His voice was quiet, as though he wasn’t sure if he wanted me to hear him. Now this – this was Ransom being honest, not pretending like he had all the answers, or that he knew exactly what he needed. None of us did. I was grateful that he’d finally admitted to being as clueless as the rest of us.

I turned, shuffling to stand in front of the sofa and extended my hand to him. “Dance with me,” I said. He only stared up at me blankly.

“I don’t feel like practicing.”

“I’m not asking you to practice. I’m asking you to dance.”

Ransom’s body stiffened when I picked up his hand, but he didn’t fight me. “Just be here with me. Me and you and the music.”

We came together in the center of my living room with that slow, soothing music wrapping around us. There was no Kizomba, no prequel to a seduction we both wanted to avoid. There was just Ransom bending low, arms around me, hand taking mine to hold against his chest. After a few seconds, the tension lessened, and his body did not feel as rigid. It felt peaceful, and safe, and simple—just two people, holding each other, swaying to the music.

His mouth hovered near my forehead and as we moved together with no form or practiced steps, Ransom’s grip on my waist got tighter. “I wish I could breathe again. I want that so bad.” The words were whispered, low.

I closed my eyes, reminding myself that I couldn’t touch him.

“Ransom. You can.”

He looked down at me and right then I saw just how lost he was. This realization didn’t come from flippant comments he made to me or desperate excuses I overheard him make. It was all there right in his eyes—the loneliness, the pain, as though each mistake he’d made was etched into the rise of his cheekbones and the worried, faint lines on his forehead. He was still drifting; he had been drifting for so damn long.

The pain in his eyes drew me in. There was nothing I could say that would make his hurt lessen. There was nothing that would take him from the lingering sorrow he’d created for himself. So I didn’t speak, didn’t give him advice I knew he’d never take. I just watched Ransom’s eyes, and felt the slow way he moved. And then with my hand on the back of his neck, I pulled his face towards me, I took his lips, kissing him, pouring into that kiss everything I’d held back from him since we first met.

This is who I am. This is what I want. That voice came from someplace hidden and secret inside me.

It was minutes, minutes of nothing but my mouth on his, nothing but two people finding solace in each other, before I realized I’d messed up.

He didn’t seem to want me to pull away, but didn’t stop me when I did. Shaking my head, I smoothed the collar on his shirt, unable to look at him. “I’m…modi, Ransom, I’m sorry.”

Ransom pulled my chin up and smoothed his thumb over my cheek, down the slope of my chin before he returned his attention to my eyes. “I don’t think I am.”

It was a moment I thought I’d always wanted. Him looking at me like I was real, like he saw me, finally saw me. I’d seen that look once before, just as Ransom whispered my name and kissed me over and over the first time. It wasn’t the look of someone hopeless. It was open and raw and I realized right then that I’d give anything for Ransom to never stop looking at me.

But this was against our rules. This wasn’t how we were supposed to be. I took his hand, thought of pulling it away from my face but didn’t have the strength, liked how it felt on my face too much. “Friends don’t kiss, Ransom.”

A small nod, and his eyes narrowed. His grip around me tightened. The music around us swelled. “No, they don’t,” he said, still touching my face, inching closer and I knew, right then, he was definitely not my friend.

15

Everything felt wrong. I knew that the moment I stepped inside Summerland’s and Ironside ushered me into the dressing room. He didn’t threaten me, but there was a hint of warning in his voice. He wanted me to make Ransom happy.

“Give him a good show,” he’d said.

But that orto had no idea what it would take to make Ransom happy. Ironside didn’t know that Ransom was stuck in perpetual numbness and not even me dancing for him, hidden again behind that tight blonde wig and the large fanned mask, would pull him from it. What I didn’t say to the bata as he watched his girls disguising me with thick makeup and long fake lashes, was that I wanted Ransom happy. It’s all I wanted. I wanted him to smile, to laugh and mean it. I wanted to take that shade from his eyes. I wanted him to kiss me and not feel guilty for doing it.

Ransom wanted the dancer. Ironside had said as much to me as I stood behind a thick bamboo screen and slid into the corset. “He badgered me for weeks about you.” But it wasn’t me, was it? It was the dancer rubbing against him, the one Ransom probably thought couldn’t get inside his head. The one he didn’t have to look at in the daylight. The one he could sex up and then walk away from.

I had been told my entire life to sacrifice what I wanted for everyone else. It was expected. It was something that I thought was normal, that I believed was just the way of things—that women submitted, and were glad to for the men that took care of them. But my father hadn’t taken care of me because I reminded him of what he’d lost. So I stopped believing that submission was what all good women did. If that’s what they did, then I never wanted to be a good woman.

But I would be. For Ransom. As stupid as it sounded in my head, he was the only person who’d deserved my sacrifice. That was a one-sided, unbelievable decision that I hoped he never discovered. I would dance for him if it meant he’d find a release. If it meant he could step away from the punishment he subjected himself to, and smile a real, honest smile, just once.

“You set?” Ironside asked, leaning against the door.

I managed a final glance in the mirror, shaking my head at the long, fake curls on the wig and the deep red lipstick. It was all smoke and mirrors, meant to hide me from Ransom. Meant to give him the illusion of seduction that he could feel blindly, without any thought. It was an art form expertly executed, but I still hated it, hated why it was necessary.

The auditorium was packed as I walked through it, avoiding the crowd brimming with happy football fans still reeling from CPU’s win. The smoke was thick, the laughter like a buzz in my head that echoed. My heart raced, pounded hard as I moved around the crowd, catching no one’s gaze but the woman overhead, swinging from the rafters like a half-drunk green fairy.

No one stopped me as I walked backstage toward the private room and only the faint, quiet buzz of that crowd greeted me behind that curtain. This was the moment Ransom had craved, the same moment I dreaded. He would touch the dancer, not me. That anonymous face would greet him because it’s what he wanted. And as I twisted the silks around my arms, it was Ransom’s desire I thought about. That and the small hope that this hidden dance would heal him, if only for a little while.

The deep, electric vibration of a bass guitar, those slow, seductive moans of a sultry alto voice and I closed my eyes, tried to push away the thought of Ransom as I’d known him for over a month. I didn’t want to think about how wide his smile became when his little brother jumped on his back and weaved his arms around Ransom’s neck, refusing to let go, or how he’d stare after his parents like they amazed him. They had real love. And I guessed, as I took a breath, waited for the curtain to rise, that this small thing I did for Ransom was something like love too.