The performance hall lights dim. The low chatter of the audience turns into a hush and ends. The curtains pull back to reveal the orchestra in the middle of the stage.
I think I imagine his left knee touching my right. I pull my knee inside my little bubble in my chair. The conductor signals the first group of musicians to start the sweet and sad first movement.
I feel his arm touching mine. I pull my arm inside my bubble. His right hand reaches across his body and finds my hand in the dark. I sit there motionless in my bubble, neither gripping his hand, nor pushing it off. I don’t want his touch, for who is he to me but a stranger, a man I only just met? To him this might be the moment when he tries to take one step further in our new relationship. To me, it has taken a whole few weeks and this night to realize that I don’t, I can’t, let him in. How I wish someone else were sitting next to me, the one whose touch I miss, the touch that could send me into an orbit of joy and ecstasy.
The music plays and I sit in my bubble with my hands wrapped around my jacket. How long before the last note?
