Chapter 21 Bird #2
“What?” I ask, forcing myself to look away from her eyes.
“I’m sorry. Okay? I’m sorry. I don’t think I said that right. What I meant was I don’t expect that. I’m not expecting dates or… or anything from you.”
God, the word date really freaked her out.
“All right, maybe I didn’t say that right either. I didn’t mean it would be a real date, just date-like, date… adjacent. I’m not trying to pressure—I just wanted you to come with me to the stupid movie. That’s all.”
“Okay,” she says. “Let’s go.”
“Really?”
“Really.” She starts walking toward the theater.
“Don’t you need to get your chair?”
She looks back at me still standing there, at the chair beyond me, and shakes her head. “Nah, not mine. Come on.”
As we walk across the parking lot, I so badly want to reach for her hand, but she’s not close enough. I veer a little in her direction and she moves that exact distance away from me. She looks up to see me already staring at her, and I try to smile before looking back down.
“Of course I would much rather go to a movie with you than sit outside a store for hours for a game. I should’ve told Dade no. I don’t know why I didn’t.” I’m so thankful she’s talking. I can’t think of anything to say in return. “I’m sorry,” she adds. “I feel like I upset you or…”
“No,” I lie. “No, it’s okay. I’m not upset, really.”
She buys two tickets at the box office outside, and then she holds the door open for me. But it’s not a date. I’ll try to remember that.
The dollar-fifty theater is one of those places that confuses time and reality in a fever dreamscape. Blinding neon tubes scattered throughout, eighties carpeting with bright geometric shapes, and framed black-and-white photographs of old-timey movie stars.
“This is another good liminal space,” I tell her, as we walk down the haunted corridor that leads to the concession stand. “We definitely need pictures of this place for our zine.”
“Hell yeah, that’d be cool,” she agrees, looking around. “It’s as liminal as it gets.”
I assume we’re going straight in, since we’re already so late, but Jessa wanders into the winding concession line with no one there. I follow, and stand next to her as she orders a jumbo-sized popcorn and soda. When the girl behind the counter asks what kind of drink, she turns to me. “You pick.”
I get root beer because they have Barq’s.
We creep into the movie twenty minutes in—thankfully with previews, we didn’t miss too much after all.
The giant popcorn and extra-large root beer serve double duty as a shield and disguise as we slide into seats in the back and prepare to watch the show—in more ways than one.
That is, assuming Dade is equally as offended by his second viewing of Titanic as he was the first time around.
One negative comment about this movie will have Dade excommunicated from the church of their relationship so fast. Titanic is Kayla’s romance bible.
It’s more crowded than a usual Saturday night at the dollar-fifty, but I still spot Kayla and Dade directly in the center.
As we settle in, we manage to catch the last part of the introduction: old Rose about to begin her story. The footage of the underwater graveyard of the shipwreck fades into the grandeur of her memories, accompanied by eerie moments of classical music cutting in and out abruptly.
“People never talk about this part of the movie, and it’s my favorite,” I whisper to Jessa.
“Why?” she says, leaning close to me so I can hear her.
“The way Rose and Jack’s epic love story would’ve never been told had some treasure hunters not been searching for a mythic diamond in the wreckage on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean.”
She nods, looks thoughtfully at the screen. “I guess so.” Then she whispers, “The shipwreck is a pretty awesome liminal space too.”
I smile, loving that the whole liminal space idea has become our thing. She smiles back, even though she holds the popcorn firmly between us. I have my arm on our shared armrest, a hopeful, if silent, invitation to get closer to me.
The longer we sit here next to each other, the harder it is to pay attention to the movie. I keep thinking about how we’re like Rose and Jack, so different—Rose all uptight and proper (me) and Jack all freewheeling and cool (Jessa)—but somehow we just get each other.
Oh god, I’m in trouble. Because here I am, moving closer and closer to her by microscopic increments, imagining that we could be some kind of epic love story, and she’s munching on handfuls of popcorn like she doesn’t even notice my arm has been sitting there for going on an hour, falling asleep while waiting on her to reciprocate.
I’m so preoccupied by our arms that somehow the scene sneaks up on me. I finally move my arm back into my lap and take a sip of root beer, trying to get blood flowing out to my fingers again.
It’s the nude scene. Where Jack draws Rose wearing the diamond necklace—wearing only the necklace. I try my best not to give any outward indication of how I am internally squirming.
Jessa’s arm lifts up to the armrest as she shifts the popcorn bucket to her other hand.
Don’t overthink, Bird. They’re just hands.
And this is a sexy, romantic, meaningful scene and just last weekend our hands were all over each other’s bodies.
It’s just holding hands in a dark theater where no one can see us.
I let my arm fall in beside hers on the armrest, let it sit there for a few moments while Jack sketches Rose’s eyes, her face.
Then carefully, I gently curl my fingers inside her palm and…
she doesn’t flinch. No, she jumps and practically throws the popcorn in my face, making me spill the root beer all over our laps.
“Shhhit!” she hisses. “Sorry, I’m so sorry,” she’s saying, not even looking at me before she’s standing up and scooting her way out of the aisle, drawing everyone’s attention. I wait a few minutes. But something tells me she’s not coming back.
I find her alone in the bathroom, scrubbing at the spilled soda on her shirt and pants.
When she sees me standing there behind her in the mirror, she looks down into the sink and shakes her head. “I am so sorry. I cannot believe I just did that. I’m—I’m sorry.”
“Jessa, stop,” I tell her. “Look at me?”
I walk over and turn off the faucet.
“What are you doing?”
“Do you regret what we did together?” I blurt out.
“No,” she answers right away.
“Then why won’t you look at me? I was just trying to hold your hand, and clearly you don’t want to touch me or you don’t want me to touch you.
If you don’t like me like that, just say it.
Please. Just tell me. I won’t be mad,” I say, channeling Silas’s words.
I’d be fucking heartbroken, but not mad. “Just tell me,” I repeat. “Please?”