DANCE OR DIE: Two Guys, One Girl. No Voice. No Choice.

by A. E. Murphy

  “Go home, guys, I’ll be fine.”

  I always am. Still… they don’t leave.

  I am discharged the next morning but I don’t immediately go home. I go to see Paisley who has hands bound in bandages. She’s lying in the middle of a large bed; she looks weary and stressed as her eyes stay glued to a TV show.

  “Hey, brave little warrior,” I say to her and approach slowly. She smiles when she sees me but doesn’t look as though she recognizes me and I know that’s probably because I was covered in makeup and soot last night. Not to mention all the smoke. “It’s me, the girl from the fire. We escaped together. I just came to see if you’re okay. The nurses let me in.”

  She smiles shyly but doesn’t say anything.

  “That was crazy, huh?”

  She nods and her eyes fill with tears.

  “Don’t cry, please. It’s okay. It’s over.”

  “I lost my bunny,” she whispers and my heart breaks for her.

  “We should get her a new bunny,” Lane hisses from the doorway and Stanley mumbles something in return.

  The door opens behind them and Presley walks in looking as exhausted as they do. I bet he hasn’t slept either.

  He stares at me for the longest time as though he can’t find the words. So I open up the conversation first by asking, “Are her hands bad?”

  He shakes his head. “First degree. She’s so strong. She hasn’t complained at all.”

  “She is so brave,” Lane agrees. “And so beautiful.”

  Paisley’s smile brightens up so much that everyone’s mood is lifted. There’s an almost visible shift to the energy in here.

  “Mom wants to see you,” Presley utters, scratching the back of his head. “She can’t get out of bed right now.”

  “Heart failure, right?” I ask and he nods sadly. “Is she waiting on a transplant?”

  He sits on the bed and rubs his eyes with the heels of his palms. “It’s probably too late for that.”

  Lane sniffs and I just know she’s about to start crying again.

  I give a wide-eyed look at Lane and Stanley over my shoulder, they get my hint and duck out of the room.

  “I’m so sorry, Presley.” I put my hand on his shoulder and squeeze. My entire body aches just from the effort of that touch.

  “I know you are.” He places his hand on mine and brings it to his cheek. He’s seeking my comfort; I give it to him. It feels nice.

  Paisley continues watching her TV in the background. I wonder if she’s in shock.

  “We have nowhere to live,” he whispers and I sit beside him, keeping my hand in his as he stares ahead, a frown worrying his brow. “In hindsight I know I shouldn’t care about that because my sister is alive… but my home is gone and everything in it, and if the insurance company thinks my father was at fault, they won’t pay out.”

  “You’ll just have to get a kick-ass scholarship and take her to college with you.”

  “Like I’ll still be able to go to college now.” He leans forward and buries his face in his hands. The weight of his world and his sister’s future now rests on his shoulders. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be offloading on you after everything you went through yesterday. I’m being a pussy.”

  “Bad word,” Paisley mutters, making me smile. When I look at her, her eyes haven’t left the TV hanging from the ceiling.

  “You’re not being a P-U-S-S-Y… you’re scared. I would be too.”

  He smiles at me, genuinely for the first time ever and cups my face with his hand. “I’ll forever be indebted to you.” His voice becomes a whisper. “You could have died trying to save her. For a moment there we all thought you did and all I could think about was how I… was all I did… and....” The pad of his thumb rubs the softness of my cheek. “That I’ve been horrid to you since we met. I’d ask you for forgiveness but I don’t deserve it.”

  “Says who?”

  His twinkling blueish-grays hold mine and we share an intimate moment where two people connect and converse without using words or touch.

  When he leans in, looking for comfort again, I glance at Paisley and reassure him, “It’ll all work out. Somehow. It will.”

  “You mean like that drop you did onto that wall?”

  “Right?” I widen my eyes with excitement. “How effing crazy was that? For real. I was like…” I throw my hands up in the air and cheer quietly. “I mean, by that point I’d resigned myself to the fact I’d never be able to dance again. I was ready to feel my legs break, ready to fall and snap my spine.”

