J5

The hallway smelled of new paint and sterility. It had the white walls and gray linoleum floor of an intensive care unit, and the way my footsteps echoed along made me consider taking off my shoes. As I got further down the hall, the cacophony made my ears twinge, and it was with great relief that I stopped at her door and gave it a backhanded knock.
No answer.
I knocked again and pressed my ear to the door. A playful bass line reverberated back to me. Pressing my ear harder against it revealed that the door was not actually closed fully; from the inch or so of space to which I was now privy, music coursed out, suddenly very loud in the flavorless hallway.
While part of my mind made it very clear that the honorable and sensible plan of action was to pull the door closed again, wait for the song to end, and knock again, another part of my mind recklessly advocated the exact opposite. Being on much better terms with, and a bigger fan of, the latter part, I slowly and quietly widened the gap between door and jamb until a fair portion of my head intruded upon the room.
This was hardly the same one bedroom apartment to which I’d been invited on a number of occasions. As the door opened wider and my head entered further, the music became impossibly loud, as if the fifteen by eighteen space had the acoustics of a concert hall. Where once had been a couch upon which we held one another while watching romantic comedies, there was now a stage of performance proportions. I couldn’t see any speakers, but all around me were the sounds of strings and percussion instruments, building until a clear voice rang out from the stage.
“When I had you to myself
I didn’t want you around
Those pretty faces always made you stand out in a crowd”
Rising from the center of the stage with her back to me, as if through a hidden trap-door, was a sequined, polyester-clad figure that I barely recognized. As she continued singing, the sounds of applause and hollering rained down from invisible balconies above. The floor shook with movements of hundreds of people I could not see, and she sang with an intensity that never revealed itself in our typical, less-than-epic interactions.
“Oh baby, give me one more chance,” she belted out, while unseen back-up singers backed her up. “Won’t you please let me back in your heart?” Before starting the next line, she spun to face her adoring fans, and her eyes found mine.
In a split second, the stage had reverted to a couch, the music dropped to boombox volumes, and the crowd had exited the building. One foot stuck between the couch cushions, dressed in cotton shorts and a tank top with a toothpaste stain on it, she stared back at me, mouth still forming her last sung syllable. I froze in the doorway.