Learning to Dance

muscle, Up who could look a hoard of murderous robots in
the eye and not even blink. Up who may as well be a robot
himself.
She had heard of this Up, the Up the galaxy called hero.
But never before had he put this face on for her.
The stars traced familiar patterns in the Mexican sky.
A sudden flame, small and hissing, lit up across the
trench. Up sat on his sleeping bag, the orange glow of a
cigarette illuminating his face. Up was always smoking
now.
“You’re awake,” he said. It wasn’t a question. Even his
voice seemed cold to her.
Taz sat up and hugged her knees to her chest.
“Nightmares,” she said. There was no point in hiding it.
She’d been keeping them all awake for weeks.
“It’s his name you scream,” he said, his face a mask.
“Every night.”
He didn’t have to say which name. It hovered in the air
like a ghost between them.
“He haunts me, Up,” she said, and she didn’t know why
she was telling him. The relief that he was talking to her,
perhaps, the hope that maybe he was still her Up, the one
who’d taught her everything she knew, the one she’d
idolized since she was fifteen, the one who had been her
dearest friend. “His face, in my dreams. He sacrificed
everything for me.” For us. So I could have a second
chance to tell you-
Up’s eyes, in the flickering light, seemed a little less
stern. Almost pained. “I know you and Pedro-”
“What-” she said in a low voice, searching his face, “-do
you know about me and Pedro?”
Up was struggling. “That you and he- that you were-”
Understanding hit her. He had it all wrong. “He was my
friend,” she said. “And he loved me, but I never loved him