  His smile blinds me. “You nailed it. I’m glad you’re okay.”

  “Me too.”

  “I think if it hadn’t come away from the wall like it did, it would have had a very different ending.”

  “And I am so grateful to whatever gris-gris made that happen.” I pat his hand on his lap and our smiles fade again to sorrow. “Did you still want me to meet your mom?”

  He nods and checks on Paisley. “You coming to see Momma, Paisley?”

  We walk through the halls together, leaving one part of the hospital to get to another. The children’s ward to the intensive care unit. Both are so far apart; the walk takes it out of me. I do love how everything is decorated for fall and Halloween. October in Louisiana is an incredible month.

  It smells of sanitizer and death though which takes away from the festive ambience. I’ve never spent any time in an actual hospital until now. I’ve been fortunate in that regard. I don’t like it. It reminds me of L.I. Where I spent a year of my life for trying to tell the truth.

  “She’s in here,” he says, looking tense and nervous.

  He pushes on the door and Paisley immediately cries a happy sounding, “Momma!” Her voice is as husky as mine. Smoke will do that to you.

  “Hey, baby,” comes a weak voice from the bed in the middle of the room. The frail, brown-haired woman is hooked up to so many machines she’s more wires than human. “How are your hands?”

  Presley lifts Paisley onto the bed and then holds his hand out to me. I didn’t realize I pressed my back against the door until now.

  I step closer, taking his hand to comfort myself or him I’m not sure.

  Her eyes are so much like Presley’s it makes my heart ache. Seeing her lying there so sick is like seeing him.

  “You’re the girl who saved my baby.”

  I shrug my shoulders. “I did what anyone could have done.”

  “But nobody else did.”

  I don’t know what to say to that so I give a generic response. “I’m glad I succeeded.”

  She smiles, making her sallow cheeks a bit fuller. “I saw the video.” Her breathing is raspy, not like mine after the smoke inhalation, but like her lungs are just too weak to function. This is so sad. My mom is a deadbeat, she deserves this fate, not Presley’s mom, Rebecca, who has those kind motherly eyes like she cares about everything you’re saying even if it doesn’t interest her. Just like mothers are supposed to do.

  I cringe as what she just said sinks in. “There’s a video?”

  “There’s always a video,” Presley mutters, leaning his shoulder into mine.

  Rebecca lifts her hand to me. I take it gently.

  “Thank you, Scandal.”

  Now I really hate that stupid name.

  “I wish I could show my thanks in other ways, but all I have are words these days.”

  “Even those aren’t necessary.”

  “Regardless, I mean them. From the bottom of my soul.” Rebecca lifts her hand to me. I take it gently. “It’s the most frustrating thing, being here while your kids are on the outside, being unable to properly guide them in the world. Loa graced them with an angel last night. I’ll forever be in your debt.”

  “So will I,” Presley breathes and we smile at each other.

  “You must really care about my son to have done something so insane.”

  Both Presley and I laugh nervously at that, sharing a look that projects that particular anxiety. “He�
��s alright I guess.”

  She grins at us with hazy eyes and cracked lips. “I hope you’ve both made a lifelong friend out of such a tragedy.”

  I nod and utter, “I’m sorry about your house.”

  “When you’re as sick as I am, you no longer care about belongings, just your loved ones. My only sadness is that they have no home, but we will figure it out.”

  “I’ll do what I can to help.”

  She smiles at me again and then her son. “She’s a sweet one.”

  Paisley, with her bandaged hands, snuggles into her mom’s side. “She’s a fairy.”

  “A very brave fairy.”

  Presley kisses her forehead and then his mom’s and nods for me to follow.

  We exit the room and I let the tears I was holding flow freely from my stinging eyes. It’s so hard to be strong when you’re faced with something so tragic. I quickly wipe them away, not wanting him to see.

