Paige had no idea what was happening to her. Her heart was racing and her stomach was churning. She felt hot, like her new sweatshirt was choking her. The symptoms reminded her of the Christmas she was nine and she'd eaten about 50 cookies and then Tuck had made her laugh and she'd puked all over the tree.
When the lights dropped she grabbed the hem of her sweatshirt and started to pull it over her head. She needed air. But somewhere in her armpit and neck region it got caught and she started to panic. Before she could freak out too much though, she felt hands yanking the garment over her head. As she came free, Emily handed the balled up sweatshirt to her. Paige knew that this was the moment in the story that she would puke. Having the sweatshirt off, though, was cooling her down quickly and, thankfully, she was able to keep it together.
As the music started playing through the theater, Paige did her best to focus on the dancers and not on the fact that she had almost just melted and suffocated in front of this pretty girl. The thought caught her off guard. She glanced quickly at Emily. I guess she is pretty, Paige admitted to herself as she looked at Emily's long dark hair and light brown skin. She was breathtaking, actually, with the delicate light of the stage falling over her face, chest, and shoulders like a dusting of powder. Paige thought fleetingly of the chalk that gymnasts would dip their hands and feet in before climbing onto the balance beam. She wanted to dip her hands in whatever it was that seemed to have settled on Emily. She needed to get a grip.
Paige focused back on the stage then and only risked glancing over at Emily when Tuck wasn't on stage. As perplexing as she found this girl, Paige was there to support her brother. And with that in mind, she gave him her full attention on the stage, but she could feel Emily's eyes on her every once in awhile. She seemed to have reached a heightened state of awareness, but only concerning these two people. She felt invaded.
Six dances later, the lights came up again.
"Is it over?" Paige wondered aloud.
"It's just intermission," Emily told her.
"Right. Halftime," Paige clarified for herself. "Intermission" was one of those words that always got stuck on the tip of her tongue.
"Sorry to keep bothering you," Paige said turning to Emily again (am I sorry? Paige wondered), "but could you tell me where the bathroom is?"
"It's not a bother," Emily answered. "I was just about to go as well. I can show you."
Paige and Emily moved to the aisle and walked slowly toward the exit along with about half of the audience. As they finally reached the back of the auditorium, Emily saw Charlie who was stationed at the doors again. Charlie looked Paige up and down and sent Emily a sly smile and slight nod. Emily rolled her eyes back, but felt herself blushing a little as well. Luckily, because of her complexion, people usually couldn't tell when she was blushing.
Finally the pair made their way down to the bathroom, but there was quite a line formed already. They fell in behind the other women, Paige standing behind Emily. They hadn't spoken since leaving their seats. It was starting to get awkward.
"So, you and Tuck," Emily said turning around to face Paige, "you're twins aren't you?"
Paige looked at her with an impressed sort of crooked smile gracing her face.
"Yeah, how did you know?" Paige and Tuck looked related, sure, but they were by no means identical. And now that they'd reached adulthood, most people couldn't tell they were twins.
"I don't know…there was just something about the way you were watching him, like you were up there with him. Like the dance was coming out of your eyes and being projected on to the stage," Emily said, shaking her head slightly. "That sounds kind of weird but that's the only way I can describe it."
"You were right, so I guess it's not that weird," Paige told her.
They had moved just inside the door of the bathroom now. Most of the women behind them seemed to have decided to hold it or find another bathroom somewhere.
"What about you, do you have any siblings?" Paige asked.
"Nope. I'm an only child," Emily answered. "It was kind of lonely growing up. But in high school and here, too, I've sort of formed a family out of my friends."
"It can be lonely, too, being a twin," Paige told her honestly. She had no idea why she was opening up to Emily like this. "I never really learned how to make friends because I always had Tuck."
At that moment, a little girl had thrown open the door forcefully and unexpectedly and it knocked Paige forward into Emily. Her left hand had instinctually gone to the wall above Emily's head to steady herself, but her right hand had somehow landed on Emily's hip and their faces were only inches apart. Rather than break them out of the intimate space they had entered in their conversation, as Emily expected it to, it seemed to sink them deeper into it.
"See? I have to depend on wayward children hitting me with doors to get close to people." Paige smiled and pushed herself back away from Emily again; her eyes sizzling like a lit firecracker.
It was Emily's turn to feel nervous now. Having Paige pressed up against her, even for those few seconds, had sent her into a mental tailspin.
"You were doing fine before that little girl bulldozed in here," she told Paige shyly as she turned to head into the cubicle that had just opened up. "I'll see you back in the theater," Emily said as she shut the door.
Emily spent the entire second half of the dance show wracking her brain for some way to keep talking to Paige afterward. But she couldn't really think of anything. They were just two strangers that happened to sit next to each other in a theater. When the lights came back up again, Paige would go meet back up with her brother and Emily would return to The Log with her friends to celebrate Eden's first dance performance. She thought of asking Paige and Tuck to join her and the girls but she didn't want to intrude on their time together. She didn't want to seem creepy or pushy or desperate. She didn't even know if Paige was gay. And with these thoughts spiraling through her mind, Emily grew more and more somber as the show got closer to ending. She wanted to drink Paige. To chug her or sip her or gulp her in. Emily didn't care. She had to know her and she didn't care the speed or route of that knowing. She felt desperate. Emily had never felt such an immediate connection to someone. How could they just walk away from each other after this?
Despite all these feelings, it all still happened exactly as Emily didn't want it to. The last dance finished, the audience clapped for the last time, and the house lights came back up. With a despondent heart, Emily watched Paige stand up and tell her, "It was really nice to meet you."
Emily thought Paige may have hesitated. It was an almost imperceptible movement, like a kid playing Mother May I? But whether Paige's body was asking permission to stay or permission to go, Emily couldn't tell.
So she just said, "Yeah, you too," and helplessly watched as Paige left the auditorium.
