So TWD and I picked ourselves a song a while back.  I’ve written about it before.  It’s a bachata version of Stand by Me by Latin artist Prince Royce.  We tried to request it on the cruise during Latin Night but the DJ spoke neither English nor Spanish and wasn’t so much of a DJ as a designated button pusher.

I learned to dance the bachata during a dance history course in college.  But it was a small, private liberal arts school comprised almost entirely of female students so—surprise, surprise—I didn’t really learn how to dance the bachata until I started dating TWD.

It’s my favorite dance with him.  I love salsa but I get too intimidated by the complicated turns and while the merengue is a bit more low key, I spend most of time trying to stay on the correct foot.  When we dance the bachata, however, I can relax.  And I swear to God I fall back in love with him every time he gives me that look and takes my hand and leads me to the dance floor.

But getting back to the break up.

I had been asked to teach an introductory baroque dance workshop to a group of musicians studying at Bryn Mawr for the summer.  And because I’m insane, I told the direction that yes, I could absolutely start the day after I got back from the Bahamas.  I got all of my materials together before we left and figured I could finalize my lesson plans on Sunday night once I got back the Philly.

I did not account for the fact that I would spend Sunday night bawling my eyes out.

Here’s where things get a bit personal.  On account of eating approximately 6,000 calories a day for an entire week, I was feeling a bit… well, I’m still afraid to go to the bathroom in front of TWD and we were sharing a room for seven days so you do the math.

I had a bunch of CDs I needed to go through to finish preparing my lesson plans so I decided to haul my clunky old boom box into the bathroom with me so I could listen while I was… you know…

And that is when it happened.

I opened the CD player, ready to pop in some Bach, and inside was a bootleg copy of Stand by Me.  Our version.  The bachata version.

I had no idea where it came from.  It wasn’t my CD, and TWD keeps all of his music on his phone because he lives in the twenty first century.

As I stared at the CD in disbelief, wondering whether it was just a coincidence or maybe a sign of something greater, it finally dawned on me: I’d left the CD player at my parents’ rental house in Ventnor.  And most of the contractors working on the house were Latino.  I told them they could use the CD player whenever they wanted.  The bootleg Prince Royce album belonged to one of them.