She did not wish to dance.
She knew that she did but she did not tell herself because she did not want to know. It was a spring morning. Time itself flowed and the butterflies flew and landed on plants that were blooming, all was perfect and growing and it was the best time of one's life. She thought of all of this and thought it was better to feel this way than how she might feel if she told herself the truth.
Everything about the day was perfect, even the air that she took in endlessly as she sat on the grass. She sat on a blanket. She never reacted well with grass. She decided to roll around in the grass anyway and chose not to notice anything. I’ll ignore whatever itch will come, she told herself. What itch? she thought.
Now it was when she had distracted herself for a minute that she thought of him again. She supposed if she focused on the time flowing and the butterflies flying and the flowers blooming she wouldn’t think of anything at all but let the wind overtake her and breathe the fine air and not think of him again. It was Him again, she thought. She chose not to think such things. It wasn't safe, she thought.
The birds chirped around her, and she noticed the beautiful song they sang together. It was the song of hope and despair in a single wave of emotion that can only be truly felt when shared and understood by the listener.  She did not feel the red wavy hair that perched itself next to her, she was captivated by not thinking.
The girl called her name.
-Yes? she said. She looked from the birds.
-Are you okay?
The girl thought of how she was okay. It was wrong to not be okay but wrong to lie. She thought she was okay, but if she was okay why would she be afraid that she was lying, and if she was afraid that she was lying then she was lying, that’s what her mother had always told her.
-Yes, she said.
The two sat on the grassy hill and ate sandwiches and enjoyed the view until they were both full of each. They laid down, the now thoughtless girl on the grass rolling around and her wavy-haired friend laying on the blanket. They looked at the sky and watched the clouds.
The girl wondered why she was reminded of Him by something as simple as the sky. The sky was not related to him at all. It was endless. He had an end. It was vast. He was small. It was wonderful. He was not.
She believed this within her heart of hearts. Or did she only hope she did? She thought again that it was dangerous to think this way and she thought only of how wide and glorious the sky was. Then she looked at her friend for only a moment and said aloud that the day was lovely. Her friend nodded.
He didn't belong next to anything such as the sky, she thought. And yet here he was in the sky, back in what she thought was nothing, but had to be something.
-The birds stopped singing, her friend said.
-Mmhmm.
It was something He’d say. The girl looked back at birds, not whistling their song any longer. She teased herself for thinking of Him again. Why was He always in her head as he was now? It was infuriating. There. That was a large word. It reminded her of Mary Poppins and the big word she had used. She forgot the word itself now but she knew it was a big word.
He had always used big words. There He was again, she noticed. There was nothing of him left in her mind. But He was still there. But he wasn't she thought.
Two hours later it was when they left the hills of the beautiful grass and trees. The two didn’t speak except to say goodbye. It was not unusual for the two simply to walk, eat and walk away speaking few words or none at all. They enjoyed each other's company. She liked the other girl. Her name was Lucy. She had red hair that glimmered in the sunlight but she was sad as she did not notice it like she did when she was unaccustomed to it. Perhaps I should not see her for a while and then when I do be able to see the hair with new eyes, she thought.
She thought of how silly that would be, then she thought of Him, then the beautiful butterflies she’d seen, then him. The grass she’d laid in and the itch she now felt, then Him. The birds singing, then the sky, then her friend's bright red hair, then the song she loved to sing as a little girl back when her mother would take her to the symphony. Beforehand she would meet the musicians backstage and hear them make sounds she wondered why they made, as they were not the sweet lovely sounds she heard during the concert, but wandering, lonely sounds that didn’t make sense at all. She thought of how that could somehow be poetic. Then she thought that was silly. And then she thought of him. She hummed the song from the symphony as she walked the familiar path home and looked to the sky. She thought of her life and all of the lives she’d ever known, even his, as precious gifts all in a beautiful little world she had right now. She thought of how she could not be alive and wondered what it was to be alive at all and if those who weren’t alive knew they weren’t. It was wrong to think of that, she thought, and kept humming. It was a beautiful song, and she thought that she would cry remembering it again but she didn’t. She knew when she got home she would put the song which she hummed on and feel her mother dance with her like they used to, like they did before she’d gotten sick and gone away. The humming stopped as she became overcome with emotion and couldn’t think at all and she freaked for a moment, but put it aside and thought again of how her mother told her the song was her gift that would never die after her mother did. Her mother told her it would never die ever and remembering this she stopped walking, and wept.
She was at home, dancing when she thought of Him again. But she did not want to think of him anymore. She only danced to the music and felt her mother's hands around her and the boy she used to love or did love but it did not matter anymore because she only danced now and nothing mattered but feeling the rhythm of the music and her mother dancing with her and she rested her head on His shoulders and thought of when she could have all of it and knew that she could not have it anymore, but she believed she could dance with Him again and feel His arms around her again and they would only dance and not say anything but only look at each other and feel themselves move with the music and the two would share a moment, a moment that everyone must feel to be human. As she thought of this she craved that moment and she wanted the moment and she only wanted Him and the moment and her mother and the moment and everything about that moment. She thought of all that she had lost but all that she still had dancing alone in this place and the moment she’d had before but could never have again and the moment when she was in love with Him and her mother and the feeling of the music on her skin and she didn’t think, but she danced.