The Leap
Tossing my bag on the floor next to the much abused table, I rolled my neck. I needed this. I needed the sweet release that only it would bring. Plunking my ancient iPod into the stereo system, I selected a playlist that would allow me to exorcise every damn feeling and pent up emotion.
Hearing the first few chords of the song pour out of the speakers that were strategically placed throughout the room, I began a quick but efficient warm up. I rolled my shoulders and hips, feeling out the song.
After warming up for ten minutes, I took a deep breath as a new song pumped out. A bitter smile crossed my lips as I walked over to turn it up. I wanted the whole classroom to be filled with nothing but the sounds of the song and I wanted it loud.
Pocketing the small remote, I walked back to the center of the room and began the song again as I put my chin to my chest. After a few beats, I snapped my head up and began to dance.
Instead of thinking of moves, I just let the music take me and used what I was feeling to propel me through the song. The guitar strummed, the drums were bashed and the singer's words struck me as I thought about emerald green eyes full of fire. I thought of the biting and vicious words spewed from a mouth full of venom. I thought of the ugly sneer spread across a face of disgust.
Feeling my own anger welling up, I hitch kicked and leaped and aerialed the shit out of that song. The anger was full force still as I recalled the specific words lashed at me.
As the song came to a close, I was breathing heavy and working up a good sweat. Taking deep lungfuls of breath, I felt the anger start to recede and the hurt start to set in. The next song made me gasp for breath and fall to my knees. Knowing the song, I dragged myself across the floor, again putting all my feelings into the song. Throwing out more turns in a passé pirouette than I'd ever done, the tears began.
The profound sadness I felt shocked me. Falling again to the ground, I felt the aching loss. He had said it all when he said nothing at all. The exact moment when I needed to hear something, anything, from him was the exact moment he became silent. The blank, empty look said more than his words ever could.
I pushed it away. I couldn't think of his once vibrant eyes chilling to nothing more than displeasure.
The tears fell faster as the song ended. Standing and fumbling for the remote, I hit the pause button and tried to calm my sobs. I was never one for dramatics, but in that moment, I knew I'd lost everything I was fighting for.
Angrily throwing the remote across the room, I sunk to my bottom and pulled my knees to my chest. Resting my forehead on my knees and rocking slightly, I just tried to take deep breaths.
Once I finally got myself under control, I walked to where I'd thrown the remote. Bending to pick it up, I pressed play again. The song started with nothing but the singer's voice. As the rest of the music began in the song, I felt a calmness set in. Not that the anger and hurt from that epic fight disappeared, but rather that since I had exorcised those feelings through my dancing, I was able to be more levelheaded and calm and could think through it.
The song's end made me feel strangely at ease and seemed to come quicker than I'd anticipated. Finishing with a renverse jump, I centered myself and again turned off the music. Hanging my head, the quiet of the room felt almost eerie after the volume at which the music was previously playing. Lifting my head back up after a few moments, I closed my eyes and hesitated in looking at myself in the mirror. I knew what I'd see: the evidence of my crying in a tearstained face, my shirt that was wet with my sweat, and an empty look in my eyes. Finally not caring enough either way, I opened my eyes and looked at myself.
I was shocked when I looked up to see a pair of eyes staring at me from the corner of the room. And not just any pair of eyes, but a pair of stunning emerald eyes.
The same eyes that not two hours before, I ran from.
I stood stock still as the body that belonged to those eyes walked cautiously, but purposefully towards me.
Trembling a little from the look in that pair of eyes, I struggled to take an even breath. The intensity in his eyes floored me.
As he came to a stop in front of me, I breathed in his scent and realized how close he was to me. He was too close. Moving to take a step back or turn from him, I'm not quite sure, I start when I feel two hands on my biceps holding me in place.
Pointedly glancing down at his hands and glaring at him, I start to open my mouth to tell him to get the fuck off me, but he beats me to the punch and whispers the words that needed to be said all along.
"Don't leave me, Iz."
Bowing his head to be level with me, he meets my eyes and moves in even closer.
"Don't go. Stay here with me. Marry me. Share your life with me. Dance in my bathroom when you get ready in the mornings. Sing horribly off key while you shower. Walk barefoot in my kitchen while you yell at me for our lack of food and let me massage your feet after a long day of teaching. Curse at me when you're so pregnant that you can't see your toes. Share your troubles and worries with me. Fill our house with our children and grow old with me. Stay."
His hands move from my arms but instead gently grasping my face. My eyes water and as a tear streaks down my face, he kisses it away.
"Stay with me Iz."
Not hesitating, I throw my arms around him and bury my face in his neck and I quietly repeat the words he'd always promised me.
"Always and forever."
Bella's Dance Playlist:
Riot - Three Days Grace
Apologize - Timbaland feat. OneRepublic
Footprints in the Sand - Leona Lewis
Bonus:
Listen - Beyonce
A/N:
I am by no means a dancer, so please forgive any inaccuracies on my part!
And of course, reviews are welcome and very much appreciated! :)