Page 92 of Wreckage and Rain

***

Saturday I'm backstage and my hands are shaking. Not a little. A lot. The kind that makes eyeliner impossible.

Marisol is doing my makeup while Lucia offers commentary from the counter.

"Pretty," Lucia says, pointing at my face.

"Thank you, Lucia."

"Wucy wants glitter."

"Lucia isn't performing tonight."

"Wucy is NOT quiet."

"We're all aware."

Sam appears in the doorway. Black shirt. He looks at me, half-ready, shaking, surrounded by sequins and Marisol's steady hands.

He crosses the room. Kisses my forehead. "You don't have to do this."

"I know. That's why I want to."

***

The lights dim. The music starts. Bex's choreography. My song.

I walk out.

Three minutes. One song. A woman's voice, low and building.

The first thirty seconds are stillness. Just me. Center stage. Single spotlight. I don't move. I just stand there and let the audience adjust to my presence.

I stand. Breathe. The audience is quiet. Two hundred people. Their attention is a physical force.

Then I move. No mirrors, no thinking, just me and this music.

The choreography builds. Each movement deliberate. Earned. My hips. My shoulders. My hands tracing lines down my body that aren't sexual but possessive. Claiming myself inch by inch. This is mine. This body. This skin. This space.

The second movement is faster. Music building. I roll, I arch, I turn. My body knows this. Weeks of practice and the muscle memory of a woman who spent months learning to live inside her own skin again.

I'm terrified and I'm powerful and the intersection is the most electrifying thing I've ever felt.

The third movement. Climax. Music peaks. Bass and voice and something that sounds like a heartbeat. I move with everything I have. Not for the audience. Not for Sam. Not for Colt. For me.

The music ends. Breathing hard. Spotlight. Silence.

Then the applause.

Autumn is on her feet. Screaming. Lucia is screaming too, for reasons possibly unrelated. The audience rises. The visceral kind.

I'm shaking. Smiling. The real smile. Crooked. Squinting.

I look into the crowd. Find him.

Colt is standing. Not clapping. Hands at his sides. Tears streaming down his face. Not the discreet kind. Real tears. Messy. The kind that happen when something inside him breaks open and he can't stop it.

He's not looking at me with jealousy. Not with possession.