Tacos and beer devoured, I helped clean up while she searched through the movies on Netflix for something to watch.
“If Peanut needs to go out, you can let him out the back door. It’s fenced,” she said.
I let him out and came back inside moments later to see Shawshank Redemption cued up on the television.
I nearly laughed out loud.
Of course she would want to watch a prison break movie.
I sat down as she leaned sideways and took off her socks.
She tucked her feet up underneath herself and reached for a blanket on the back of the couch.
She was almost completely covered as she waited for me to come sit down.
I took the seat that I’d had earlier, but kicked off my boots beside the couch and flipped the recliner up.
“This is one of my favorite movies,” she said as she hit Play. “I always love that he got out in the end. I hated that he was forced to be there.”
Something weird inside my chest tightened at her words.
“Yeah,” I agreed quietly. “I agree.”
She nudged the remote with her toe and said, “Here. Put this over there.”
I took it and laid it on the table next to the couch arm. When I turned back, she was a little bit closer.
Not touching, but not very far away, either.
All it would take is another couple of inches and…
The movie started playing, and I split my attention between the show and the woman at my side.
Despite it only being eight thirty, her eyelids started to droop and her face was half buried in her blanket.
“You want me to go?” I asked about twenty minutes in. “You look tired.”
She sat up straight. “No. Stay.”
The forceful way in which she said it had something inside of me stilling at her words.
“Okay,” I said. “But let me know if you want me to go.”
She nodded.
It was cute.
The next thirty minutes she tried valiantly to stay awake.
She would nod off and jerk herself back upward, looking at me to see if I’d caught the slip.
She was like a child who refused to say that she was tired.
I watched more of her than I did the damn movie.
At one point, I couldn’t take it anymore and reached for her. “Come here.”
She looked at me, trying and failing to open her eyes all the way. “It’s just that movies are really hard for me to stay awake through. I’ve been this way since I was a kid. I think I watched the entire Little Mermaid in bits and pieces. Never the whole thing at once.”
