Page 106 of Instructions for Dancing

Eight months from now, X will be playing guitar at home in Lake Elizabeth. He’ll feel a pain in his chest. Afterward, doctors will determine that he had a bad valve in his heart and that he’d had it since birth.

By then, we’ll have written an entire album together.

We’ll have danced for hours and hours.

We’ll have made love.

He’ll have taught me how to play guitar and to love music as much as he does.

He’ll have told me that he loves me every single day.

Some days I’ll know that I’ll be okay. Some days I won’t know that at all.

One thing I’ll know for sure: love can last forever.

Now, he spins me around. My arm travels down the length of his. Our fingertips brush and it feels like I’m going to slip away from him.

But I don’t.

At the last second I curl my fingers and our hands catch.

And then I do the thing you’re supposed to do when you find love.

I hold on.