Dancing Queen

Chapter 8

Ever since she was a child, she loved playing alone while walking down the street, sometimes involving her grandmother too in her silly little games: counting how many yellow cars they saw, spotting certain rare-to-find items, counting how many people they passed on the sidewalk... But her absolute favorite one was to never touch the grout lines of the tiles for any reason. Sometimes even small accidents had happened no matter how persistent she became in not wanting to "die".

And even then, now a grown woman, a few minutes had already passed as she hopped from one tile of the sidewalk to another, sometimes stopping abruptly when she managed to notice someone crossing her in time, but often times she didn't even notice, as concentrated as she was.

When she got to the end of the sidewalk, near an intersection, she giggled to herself and sighed, relaxed. She waited for the pedestrian light to turn green and crossed. Her gaze was captured by a small family that was crossing on the opposite side of her: a father with his daughter on his shoulders laughing carefree.

Frida quickly shifted her gaze and continued at a faster pace towards the other sidewalk, briefly nibbling her lip. What do they say? That when you want to get pregnant you start noticing every single pregnant woman around, as if a superior entity were throwing them at you as a rude way. Well, the same was happening to her.

She had done her best not to spend any more time with the Anderssons outside the studio, telling herself that their ice cream moment together had been just an exception to the rule that it would never happen again.

Why? Because the little girl was one of her pupils and the man was her father... Because what she had already sworn and sworn again to herself that would not happen had already happened between her and the father... And because that little girl was slipping between the folds of her heart with her little red cheeks and her happy smile... Dragging his father along with his loud humor, his rascality and his eyes full of life.

For an entire month she had been able to refuse invitations after invitations: for an ice cream, a trip to the park, going to choose a birthday present for a friend of Heléne's... And even if father and daughter had always accepted her refuse without protest, but rather with an 'Ok, it will be for next time!', she knew that they were aware of her making excuses not to be with them, at least her father.

Frida closed her eyes briefly and resumed walking through the streets of Stockholm. She had always loved walking in the evening without a goal in mind, just to taste the fresh air on her face and the calm of the city as it wearily set off to rest. At the time she was hanging around her neighborhood. It wasn't an "in" neighborhood, but it was comfortable and safe and full of everything. People were friendly enough and she loved it.

"Frida?".

She stopped short, her hands in the pockets of her long brown coat as she arched her eyebrows at the man she wanted to avoid like the plague as he approached her with a small smile on his face.

"Benny... Hi" she greeted him, smiling slightly and almost reflexively. As much as she wanted to avoid spending time alone with him, she was increasingly realizing that her heart wasn't on the same track as it unleashed a storm of flutters in her stomach every time she saw him "What are you doing on this side of the city at this hour?" she asked, curious.

"One of my best friends lives nearby and I just left his house. I was going to take the subway" he explained, pointing vaguely with his hand behind him "You?".

"Oh..." she shook her head "I live around here".

"Oh, what a coincidence" Benny replied, nodding several times and also putting his hands in his coat pockets "You good?".