Slow Dance in Purgatory(60)

She tried to let the music in, inspiring her, telling her how she should move. But it hurt too much. She was hanging on by a thread, and this song would sever it. She clicked off the music and stood, breathing hard, unwilling to accept the sheer futility of a love story that had only one possible ending. All week long she had danced for him, hoping he was watching and missing her like she missed him. She turned the music back on. She wouldn’t call, she wouldn’t beg, but she would dance. She would make him come back to her.

***

Her emotion pulled at him like silken tentacles, and he knew he couldn’t resist her much longer. He tried to lose himself in the haze of nothingness that he called floating, but he had felt her calling to him, and he slid back to Earth. He had watched her, day after day, trying to create distance by turning away, only to find himself staring helplessly at her once more. Her dancing called to him, but it was also the thing that reminded him she didn’t belong with him. She had a gift and that gift would take her far away, and he would have to let her go. He wanted her to go. He just wished, with everything he still was, that he could go with her.

She cried out for him now, and as hard as it was to turn his back on her love, it would be worse to trap her with it. He flashed himself to the farthest corner of the school, putting as much physical distance between them as possible and clenched his hands to his head, filling his mind with radio waves and static. His mind’s eye kept trying to tune her in, as if her signal was stronger than all the others. He fought it desperately, and breathed his relief when he felt her stop dancing.

It wasn’t until later on that he felt her loneliness and her longing for him well up again like a black cloud. She was so unhappy. Her misery clung to him, suffocating him. With a tortured groan, he clung to his self-imposed exile, but it was a losing battle. He told himself he would just check on her, just allow himself one small glimpse.

She was in the cafeteria. Rows of tables filled with laughing, talking, eating teenagers surrounded her like a human maze. Shad sat beside her, and he was clearly angry. He was looking at a nearby table filled with students, a few of whom Johnny recognized. The guy named Derek was standing on the bench and waving his hands, calling attention to himself. The cafeteria noise dimmed to a dull roar, and the guy on the bench commenced speaking.

“It seems a certain, attractive female – OUCH, damn it – stop it, Dara!” Derek was getting slapped by the girl sitting next to him. Johnny recognized her as the girl on Maggie’s dance team. The one he’d taught a small lesson to a while back. She didn’t seem to like her boyfriend referring to another female as attractive.

“Anyway, it seems as if a certain, uh….female came alone to the Winter Ball a few weeks ago. This female looked oh-so-fine.” He shot a warning look down at Dara, “But interestingly enough, halfway through the dance she was nowhere to be found. Her friends thought for sure she had left the dance and gone home. But to our surprise her car was still in the school parking lot when the dance was over!” The kids around him hooted appreciatively, and some sent up a few cat-calls.

“In fact,” the kid continued, soaking up the attention like a TV game show host, “Maggie’s car was still in the lot early the next morning!” The noise rose even further, and people were pointing and laughing, eyebrows raised and hands covering O-shaped mouths.

“Oops, sorry Maggie. I wasn’t going to say your name, but…oh well.” Derek smirked over at Maggie and made a little kissy face at her.

“Now Maggie won’t tell me who she was with. In fact, she told me to go to hell!” A couple kids clapped and whistled and a few booed. “So I want to offer $20 to who ever can tell me who our little Maggie spent the night with…. ‘cause I wanna give that SOB a high five!”

Maggie looked stricken, her face infused with color, her blue eyes bright with angry tears. She straightened, her spine as stiff as a board, and stood from the table, her untouched lunch tray clenched in her hands. She turned and headed toward the garbage without saying a word.

“Come on, Maggie! Don’t go! I’m proud of ya!” The loud-mouthed punk shouted after her. Shad slammed his tray down and stood to follow her.

“Hey, Shad! Your momma hasn’t been teaching Maggie some new tricks has she?” Derek howled with laughter, slapping the hands raised to him in high fives supporting his antics.

Shad froze in his tracks. Maggie looked as if she was going to be sick. Johnny was overcome with a pulsing, red fury. He swung his arms and sent lunch trays flying down tables, upending drinks and splashing food into laps. Kids cried out and scattered. Trays hit the floors, and food splattered over fleeing students. The table that Maggie’s persecutor was perched on began to shake as Johnny ordered it to quake and topple. Derek jumped just as the table tossed its human occupants and skidded across the floor, slamming into another empty table nearby. Johnny bumped a confused student, making sure the tray she was holding sloshed its contents over Derek’s head, sending spaghetti sauce spilling over his spiky hair and down into the collar of his shirt.

Johnny roared, and milk cartons exploded all over the room like bottle rockets and several kids screamed.

“Johnny... Johnny! That’s enough…stop!” Maggie stood next to him, her eyes wild, hectic spots of red high on her cheeks. She grabbed his arm, and Johnny realized he hadn’t kept himself hidden from her. He had lost his temper in a very messy way. Shad was standing just beyond her, and he was doubled over in laughter.