All The Men I Have Danced With Are Dead

Another Chapter

Another chapter

On one of the many nights they spent together, Peter had asked Aurora about her family. They had never talked about it up until that moment. Peter never asked and she never offered. 

Aurora had told him, in an all too familiar way, that her father had left her mother when she was about three, after an argument and she hadn't seen him since. Two years later, her mother remarried a chemical engineer in his 40s. Aurora had no particular love for the man, that much she remembered. But at least Aurora wasn't woken up most nights to her mother choking down tears.  Though, the marriage lasted only three years and ended almost identically to how her first marriage did - with the man leaving one night and never returning.  The years after the man left, Aurora remembered her mother as nothing more than a ghost, drained of all life and just wondering about the world with no intention. It was probably better that way Aurora had told Peter, because when her mother did die years later, Aurora had already become used to not having a mother at all.  She was placed with her mother's sister, who she had never met before. Her aunt, who had no children or husband of her own, treated her with as much care as she could mutter - which wasn't much at all, as she too was nursing a pain in her heart that left no room for love.

Peter was close to tears. He wouldn't describe himself as an emotional person and could barely remember the last time he had actually cried. But there was something in the way Aurora told her story - with nonchalance - as if what had happened to her was always supposed to happen. 

She would become completely and utterly obsessed with the idea of having someone - him - forever.

Three Months After 

A : Did you buy the Paper towels?

P : Yeah.

A : Bless :)

P : Come over tonight?

A: Yup

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Between the ages of five and eight, her mother often left her in the care of their neurotic childless neighbor. Whose main worldview was that men were the devil's wicked wonder on earth.

Lets call her Yvonne

On one of the days Aurora was not to be present at her own home, she had been left with a reluctant Yvonne, who had waited a whole 30 minutes before leaving the house with Aurora alone.

I need to buy groceries. She had said in her mouse-like voice barely looking at Aurora.

Aurora didn't mind - she sat in the corridor with her legos and built a house. 

Yvonne came back three hours later - but not alone. She was in the arms of a tall and handsome man - and was smiling ear to ear about something the handsome man might have said before they opened the door. It was obvious that Yvonne had forgotten she was there - because she had seemed a tad startled to see Aurora when she entered the room. Either way, Yvonne ignored her and told the man to do the same as they kissed and fondled their way upstairs into her bedroom.

Aurora sat on the floor thinking about what it must be like to be that happy. Not that she knew what happiness was, but at that age - she saw how wonderful Yvonne looked in the handsome man's arms and associated that scene that played out in front of her with what happiness must feel like. That was until, two years later - when Yvonne was found dead in her apartment after nearly two weeks. The only reason they had found her was that Aurora's mother had noticed a foul smell coming from next door and when she tried to notify Yvonne about it and never got a response. Aurora was eight by then.

As an adult, she understood clearly what it looked like when a person claimed to be happy - conventional wisdom had taught her. But at twenty-three, she had never known what it felt like - not until one afternoon, when Peter had looked at her a certain way for the first time - with complete longing, like he was trying to devour her but caress her all at once. It had been hard for her to meet his gaze, trying to protect herself from the power behind it.

On a Sunday, they were on the couch, watching a rerun of a shark tank episode. Peter had leaned over to whisper - I love you.

The words had been hard for Aurora to comprehend at the time. Her initial reaction was to ignore it - her gaze set on Mark Cuban as he tore into a poor young lady with high hopes. Peter understood it was hard for her, so he did nothing to prompt a reaction. 

Aurora's mind was racing, she wasn't sure exactly when it happened, but Aurora had fallen in love as well. Though if she needed to provide an exact time for when it might have happened she would have said:

Maybe it was when he made alfredo pasta by himself for the first time - he was so proud. He looked so innocent - like a child, whose life hadn't been touched yet.

She had tried not to fall entirely and thought that maybe if her eyes didn't linger or her touches didn't purposely find him, maybe just maybe he wouldn't know how much she was completely taken by him. But it was all contrary because that was all she did... stare at him, laugh with him, and fantasize about the opportunities of touching him even more.

"I.. I ... Lo..love.." she stuttered. Her gaze was still on Mark Cuban but her mind was on nothing other than the man that sat beside her. 

Peter intertwined their fingers together and told her " I know "

She was lost in a green field soaring with no shore in sight, she didn't care if she got lost - just as long as she was lost in love with him.

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It was an uncharacterized territory. How Columbus must have felt. She supposes she lived for the theatrics

She watched as S ran across the crowded street with pure glee plastered across her face because she had just sold her first story and A wondered when exactly she would be able to accomplish such happiness.

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At three forty-five AM on a Wednesday night, Aurora's iPhone buzzed more than a few times waking her up from a sleep she had just started. The notifications came intermittently. She reached for her phone from the nightstand, she had received three missed calls, and four text messages - all from an unknown number.

The messages read that her Aunt had died in her sleep. The messages were from her neighbor.

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