Dancing

She was bent over the double sink in the back, scrubbing at the soup pot to get the last chowdery remains out of the bottom. She'd rolled up her sleeves to avoid getting her sweater dirty. Sallow in the dim light of the kitchen, her pale skin was marred with finger-wide bruises on each arm.

I set down the tray of cups I was carrying to the dishwasher and approached her cautiously.

"Hey..."

"Hey," she said, and didn't look up. She scrubbed the pot vigorously.

"Are you okay?" I asked.

"Mm-hm." She kept on scrubbing.

"Because, you know... your arms..."

"Don't you have work to do?" she snapped, turning on the spigot to flood the pot with hot water. Steam rose, vaguely corn-scented.

"Yeah, I..."

"Then do it." She plunged her hands back into the pot.

I returned to the cups and dishwasher, carefully separating each along the rack so that they'd get clean all the way. I wiped down the counter, and started packing up the leftover muffins.

"You want some of these to take home?" I asked, instead of prying like I wanted to.

She looked up from drying the pot, smiled a bit sadly, shook her head no.

"I don't eat breakfast anymore."

"Okay," I said, and put them all together to take back with me. I'd distribute them at band practice tomorrow night- they'd still be fresh enough, and we weren't too picky.

Jenny was rolling her sleeves down, still not meeting my eyes. She sat down at the table by the door, lifted up her feet onto the chair next to her, sighed so sadly that it nearly broke my heart.

I came to sit at the table beside her. It took all of my restraint not to reach for her. I wanted to say something, anything, but no words would come. We watched the snow falling outside, the cars sloshing down the slushy streets, the people turning their collars upward and blowing on their hands as they moved past.

"He knows we went out," she said.

The flatness of her voice breaking the silence startled me momentarily. "How...?"

"I told him."

"Why?" I asked, wondering if I should feel guilty for taking her out. I couldn't... not even now. "It wasn't... it wasn't a date. Not really."

She didn't answer.

"Is it because we kissed?" I asked softly. This time, it had been me who kissed her, and not the other way around.

"No," she said, sighing and resting her head on her hands. "I didn't tell him about that."

"What then?"

"It's because we danced," she said, shaking her head.

I didn't understand why that should matter. We'd gone to a concert for a band we both liked, nothing more. And sure we danced, but everyone was dancing....

"It's because we continue to dance," she said, getting up from the table to gather her things.

Headlights shone in the storefront window, blinding my sight of her. Her boyfriend beeped three times in rapid succession, his usual signal.

Before I could ask her not to leave, she was gone. A bit of snow swirled in through the door as it closed.