
Fluid Movements by Emma Burnett
******He taught her to love her body. In a cramped bedroom on the top floor of a run-down tenement building, he gently tugged at her arms, freeing her breasts from under her hands, and smiled at her, told her she was beautiful. He held her to him, then turned them both towards the mirror. He stood behind her, one arm draped over her shoulder, across her clavicle, and he gloried in a world of beauty.
******He’s a bad influence, said her parents. But he smelled like Old Spice, and he thought she was beautiful, and he taught her to dance in rhythm with his body.
******Don’t forget me, he said once, big spooning her in his narrow bed, high on weed and endorphins. When you leave and do whatever you’re gonna do, don’t forget me.
******Her promise fell flat, of course. She drifted away, went off to university, got new jobs, fell into other relationships. Sometimes she thought about him when she danced, slow and rhythmic, or when she considered how a new lover’s hips fit against hers. She figured he would mostly forget about her, too, because that’s what people did after a decade or more. They moved on with their lives and their thoughts.
******She found out about the accident from her mother, who found out about it from the invitation to the funeral his mother sent in the mail. Her mother texted her a photo of the invite, and he looked almost the same in the photo as in her memory. Same eyes, same smile. It was still him, under the weight of time.
******She couldn’t go home for the funeral. She wasn’t sure she wanted to. She was running classes for her professor, had research to do, a thesis to write. She didn’t want to feel the crushing weight of a funeral, to mourn in a crowd. The memory of him was an anchor to the past, to herself. She wanted to savour that lightness and joy, the flavours of him.
******Instead, she pulled up a photo of the two of them on her phone, an old one all grainy from being scanned in, back when people needed scanners to digitise printed photos. She stared at the picture of them, beautiful in their youth, his hand curled around her waist. She raised a caffeinated toast to him after she’d finished grading papers and making notes for the next day’s meeting.
******And she kept thinking about him that night, as she prepared for her show. She didn’t need to dance for rent money anymore. She did it because she felt beautiful on stage, felt beautiful being seen. She stared at herself in the changing room mirror, her hands down at her sides, uncovered. She imagined his breath in her ear, could almost feel the weight of his arm draped across her body.
******She smiled at the reflection and began to move her body to the music trickling into the back room from the stage, and she was content in her fluid movements.
Emma Burnett is a recovering academic. She’s big into cats, sports, and being introverted. You can find her @slashnburnett or emmaburnett.uk
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Beautifully written Emma. The wonder of first love, sensual awakening which marks our hearts all captured sensitively in this piece. Loved it!