I have never been a good dancer. I have never been a bad dancer either. I don’t dance at all. Never. So whenever I am with friends and they drag to those fancy clubs to booze up and have a little ‘fun’, I just end up finding myself sitting on the sofa instead, watching them loosing themselves up with the beat. Even when I am drunk and DJ is playing best Punjabi hits, my feet won’t have enough courage to bless the dancing floor.

It was Saturday night. I was at some random club in this big city. My friends have dragged me along as one of us was going through a bad breakup and you can’t say no in a situation like this. So as usual, after three shots of Whiskey and two Vodka shots, they all were swaying their butts on the dancing floor, and I was watching them from a distance with a glass of Piña Colada in my hand.

It was then my eyes fell on you. You were there on the dancing floor, lost in a trance of your own. I have never seen someone dancing with so much pain. Your moves were reflecting the agony you were going through at that time. You weren’t listening to the song or the music. You were lost in your own beat. But that didn’t put you offbeat for the music. In fact it seemed your steps were fitter on that song rather than rest of the crowd’s. And then you smiled as the music dropped. By god, I have never seen so much trauma in a smile before.

You excused yourself from the crowd and went to the bartender for a drink. ‘Margarita’, you ordered. You took a sip and smacked those lips of yours. I was so lost in my thoughts kissing your lips that I didn’t see you move to a table. Five other girls were sitting there, probably your friends. I had thought you were alone. I followed you there to a table nearby. I kept my distance as I didn’t want to creep you out. But I also wanted to know the story behind that pain badly. So I started eavesdropping to your conversations.

You had a breakup recently. Not a big deal. Breakup can’t be reason behind that gloom – the gloom that made you dance. Things started to get clear as drinks on your table increased. From recent conversations, you started moving to your past. You were still in love with your ex and that moron cheated on you. Yes, that might be the reason – a heartbreak. Yes, there’s difference between a heartbreak and a breakup. If you are having a heartbreak and still choose not to breakup, then trust me no one can even empathize the pain you are going through. I knew your recent breakup uncovered that hidden pain you had through your heartbreak.

I didn’t know why I was doing this. I was literally stalking you, but you know what, I wasn’t feeling any guilt about it at all. Your group went to the washroom. I knew it was the time you would leave the club and the story unfinished. I still wasn’t able to comprehend how you were able to gather that trauma altogether and dance through it. But it was fine. Most of the stories are left unfinished that way in this universe. I scribbled something and left a note on your table below your unfinished drink. I had an intuition that you would come back to finish at least that drink, if not your story. You came out after five minutes and picked the note up to read it properly with your dizzy eyes.

‘I liked your dance. It was so painful. You ruined my night. Now, its your time to make up for it. A genuine smile from your heart would be enough to give me a good night sleep tonight- xoxo.’

I won’t tell you what happened next but I had a very good sleep that night- and in my dreams, she was dancing again, alone this time, with all the trauma and lost in trance of her own.