  We head down the hall and he yanks open a door to a bathroom. Then he drags me inside and locks the door, uncaring if anybody sees. Though it wasn’t too busy out there, intensive care is a quiet environment and the nurses are likely in rooms working on their patients.

  He grips the basin and stares at himself in the mirror. His light-colored eyes with a dark halo around the iris look so worn and full of fear. He breathes heavy, his chest rising and falling with great effort. I let him have his silence. I don’t know why I’m in here with him, perhaps it’s for comfort, or perhaps he feels now like he has to keep me around because of what I did.

  I lean against the wall and wait for him to talk. I’m not pushing him; he deserves a minute and I’ve got time.

  “I’m in a limbo here,” he whispers, sounding pained. “I hate not knowing what’s going to happen next.”

  “I feel you. That’s my life in a nutshell.”

  Our eyes meet in the mirror and understanding flickers between us.

  His lip quivers and he cringes. I know that’s because I’m here and he’s showing emotions he probably wouldn’t otherwise.

  “It’s okay,” I breathe, stepping closer to him. “You can talk to me. You can trust me.”

  “I’ve been horrible to you.” He turns towards me and wipes his eyes on the back of his hand. “I just can’t get it out of my head how fucking awful I’ve been.”

  “Most people are. I just have the kind of face that attracts it.”

  He laughs slightly but that laugh becomes a sob which breaks my heart into tiny painful shards that fly around my body. His face goes to my neck and his moist lashes tickle the soft skin there. Hands dig into my shoulder and waist as he clings to me like I’m his last hope on earth.

  Perhaps in this moment I am.

  “What’s it like… not having a mom?” he asks so quietly I hardly hear it.

  “What’s it like having one?”

  His hold gets tighter and so does mine. “Amazing.”

  “Then not having one is the worst.”

  He pulls back, eyes teary and swollen, hair a mess atop his head.

  I give him a soft smile as I work my hands through his blond tresses, trying to make it look like it normally does. “You’re going to be okay. You’re so strong. You have to be strong. Your sister is always going to need you.”

  “I can’t do shit for her. What do I have?”

  “Don’t say that. Not yet, you don’t know what’s going to happen with insurance and your dad.”

  “I need to know. I don’t like not knowing.”

  I keep rubbing his scalp, trying to relax him and soothe him if only a little.

  He whimpers softly through a staggered breath and then touches his lips to mine.

  Carter’s face flashes through my mind so I pull back.

  “Presley,” I whisper, my throat still sore and scratchy.

  “Please,” he begs, kissing my jaw as he walks my body backwards to the wall I was leaning against moments ago. “Please.”

  “You’re emotional. We shouldn’t.”

  His lips move from my jaw to my neck, he nuzzles desperately, as though trying to burrow into my skin and hide there. “Please.”

  When his mouth closes over mine again, I return it. Unable to deny him right now when he so desperately needs something to take his mind off reality. I sag into him and he presses me hard into the wall, tongue tangling with mine.

  I moan as he groans powerfully and lifts my thigh over his hip after dragging his fingers from my ass to my knee.

  “I need you,” he whispers against my mouth, sounding pained.

  He rocks his hips against mine, hitting my sex perfectly. I cry out when pleasure unfurls in my womb, making my core tighten and tingle desperately.

  When he starts to slide a hand down the back of my pants, I put on the breaks. “No. We should stop.”

  He buries his face in my neck again and let’s my leg drop, though his bare hand remains on my bare ass, holding it tight so I can’t pull away. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be,” I reply, licking my swollen lips.

  Nodding, he releases me at last, leaving me cold and needy, and I watch him wash his face and grip the basin again, letting the water drip from his cheeks and nose like teardrops.

  He inhales deeply and then exhales slowly.

  “Let’s go back.”

  I smile and let him take my hand. He leads us back to his mom’s room where we sit and chat for another five minutes before taking Paisley back to hers. She’s such a good kid, though I think she might still be in shock.

  When we return to her room, I laugh when I find Stanley and Lane with a brand-new fluffy pink bunny with sparkly glitter eyes and a small bag full of candy and fruits.

