If

by Nina G. Jones

  “Of course,” I said excitedly. What a dream it would be for both of us to get big opportunities back to back.

  We arrived at a quaint Italian restaurant only a few blocks from my apartment.

  “I’m a mess,” I said, straightening myself out before entering.

  Alana laughed to herself mockingly. “A tall, thin, twenty-one year old saying she looks like a mess. My darling, you aren’t even capable of that yet.”

  After water for me, and a glass of red for her, she squinted her eyes as she looked me up and down. She pointed as she leaned in.

  “You remind me very much of myself, decades ago.”

  “I do?” There was hardly anything more flattering than being compared to one of the most powerful women in the dance world by the woman herself.

  “Jordan told me about you, how hard you work. How you left your family to come here.”

  I nodded.

  “I did the same, coming from Belgium.”

  “What I did is not nearly as brave.”

  She tsked, chastising my humility. “No, I see that in you. There is a fearlessness. Do you know why I chose you? Even though you hardly danced professionally?”

  “I guess I would like to say it’s because you loved my dancing.”

  She waved off what I said as if it was an annoying triviality as she sipped from her glass. “But there are many technically sound dancers that come to me. You, my dear, pull people in. You have a warmth, relatability. Yes, you move with power and grace. But you also dance with your soul. You have the ability to show emotion with your body. Before you even took one dance step, when you walked into the audition, I knew.”

  I was speechless. Weeks ago, I had cried into Ash’s arms, convinced I would never have a chance at a professional dance career, and now I had Alana Roché DeMill telling me I was her younger self.

  “I don’t know what to say.”

  “Nothing is needed. If I thought you thought you could rest on that alone, I wouldn’t have chosen you, but Jordan said you were the hardest working person he knew.”

  Jordan would be getting a monster hug when I saw him next.

  “Anyway, my rambling has a point. Danse Nocturne is proving to get a lot of attention. Not just locally, but across the states. I need representatives of the brand for appearances and such. I want you to be one, Jordan will be the other, and Louis.”

  I was stunned. All my fears about having my face on camera dominated any excitement regarding the honor of being chosen.

  Before I could reply, the server came back. He was handsome with luscious blond hair and grey eyes. Alana leaned seductively in his direction and eyed him like a cat lurking beneath the brush. I guess we were similar. When we wanted something—or someone—we went after him.

  After some flirtatious banter and taking our orders, he left the table. The entire time my mind was still on her proposal and I was grateful that Alana being such a cougar gave me time to think.

  “So you want me as the face of Danse Nocturne?”

  “You already are, we’re just making it more . . . public.”

  I had to accept. You don’t say no to Alana. But my stomach contorted with anxiety.

  “Are you nervous about being on camera?”

  “Honestly, yes.”

  “Well, get over it. I won’t allow such foolishness.”

  I looked down shamefully. I wish I could get over it. I wish looks didn’t matter. But I knew the reality all too well. People would make comments on online videos, people would ask, my face would become the center of attention.

  “Bird, I have learned that if you don’t make a deal of things, others won’t too. Like that waiter for instance. I could take him to bed tonight. Some women would think they are too old to have someone like that. I don’t give a shit.”

  That was by far, the most unique pep talk I had ever gotten.

  “If you don’t want it, I can give it to someone else. But it should be you. Now, you can tell yourself that you are too old for young men, or you can fuck the blond waiter.”

  She sat back in her seat and finished her glass of wine.

  I nodded. It was time to metaphorically bed the waiter.

  ASH

  I tasted licorice as I walked towards the visiting area. It would be my first time seeing Bird since I lost my shit three weeks ago. I missed her, but I was glad that she and Miller decided to wait until I was becoming myself again before having her visit me. It was bad enough that she saw any of what went down.

