“I want the last one,” she whispers.
I tilt the bucket toward myself, even though I don’t really want the last one, but I am dying to get our banter back. “Absolutely not.”
“You’ve had way more than me.”
“Bullshit,” I whisper back. “You annihilated the M&M’s like a fucking vacuum.”
She reaches in, but I block her hand with the popcorn bucket. She gasps, offended. “Wow. Okay. So this is war.”
I tip the bucket back toward me. “Should’ve been faster.”
But she manages to steal one anyway and pops it into her mouth, smiling in pure victory. There is the real Maddy I know.
I lean back slightly. “Oh—wait. I got something for you.” I pretend to reach into my pocket but lift my hand and flip her off.
“You just can’t deal with me winning.”
I laugh and the empty soda cup slips from my armrest, clattering lightly against the floor. It’s not loud, but in a silent theatre, it might as well be a gunshot. The elderly man in front of us turns around slowly, eyes narrowed.
“I’m—sorry sir,” I whisper immediately, frozen.
He stares at me for a beat, then turns back around with a dramatic sigh, probably thinkingthat young generation sucks.
Maddy clamps a hand over her mouth again, her shoulders shaking as she tries to hold it in. I stare straight ahead, jaw tight, doing my best not to react, until her knee bumps into mine and we both lose it. We’re trying not to make a sound, whichobviously makes it worse. The more we try to stay quiet, the harder it gets, both of us barely holding it together.
About fifteen minutes later, Maddy leans a little closer.
“Do you actually get the plot?” she whispers.
I glance at her. “Thank you. I thought I was the only one.”
She huffs quietly. “Nope. Definitely not.”
For a second, we sit there, watching the screen like we’re trying to figure it out anyway. Then she leans back slightly, her voice softer this time. “They were right,” she murmurs. “It was a good distraction.”
I look at her. “Good.”
She turns her head just enough to look at me too. “Thank you. For coming with me.”
“Of course.” I stare into her eyes, and break the moment. “Would’ve also been a little weird if yourboyfriendlets you go to the movies alone right?”
She blinks, leaning back. “Yeah, that would be weird.” She immediately turns back to the movie, taking the last sip of her drink.
She’s not disappointed, is she? Although I have to say, besides that it would've been shady if I didn’t go with her, I’m actually just enjoying this.
Not just seeing the Maddy I know coming back, but sitting here with her, laughing like idiots, not really caring about anything else for a while. And even though I know people around us are probably looking, I’m not really thinking about whether we look convincing or not.
18
RYAN
Some things stick with you
I need a break. Or coffee. Or both. The last three hours were absolute shit. We spent the entire block going over domestic abuse cases. Patterns, warning signs, intervention protocols. The kind of stuff that looks clean and organized when it’s written in a textbook.
In reality, I couldn’t hear a damn thing our teacher was saying, because all I kept hearing was my mom’s crying, Bailey’s screams, the house being torn apart, and the sound of my mom’s favourite vase—the one I got her for her birthday—shattering against the wall.
And even though it sounds completely ridiculous, somewhere in the middle of class I swear I felt that same rough grip on my arm again. Like Norman’s hand was wrapped around it the way it used to be when he’d grab me. Of course my arm wasn’t red, no fingerprints digging into my skin, no sign of anything being there. He wasn’t actually there. But it still fucking felt like it.