  “She needed a new bunny,” Lane mutters with a shrug of her shoulders.

  I smile at her and so does Presley. Paisley loves it so much she starts crying and let’s Lane hug her and her bunny better.

  Something passes in Stanley’s eyes, something akin to regret. I see it, I feel it, and I want to question what it means. Why does he look so tortured when everything worked out so well?

  When he sees me looking, he opens his arm to me and I step into his side, letting him squeeze me like it’s the last time.

  “Proud of you,” he whispers and presses his cheek to my head.

  “I am all over the local news,” I say, slamming a paper in front of Stanley.

  “I know, I’ve put that article in a frame.” Lane sighs wistfully and shows me the glass-encased page with a picture of me leaping from firetruck to open window. “It’s going right here.”

  “Couyon,” I mutter and Stanley whacks me on the back with the newspaper I just gave him.

  Laughing, I step around him and stick a piece of toast between my teeth.

  “Are you sure you want to go back to school? Nobody would blame you if you wanted to take a couple of days off.”

  I shake my head, swallowing the bite of food in my mouth. “I’m not going to school. I’ve got so much to do. I want to maybe do a fundraiser for Presley and Paisley. They don’t have anywhere to live and Paisley is being discharged today. If Presley can’t find something before then, social services will step in and I’ll be damned if I let her fall into that failing system.” I grin wryly. “And now that I’m the new town hero, people are more likely to give me cash.”

  “I better get my keys, then,” Stanley utters.

  “No, it’s cool. Carter is coming for me.” I stuff the rest of the bread into my mouth and chew it frantically. “If you could put a collection box up at work, and, Lane, if you could speak to your fuck club.”

  “My what?” she gasps.

  “Sorry, I meant erotic book club.”

  She stammers on her words and Stanley sniggers into his mug.

  I clap my hands. “Come on, guys, chop chop, we’ve got a little girl to save.”

  Lane, finally gathering herself after I called her out on her books of porn, grips my arm to stop me from leaving. “Even if you do manage to get those
kids a place to stay, think long-term. How is he going to provide for his sister, pay bills, look after his home, graduate and go to college, all the while taking Paisley to school and dealing with her needs. He’d be giving up his future.”

  That’s something I’ve thought about too. “He’s not going to abandon his sister.”

  “I know. But perhaps social services stepping in wouldn’t be a bad thing.”

  I look between them both. “That girl is not going to social fucking services, so drop it or find a better solution. I mean, you have space, why don’t you take her in? She can have my room. I’ll be leaving in a couple of months anyway.” I ignore the hurt on their faces and press on. “Look, guys, just support me on this, okay? Let us get them somewhere safe, and then we can discuss the future of Paisley, yeah?”

  “Okay,” Stanley agrees and Lane nods reluctantly. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  There’s a knock on the door, I hurry to it. “See you later!”

  “Good luck,” Lane calls after me.

  I have a better spring in my step today. Truth be told, I need to stay focused so I don’t keep thinking about everything that happened. Kiss in the bathroom included.

  “You’re not Carter,” I say immediately upon opening the door.

  “Nope.” The woman pushes her sunglasses to the top of her chin-length, dark hair and extends a hand. “Mackenzie Prior, investigative journalist for the World Press.”

  I blink slowly, ignoring her hand. “You’re here about the fire?”

  “No, actually I’m here because I’ve been looking for you since you were discharged from L.I. and your photo in the newspaper alerted me to your whereabouts.”

  “Why? Has this got anything to do with my mom? Because I haven’t seen that junkie bitch for years.”

  “No, this has nothing to do with her either.” She glances behind me and I follow her gaze, and we both spy Lane and Stanley coming our way. “Can we walk and talk? In private?”

  Stanley stands at my back, a warning presence to anybody who wants to fuck with me. “She’s still a minor.”

  “Not according to state law,” Mackenzie cuts in and Stanley pulls me back into the house.

  “Listen here, lady—"