[TG Caption] The Last Dance Card (Patreon)

The vintage dance card lists every partner except the final one. When I write Robert in the empty space, the ink lengthens the name to Roberta and the museum ballroom fills with music. Ruby satin tightens around my waist, auburn hair brushes my raised hand, and a man in evening clothes bows as if he has been waiting a century. I mean to ask how to undo the spell. Instead, he calls me Roberta and apologizes for missing our last dance. His touch releases fragments of her memory: a farewell interrupted, a promise left unfinished, the exact pressure of his hand at her back.