The Dead Romantics

by Ashley Poston

before I could stop myself I reached out to try to take his hand, to get him to dance with us—when my hand fell through his. He gave a sad sort of smile, and outstretched his hand. “We can pretend.” “I like pretend,” I replied, and reached out my hand again, hovering it over his. Then I mimed taking his other hand and he played along— And suddenly we were all moving and singing. He twirled me out, and back in, and I laughed in a way I hadn’t in years. And Ben was smiling. Really, truly smiling. It sent a shock straight through my core because he’d never smiled like that before. At least not for me. He was beautiful. It made my heart skip at the thought, and then the music, rattling in my bones so brightly, and I recognized—quite suddenly—this feeling. It was the kind I wrote about years ago, the kind he talked about, the kind that itched just beneath my fingers, lost on the doorstep of some Brooklyn brownstone—or so I thought. It was the answer to a question, soft and subtle, but it was there—the kind of feeling, this hope, that had just been hiding, waiting for some specter to take my hand and dance me across the floorboards. It felt, for a moment in time, like happiness.