  I was afraid of the way she would look at me now that she knew—sympathy with a sprinkle of pity. I would never be the same in her eyes. I don’t know how I convinced myself that things wouldn’t end up back here. That this all wouldn’t end in Bird crying, my brother being thrust out of bed with his pregnant wife in the middle of the night, and my parents desperately trying to visit and me turning them away.

  It’s the cycle of hurt I was afraid of. It’s why I quarantined myself. But Bird pulled me out, and now she would be added to the list of people I had let down. But this time there was something different. I yearned to get back to her, to resume the life we shared. I could do it. I messed up, but that wasn’t uncommon. Relapses happened.

  I just needed to find a treatment that wouldn’t dull my synesthesia as much. It might take time, but Bird was worth the time. That is, if she wasn’t here to tell me it was over. I fully expected that.

  And if she did that, then the one reason I had to try would be gone.

  The ECT put me in a mental fog for hours afterward. I’d preferred she didn’t visit on a day where I had that treatment, but the show was around the corner and this was the only time she could come.

  An orderly opened the door to the visiting area and I took her in for a moment. Her back was facing me. Her deep red curls nearly covered what I could see of her back, and it made me smile. Smiling didn’t come easy in this place. Her purple hue hugged her, and I was grateful that the ECT and meds still hadn’t taken that away. She would always glimmer no matter how much the rest of the world dimmed.

  “Bird.”

  She turned around with a huge smile. I sighed, such a great relief rolled over me that I thought I would cry. But that would really make me look unstable, so I choked it back.

  She had dressed up for me. Red lipstick, her hair pinned up on one side, a floral dress. It was a lot like how she looked on Thanksgiving. The ECT also had another strange side-effect—it made me horny. I don’t mean a normal horny. I mean an insatiable, throbbing internal ache that needed to be addressed when I found myself alone. I hadn’t had a chance to relieve that yet today, and seeing her made the temperature rise from my neck and down below my waist. I had almost forgotten about how her presence literally made me hot.

  My inability to swallow her in my arms and see her moans reminded me how much I needed to get out of here. I wanted to own myself again. Most of the people here were certifiable. I mean hopelessly insane, pulled off the street for everyone’s safety. There was lots of rocking back and forth, mumbling to oneself, and random outbursts throughout the day. One could see it as entertainment, but seeing someone scream about the Mexican cartel out to get them for the fiftieth time was also becoming a monotonous routine. I was not one of them. I know it might have seemed that way a few weeks ago, but I was not one of them.

  Bird walked over and embraced me. I took in the smell of her tropical shampoo and her signature lavender scent. That scent made me feel like Ash again. I had forgotten what it was like to smell anything but the unpleasant faux sterility of a psych ward. I felt Bird quiver in my arms. I saw the thin waves of her tears. I felt like shit that I was making her cry. But unlike Sarah, she was alive. I could still fix this.

  We pressed our foreheads together and we kissed. It was tentative. “I missed you so much,” she whispered, hugging me again.

  “I missed you too, Bird. I’m so sorry,” I breathed into her sweet-smelling hair.

  We sat at a white Formica table. Everythi
ng about this place was cold. There was so much to say and yet this room stripped us of intimacy. Getting comfortable in here would be like warming up a car in the freezing cold. I wanted to be on the roof with Bird, where we felt the freedom to have our most open conversations.

  “How are you doing?” was the first thing she asked.

  “Good. I feel normal and I just want to get the hell out of here.”

  “You sound like yourself.”

  I nodded.

  She looked me over with her bright hazel eyes, at first pleasantly, but then she jolted. “What happened?” she asked, grazing her finger against the faint scar just underneath my hairline. I was hoping that she didn’t notice since it wasn’t too big of a cut. The lump that was there for a week, on the other hand, was huge. Head wounds bleed like hell though, even the small ones. “Did the police do this to you?”

  I looked down. “No . . . I, uh, did it to myself.”

  She lowered her hand away from the scar slowly. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  I had thought about that a lot, lying in my bed, staring up at the ceiling while the occasional patient’s howl carried down the hall in the middle of the night.

