The music reverberates around her and inside of her. She has never felt so alive, and head tossed back, eyes tightly closed, she yells. She yells incoherently for no reason except to release some of the noise and energy building inside of her. She feels beautiful, powerful, and unstoppable. She isn't aware that her flaming ruby-red hair and smouldering charcoal eyes are unconscious expressions of her knowledge that her world is burning down around her. She is drunk on mania and drunk on life and she is moving so fast that she doesn't even have time to think about slowing down. All she can think about is the vibration of the music against her heart. Reality flickers in and out of recognition, as the strobe light tries to slow time down. The atmosphere is toxic and inviting and she has never felt so much a part of something. She feels as though she finally belongs, as though she is on the cusp of understanding the art of being human, of being alive.

Through the whirlpool of thoughts and sensations, she becomes aware of a hand wrapped warmly around hers. She pauses momentarily. The hand is olive and rough like sandpaper, but comfortable, familiar like home. The artist in her is still awed by the beauty of his hand in hers; his dark and desperate against her milky-white enthusiasm. She remembers what she has thought so many times before. She feels that they, together, represent the two sides of the same coin, the polar emotional experiences that form such a large part of her existence.

She remembers the first time she met him and the memories they have created together since that time. He was patient and he was tender and he gradually healed the holes inside of her. He spoke in poetry and sang songs to her when she was sad. He found beauty in the most unlikely places and he smiled as though he was confident about his purpose in the world. He tried to teach her to love herself. She was his opposite. She was volatile and reactive. She cried and laughed and yelled and danced and hurt her way through life. She pushed and pulled him in all directions, but mostly away. She made bigger and bigger holes in the fabric of their hearts. He stood like a rock against the waves, but her strength was unrelenting and he was only human. He started to fray at the edges. He started to fall apart, lose himself, lose her, lose everything.

So she stands there, amidst the music and the memories, with his hand in hers, and she tries to feel. She tries to feel as she did moments earlier, when the sound and the light filled her and thrilled her, but she feels nothing. She feels small, broken and frightened. But, she feels certain. She knows that she's tired of fighting, tired of uninspired commitment and a passionless existence. She wants to give in to the currents pulling them in their own separate directions. She wants to let go.

She looks into his honey-coloured eyes, so different to her dark blue ones (just another way they don't fit like puzzle pieces) and she knows that he understands. She knows that he agrees. She squeezes his hand, just once, and releases it. Her hand feels slick with the memories of him, but suddenly light, suddenly free. He offers her one more crooked knowing smile, and she turns away. She turns back to the music and tries to recapture the magic she'd lost along the way.