“Fine,” I grumbled in the way only an eleven year old could. “But you owe me, Tori. Again.”
“I know, I know.” She kissed the top of my head. “You’re the best.”
“Just don’t slap me again.”
“I won’t. I promise – but you have to relax, okay?”
“I get it!”
“No, really, Blake. You can’t dance if you’re tense, not ballet.”
“Your keeping on is making me tense,” I said pointedly, folding my arms across my chest.
Tori just smiled. “Only because you’re not listening to me!”
“Al-right!” I moaned. “I’m listening.”
She ruffled my hair. “You have to dance the way you fall in love; effortlessly, unrelentingly, and with everything you have.”
“I’m never going to fall in love,” I protested. “Girls are annoying.”
“You say that now, but one day you will.”
“No, I won’t. Ever.”
“Everyone falls in love, little brother. At some point in your life, you’ll fall in love with someone and when you do, you’ll be unable to distinguish the feelings between dance and love. And if you’re really lucky, she’ll be the dance you fall in love with.”
My eyes snap open. I can still hear her voice ringing in my ears and echoing around the small log cabin. That dream was real, all too real, even after all these years.
Ten years have passed since that conversation and I’ve been waiting since then to prove her right or wrong. I threw myself into dance the way she said – I gave it my all and then some. I planned for the future and I dreamed bigger than anyone I know. I never stopped or gave up on dancing no matter what was thrown my way. Even through my parent’s disappointment, I never pushed it to the side. I kept on fighting to dance although it seemed impossible at times.
It seems silly now to look back and think those words came from a fifteen year old girl. What did Tori know about love? She was still a child, whose only true happiness came from the same place mine did – holding onto a barre.
But she was right. She was so, completely right.
Love and dance are one and the same. They’re easy, like breathing, and if it’s for you then it’s natural. There’s no second thoughts, no doubts. You don’t think it’s not for you, not even for a second. In fact you know. You just know it’s all you’re ever going to need.
Abbi shifts slightly in her sleep, and I hold her closer to me. She tucks her head under my chin, snuggling in.
Abbi is it. She’s my dance. I fell in love with her the way Tori always said I would, and it was so effortless I didn’t even notice. It’s grown slowly, building and transforming each time she’s smiled at me or laughed with me. It means I can’t walk away, no matter what she tells me, because of the sheer, unrelenting force of it inside. It keeps me tied to her and everything she’d rather hide. It keeps me living, because she’s filled a part of me that’s been missing for a long time.
She can never replace my sister. I’m not stupid enough to think that, but just because she can’t replace her doesn’t mean she can’t stand alongside her in my heart, and it doesn’t mean I love Tori any less for loving Abbi.
I can love them both the same in entirely different ways, all the while thanking the shit out of whoever is in the sky that Abbi didn’t follow in Tori’s footsteps.
~
“You have to be freaking kidding me,” Abbi deadpans, staring at the canoe.
“Would it be funny if I said no?”
“No. No, it wouldn’t be. There is no way in hell that…” She looks at me and points accusingly at the canoe. “…Is funny. In any way. At all.”
“I guess you don’t really feel up to going in it then, huh?”
“Do I look like a girl who goes canoeing? Honestly?”
I say nothing, trying to control the twitching of my lips. She picks up the bright orange life jacket.
“And this. I’m not wearing it. I’m not going on that boat. I hate boats.”
“There’s nothing wrong with boats.”
“If it’s not on dry land, there damn well is something wrong with it.” She folds her arms across her chest defiantly.
“Well, you do have two options, actually,” I say slowly.
“And they are?”
“You put this on…” I take the jacket from her. “…And get in the boat…”
“Nuh-uh.”
“Or you put the jacket on and get in the water. Either way, you’re putting the jacket on.”
Her mouth drops open. “You dare throw me in that water, Blake Smith, and I swear to God…”
I grin. “What?”
She pauses. “I don’t know. I haven’t come up with anything yet.”
I laugh and touch her face. “Abbi, please. Just put the jacket on and get on the boat. I promise it’ll be okay.”
She narrows her eyes. “Hmmm.”
“Please,” I beg. “Don’t make me do the pouting and puppy dog eyes thing again. You know you have no chance then.”
“Why is it so important that I get on the damn boat?”
“It just is. It’s part of your birthday surprise, okay?”
She softens a little. “Blake, you’ve already given me enough.”
“No, I haven’t.” I put her arms in the jacket and do it up at the front. My hands hover over the zip as I look down at her. “When I think about what you give me every single day, I have a lot of things to make up for.”
I spin her around and nudge her toward the boat. I grab my own jacket and put it on, moving to steady the boat for her. She steps in and sits down tentatively, looking completely out of her comfort zone.
“I cannot believe I’m doing this,” she mutters. “I really can’t.”
“You don’t have to believe it. You just have to do it.” I push the oar into the water and move us off into the center of the river.
Abbi’s silent for a moment. “So, where are we going?”
“Oh, just down the river a ways.”
“That’s a vague answer.”
“Yes…”
“Blake,” she says sternly. “Do you even know where we’re going?”
“Of course I know where we’re going. I always know where we’re going.”
“Oh no…”