Misfits (#2)

8.

I read about dissociative amnesia a while ago - when a person blocks out certain memories because of trauma. It's awful when you think about it. Leaving you unable to fill in the gaps, to remember critical pieces of information.

Yet, I remember sitting there and thinking about how much of a relief it could be. A selfish thought but one that I yearned for in the moment.

I desperately wish to forget. More than that, I wish to redo but the impossibility of time is mean. I can't reverse it. I can't alter it to set the timeline the way things should have been. Time progresses and drags you along with it. We're all just pawns in its progression.

So if I can't redo, I wish my brain just blocked it all out, that day. Maybe the world would feel less like a perilous mountain where each morning, I revert back to the bottom. Only to have to climb and climb and climb.

Maybe I'd be free from it all. And maybe, my shoulders would lift and some of this guilt would somehow evaporate.

"Are you coming in?" Azure asks and snaps me out of my reverie.

He sits in the passenger seat, parked up in the back parking lot of this building. We've been here countless times but each time, the nostalgia never lessens.

I nod and unbuckle my seatbelt, stepping out as Az does the same. The car's a contrast to the derelict parking lot. A vintage 1960 convertible Mercedes - cream coloured and pristine.

I pray to God that nobody thinks to steal it and walk with Azure towards the back door. I clench my hands into fists to stop them trembling, both of us quiet as our feet crunch on decayed leaves and broken glass.

With a harsh nudge, Az gets the door open and holds it open for me as I step inside first. It's a small hallway, always as I remember it. The door at the end still holds the bright red sign:
THEATRE AUDITORIUM.

I stop just before it, recalling how many times I'd walk down this hallway with dad in tow. I was always most excited before performing, restlessly eager.

But right before I'd slip out the door, he'd lift me up high. I'd laugh, mainly because I idolised my father in every sense. Not many people noticed me enough to call me their favourite but I knew that wherever I stepped, whoever I became, I'd always be my dad's favourite. One person's.

So he mattered more to me than the sun does to the moon. My dad was the one thing keeping me steady from the moment I learnt how to walk into his outstretched arms.

He'd kiss my cheeks, his dark blue eyes right on mine, "Let it take you to the sea, bluebird."

I now open my eyes and push open the door, the hinges rusty and tough to open. As soon as I step out, my breathing catches in my throat.

The auditorium is just as it was left. Beautiful.

Rows and rows of velvet seats, gold architecture and upstanding pillars. The upper balconies rise high, the rows of red seats curving around as if encircling you. Creating a world centred on you, right on this stage.

It's not perfect anymore. Leaves have flown in, the stage isn't polished and the seats aren't tidy but even imperfect, it snatches my breath. Snaring my soul, as it's always been able to do.

I take a few steps and shut my eyes, travelling back to when my pointe shoes would be on as I walked across this stage. Claps would resound and I'd never get used to the hushed silence that would follow.

I'd walk and keep my head held high because Violet Amory's beautiful when she dances. She's at her best and nobody can fault her. I'd walk until I became as weightless as water.