One moment.

Her eyes were closed and the sparks danced behind them and down through her body, a beautiful, uncontrollable choreography. The smell of leather and summer intoxicated her, left her knees wobbling. One moment, one memory, lips parted and together, spinning her round and round until she fell down.

Blue eyes begged and fingers scraped noncommittally against every pore, but she was locked. The wood would not budge, and her silent tears collapsed as he danced from afar. A bittersweet tango as another woman reflected in his eyes, fingers dancing with his as hers once did.

Cheap motels and motor oil were all they had needed that summer. He had smiled and left kissing promises in the naked morning, waking her daily with their future, fantasy, and love. One moment, every stalling second was one moment, one moment before he could kiss her, one moment before he could touch her, one moment before he could love her.

She would wait moment, she would wait forever.

Together their hearts had melded into a rhythm unlike any she had known, music without sound that had them dancing from the moment they met until the moment she had to leave.

One moment. They said that moment would ruin his life. Every leaping dream and twirling hope would be crushed by her little mistake. His dance would end. Each hand hung onto a different love, and she had to choose.

Long moments, on one long night, she wished sorrowful goodbyes to her growing love. In the shadows she crawled to clinics cold and heartless. Her fingers dropped money in their pockets to tear her heart open, rip it to shreds, take it way and make her cold, clinical, incomplete. She could no longer dance, her fingers could no longer move with his as they once did. Yet their hearts stayed tied, and with each misstep her love took three. Clueless, he let her murder his music, his rhythm, his dance with love.

They told her she was killing him. They insisted she was no good for him. They blamed her when he could no longer dance.

She listened.

One moment, arms clasped onto one another, water fell in a remorseful decrescendo, marking the end of a love. The cavity of her heart was filled with rainwater, flooded with the pain of their loss. He begged her not to go, but he was blind to the blood on her hands. She had to be strong to save him.

One final moment, lips crashed into the final dance, the beautiful memory that haunted her into her dreams, into her days, unto her end.

He smiled, she smiled, and his dance finally began again in the arms of his bride. All that was left for her was a silent solo, the walk away from the love she would never replace. They had locked her out. They had broken her heart.

But they had been right, and without her he would dance again.