the bass and tempo. Liam followed suit more tentatively this time. He kept his eyes moving from hers to the wooden floor and back up to her.

He shuttered at the thought of making eye contact with the other two people projected into the room. 

He knew that when the dancers turned around they would be met with their counterparts. Caroline’s reflection would be just as beautiful as the woman he had danced with all night. She would be exactly the same as he knew her to be, and she would dance exactly the same as she always had.

Her reflection, however, was not the reason for his nerves. If he were to turn around and look into the mirror covering an entire wall of the room, he would be met with a person who made him greatly uncomfortable. 

Facing his fear of the room altogether for the person he had given so much of his time to so that she could see her own movements and make corrections. 

This did not mean that he himself had to look into that giant mirror. Every time the possibility of making eye contact with himself a rose, Liam would squeeze his eyes shut so tight the saltwater expelled itself and ran down his cheeks.

Caroline, feeling free, ignored these tears and continued the re-creation of her own choreography. Once again repeating over and over for hours and hours.

She did not mind that one of the hands she had been holding was not like her own. The flesh and blood that ran through her own arms and hands would be enough for the both of them.

She gripped Liam's robotic arm and moved it as an extension of herself. She was in control and treated the amputated arm as if it were natural. 

It moved almost as well as the arm he was born with. The one like her own that had been dancing her entire life. The new arm was difficult for him to accept, so Caroline had to lead him and help him see he could still move.

Perhaps it was not the night for Liam to see his reflection and except the person who looked back. But making it into the mirrored studio would have to be a big enough first step.