“Remember freshman homecoming?” Nia said, shimmying with excitement. “Remember how we tore up that dance floor to this?”
I laughed, reliving the afternoons we’d spent practicing in the mirror before the dance, trying to make our asses clap. We’d been wildly unsuccessful but decided to debut our routine on the homecoming dance floor anyway. The assistant principal tried to kick us out for “inappropriate gyrations.” Tabatha had been so embarrassed. She probably knew what was coming, judging by how she’d dropped her face into her hands.
“You think we still got it?” I shouted. Nia gave me an incredulous look and then slid right into our dance.
There were parts I’d forgotten. Cues I had to take from Nia, some she had to take from me. But we remembered all the dips, all the body rolls, and this time around we actually knew how to twerk. It was amazing what the body could recall that the mind had lost.
And mine was remembering that I was deeply, desperately loved by many. I hardly had to cry out for my girls to come running to my aid, ready to lift me up when I was down. This was what love was supposed to feel like: uplifting, encouraging, renewing. If I had to let go of a love that was not quite that, that was okay. Because I loved myself, and these women had taught me how.
Eventually the song ended and the DJ, grateful for the small crowd we had drawn to the dance floor, announced, “Thank you to these ladies for showing us how it’s done!” Nia and I looked at each other and burst into peals of laughter, clutching at each other to stay on our feet. Seconds later, the next song came on, and we kept dancing on the now-occupied floor to a song that matched our heightened energy.
Suddenly, a hand pressed against my back. I jumped away, armed with a ready barb for whichever asshole decided to touch me without permission, and turned.
The man opening his mouth to talk to me didn’t look a thing like Ricky. They were both brown-skinned and dark-haired, but that was where the similarities ended. Where Ricky was lean, this guy was burly, his hair swooped back in a standard Finance bro cut that Ricky’s tresses put to shame. Still, at this stranger’s unwelcome touch, my mind shuttled backward to another dance floor, this one created in the light of day. A steel betrothal pendant hanging heavy against my chest, my fingers still just a bit tacky with powdered sugar. A haunting rendition of “In the Pines” blasting on outdoor speakers, deep, brown eyes squinting down at me, assessing, trying to piece me together—
“Excuse me,” I choked, shoving past the man and marching for the exit. I pushed through the crowd of people, tensing against their inadvertent touches. When I finally reached a break in the throng, my march became a jog, and I hastened out of the dance bar, gulping down the fresh night air.
Ten months. Ricky had handed me his heart and I had squeezed it until it burst, and now I was suffering for it. It had been my choice to end us; so why did it hurt so badly?
I sat on the curb outside for five minutes, tucking my knees to my chest, listening to the cars whiz past. A few concerned passersby stalled by me, but, deciding that I was probably another wasted girl having a breakdown on the sidewalk in the middle of River North, kept walking. Ricky would’ve stopped for me. He was conscientious like that, the kind of guy to double back after grocery shopping to help an old lady load her car. The kind of guy to approach a crying stranger in the middle of a park and ask her if she was okay, then spend the next several hours trying to make her smile—
I felt, not for the first time, doubt. Never mind being a strong independent woman who didn’t need no man; what if I needed Ricky? What if my attempts at self-determination had actually been self-sabotage?
“Angie! There you are!”
My girls had found me. I looked up at their beautiful, concerned faces from my spot on the sidewalk, cast into darkness by their shadows. My stomach curled with guilt; I’d run off without telling them.
“Sorry,” I said. I curled my arms around myself, shivering under the crisp October breeze. “I needed some air.”
Michelle, Tabatha, and Nia all exchanged a meaningful look. They seemed to decide something all at once, and I frowned, a bit put out that I had become an agenda for their silent council meeting. Then Nia helped haul me to my feet.
“All right,” she said. “So maybe that was a bit too much.” She gave me an apologetic smile. “Do you want to go home?”
I wagged my head, sorry that I had cut my friends’ fun short.
“No, no,” I said. “Just give me a minute, we can go back in—”