  “Things were going so well. I thought I could do it. I thought you wouldn’t see that side of me. I lived most of my life just fine. I convinced myself that the last breakdown was a fluke and I could be the old Ash. And I wanted to just live in my art again. I missed my abilities, the synesthesia. I just wanted a taste of what it would be like to have you and just be me. I didn’t want to scare you away.”

  She laughed. “Did you honestly think you could scare me away? Ash, you were living in an alley when we met.”

  Her joke flooded me with intense gratitude. How did I find this person who could see past all the barriers I erected to isolate myself? How did I get the girl with laughter as warm as melted butter?

  She made me feel like maybe I did deserve another chance.

  “You should have told me. If you had been honest I would have been better able to see the signs. You probably wouldn’t even be in here.”

  “Maybe.” I wasn’t sure if I believed her. “Listen, I don’t know how much you know. But, as the mania snowballs, and I stop sleeping and eating, I don’t remember a lot. It’s like I’m possessed. My mind moves so fast I can barely keep up with the racing thoughts.”

  “I’ve been trying to learn as much as I can.”

  “I just wanted to say, if I said things that hurt you or did things that were mean, it wasn’t me. I know it sounds like a copout. But, it really wasn’t me. It takes a hold of me. It’s like . . . it’s like getting your jacket caught in a subway door and then it takes off. I have no choice but to go for the ride, no matter how crazy it gets.”

  “Ash, I could tell you weren’t yourself. Even as it was happening. I’m not upset with what happened. Only that I was the last to find out. I understand why. But I was really scared because I had no frame of reference at the time.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I reached for her hand across the table and she let me gently grip it. The physical contact was innately therapeutic, but it also taunted my rogue libido.

  “So, I’ve gotten to know Miller a bit. He’s confident you’ll be out soon. I know he’s working on getting you just a fine for the window.”

  “The window?”

  “The one you shattered . . .”

  “Oh, yeah.” That was temporary memory loss from the ECT, but I tried my best to play it off. “I should be out soon. He’s a fan of you, Miller.”

  She began to play with my fingers with both of her hands. “He’s a good brother.”

  “He is.”

  She lowered the tone of her voice, expanding the width of the teal, seafoam, and indigo waves I saw while softening their hue. “Ash, I just want you to take care of yourself first. Like I said, I’ve been reading up on this. It says you need a good routine. A good diet. Minimal stress. The art can wait. I just want you to be healthy. When you’re healthy you’ll be productive again.”

  I wasn’t entirely convinced. My biggest fear was that my art would always suffer so my mental health could thrive.

  “My biggest fear is I’ll never be great again. That I’ll have to choose.”

  “You can’t create art in a state of fear. You know that. You have to be open. Your synesthesia is a gift, but it’s you, Ash. You have the ability, synesthesia or not. And I think there is something out there, maybe a medicine you haven’t tried yet, that can allow you to stabilize without stripping you. We just have to be patient and proactive. You’ve only tried the lithium so far. There are so many options.”

  She kept saying we. I was sad that she had internalized my issues. She shouldn’t have to deal with this. But I was happy that I wasn’t alone. She still wanted me, even broken me.

  “But I want to be clear. I am here. I’m not going anywhere. I love you, Ash.”

  The sensation of being swaddled in the plushest fur gripped me.

  “God, you have no idea how much I love you. I’m going to do anything to make it all up to you,” I said.

  “Do it for you.” Doing it for me wasn’t worth it. It had to be for her.

  I nodded to appease her. Then I took her in again, particularly the view down the front of her dress.

  “You look really sexy by the way,” I whispered. My ECT-stimulated libido couldn’t resist any longer.

  “Thank you,” she said flirtatiously.

  “I can’t wait to get my hands on you again.”

  “Me neither.” It was fun to be us again. I had already forgotten about the gated windows, Formica tables and steel-faced orderlies.

  “I think about you a lot when I’m here, alone,” I confessed.

