“Do you love her?” the child whispers, staring up at me with wide, innocent eyes.

I feel my lips turn up ruefully at their corners as I glance back to the girl on stage. Spotlights illuminate her shining, heart-shaped face, which I know is specked with freckles and acne scars invisible to the auditorium. Her chin is tilted upwards ever so slightly, her expression proud as a peacock’s as she spins and jumps and slides.

She has a certain air about her as she dances, a presence that is captivating as a snake-charmer’s. The way she draws one in with the grace of her posture, tells a story through the precision of her steps, elicits heart-wrenching emotion through the curve of her arms is impossible to accurately articulate in words alone. She will make you weep with joy and laugh with sorrow with but a delicate flick of her wrist, until there is nothing to do except gape in unadulterated awe.

It is because of this specific quality that I cannot help but cherish her, yet not in the way one would adore a lover. To categorize my feelings as romantic would be too simple—in fact, it would be remiss to diminish them as such.

Rather, I admire her like a painting: untouchable, immortal, beautiful. My eyes must be blessed as I have had the privilege of seeing her dance not merely once but dozens of times; my soul must be blessed as, behind the curtain, she has become something of my friend. Though I doubt she will ever love lowly me as I love divine her.

I tear my focus from the ballerina to face the child once more.

“Of course,” I answer frankly. It is hardly a question, after all.