Page 136 of Burn Bright
31
BEN COBALT
After Harriet texts that she’s on campus, I think I’ll relax, but tension still flexes every tendon in my body. I’m back inside Pink Noir, and Eliot and Tom have already pulled me onto the dance floor.
I have to pretend for thirty minutes that I’m not dying inside. The club feels too small. Bodies packed too tight. I can spot the NYBC dancers on the floor, not just because I recognize their faces.
The beat of the music seems to flow through their limbs, their veins, with soul-bearing rhythm in each lithe movement. Leo rolls his neck like the melody is a drug he’s high on. Beckett lifts a girl in his arms and twirls. She sways her hands upward like she’s skimming the surface of a lake and not the air. A couple dancers drift off to the side complaining about being sore and exhausted from their performance earlier tonight.
I try to let the remixed songs absorb my thoughts like the most powerful sponge, but I just keep thinking,Harriet dissects mice.And now she’s gone. I’m not sure which one feels worse. There is a definite void she’s left behind.
She dissects mice?I wish it were a question and not an absolute fact.
I’m so conflicted that my stomach is caving in on itself. I might hurl.
“Ben! Brother!” Eliot cups my jaw, then the back of my skull with love. “No pouting allowed!”
“No pouting, Ben Pirrip!” Tom hollers in agreement. “It’s our brothers’ motherfucking birthday!” Half the dance floor cheers with them.
I want to smile and join the fevered elation. Not that long ago, I would’ve been bellowing with joy. Tonight has been entirely worry-free, stress-free, panic-free. I never stopped grinning during the ballet. Of the countless times I’ve seen my brother dance, this was hands-down my favorite watching him on stage.
His favorite ballet. On his birthday. Then I looked next to me and saw Harriet entranced with the way Beckett glided and took each turn with perfect precision. His sky-high, effortless jumps made the whole theatre audibly gasp, including her. After his variation, a booming roar of applause erupted. We were all on our feet.
I haven’t even feared the terrible outcomes to being around them. I just existed in the moment with my brothers and with her.
We left the ballet and wandered down the sidewalk toward the club, singing “Happy Birthday” to Charlie and Beckett, with all of Beckett’s friends. I picked popcorn kernels out of Harriet’s blonde hair, and she tried not to trip while she walked in front of me. I thought about scooping her up in my arms, thought about kissing her under the sparkling city lights, thought about all the ways in which I never wanted this to end.
Eliot led the way into Pink Noir, all of us cutting the velvet ropes and the long, weaving line out the entrance.
It’s been a flood-my-lungs, stay-out-forever, soar-to-the-stars kind of night.
Now it’s crashing to the concrete.
In the middle of a pop ballad, I feel my phone vibrate in my palm—I’ve been keeping it there in case Harriet or Guy texts. Before I even look at the screen, I’m wishing it’s from her.
My stomach plummets.
Guy Abernathy (Honors House President)
I got held up. Really want to make it, but it looks like I’ll need to take a raincheck.
Could this night tank even harder? I skate a frustrated hand through my damp, sweaty hair before I stuff my cell in my pocket. Fuck tonight. Truly. I try to slip away from my brothers, but Eliot seizes my shoulder and leans into my ear. “Where are you off to?”
“To find Beckett!” I yell over the music as it changes to a bass-heavy song.
Eliot fists a handful of my shirt and pulls me away from the amps to a quieter side of the club. I let him drag me there. I’m not sure I have a lot of fight in me tonight. He wipes dripping sweat off his temples with the side of his fist. “Did you have an argument with Harriet?”
My muscles cramp. “What?”
“You were fine before she left.” Eliot kicks a crumpled beer can out of my vicinity, like its mere two-inch radius to my feet might hurt me.
I wonder how crushed I look. “And I’m still fine,” I lie and pat his shoulder. “The music is just loud. I want to be outside. I’m going to go find Beckett and say goodbye.”
“Souviens-toi.”Remember.Eliot grips my shoulders with two hands. “Tu n'es jamais seul.”You are never alone.
I’m okay.
I’m okay, I want to tell him, but I struggle to lie twice in a row. I hate doing it just once. “Je dois y aller,” I choke out.I have to go.