  “Oh, do you? So do I,” she smirked.

  “Really?” I said, leaning in. “And what do you do?”

  She looked from side to side with a mischievous smirk and leaned in. “I touch myself,” she whispered.

  I let out a lingering exhale. I was getting an embarrassingly firm boner in the damn waiting room.

  “I’m not wearing any panties,” she whispered.

  There was going to be a helluva self-love session in my room later on.

  I adjusted my pants under the table. “I’m so gonna give it to you when I get out of here, but if we don’t change the subject, I’m not going to be able to stand up and walk out of here.”

  Her golden giggle burst in the air.

  “So tell me about the show.” I wanted to keep the conversation on normal things.

  “It’s almost here! Can you believe tickets are already sold out?”

  “Wow.”

  “Yeah. The concept is resonating and it’s getting a lot of buzz. It’s gotten coverage in the New York Times and it hasn’t even debuted! I can’t wait for you to see it. The set, the costumes, it’s incredible. I can’t believe what they’ve done. Some scenes, the house lights go completely down, and we wear these glow in the dark costumes that make us look like we’re flying in the dark jungle sky. I can’t wait for you to see it.”

  “Me neither. Your dancing is the most beautiful thing in the world.” I winked and she stopped fiddling with my hands to grasp them.

  “Ash, we’re gonna get through this. You and me. We’re gonna live our dreams. And there’s nothing to hide. Please, don’t ever hide from me again. I need to know you will tell me when you feel off, or stressed. This only works if we’re honest.”

  She leaned over the table and kissed me again and tried to wipe away the lipstick stains, but I grabbed her hand. I never wanted to wash them off.

  “I have to go back. Dress rehearsals. But I’m going to come every chance I get. Call me whenever you can. I love you.”

  “I love you, too.”

  Then she was gone, and all the colors and stars in my vision went with her. And I was again surrounded by the absence of color.

  BIRD

  “Birdie! Come here! I have some news.” Jordan waved me over and I jumped do
wn from the stage. Seeing how well Ash was doing was such a relief. The weeks I waited for him to stabilize dragged on and while I did my best to stay focused during rehearsals, it was hard. I found myself becoming increasingly emotional from the worry. But Ash looked good, well-rested, and he was getting back to his normal weight.

  But what made me the most hopeful was his optimism. I always felt like Ash thought he didn’t deserve to be loved, but he had accepted my love and my desire to help him heal.

  “What’s up?” I asked Jordan.

  “I have some huge news and I couldn’t wait to tell you.”

  “Well spit it out!”

  “I just got off the phone with Alana. Guess what? The tour is on!”

  “The tour? You mean the tour? I thought they were going to consider it after our LA run?”

  “Yeah, but no one expected the show to sell out so early. The new dates we added already sold out. There is so much interest, and they want to ride the momentum.”

  “Oh my god!” But I couldn’t feign the enthusiasm I would have had under any other circumstances. A tour meant tons of traveling, long hours on the road, constant change of routine. It was everything I told Ash he didn’t need in his life.

  “You don’t seem as excited as I thought you would be.”

  “No . . . no . . . it’s great. It’s just that I guess I didn’t consider it was going to happen so fast.”

  “Well they still have to put up the dates. It’s not like we’re going next week.”

  “I know . . .”

  “What’s going on?”

  I rolled my eyes and sighed in frustration. “It’s just that, well, Ash.”

  “What about Ash?”

  “He’s getting out soon, and I just don’t know if it’s a good time for me to be planning things like this.”

  “You’re kidding?”

  “No. I’m not, Jordan.”

  “Bird, you can’t stop your career over a guy. This world moves too fast and you will be left behind.”

  “So, what do I do? Just pick up and go? Is that how the world works?”

  “When you’re twenty-one and you have the opportunity of a lifetime? Yes. You say deuces. You realize that there are other people to love. Or that maybe one day you’ll find each other again.”