Total pages in book: 152
Estimated words: 147545 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 738(@200wpm)___ 590(@250wpm)___ 492(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 147545 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 738(@200wpm)___ 590(@250wpm)___ 492(@300wpm)
“Tell her I’m taking you to a movie. A long one. You’ll be home late.”
I tap out a quick message to my mom while he drives past the road he’d turn left on to take me home.
I think he’s just using the movie as an excuse, so I’m surprised a few minutes later when he actually pulls into the parking lot of the movie theater.
Unfortunately, I’m also distracted because my mom is blowing up my phone with questions.
What do you mean you don’t have your phone? Where is it?
Where are you?
Why aren’t you telling me what’s really going on???
Sighing, I type out, “I’ll explain everything tomorrow, okay? Our movie’s about to start, so I have to put the phone away.”
I consider turning the damn thing off, but I settle on shoving it to the bottom of my purse and zipping it closed.
Tor parks the car, and I follow him into the theater. On slower nights, there are no employees at the ticket booths, so we go right up to the concession stand.
He doesn’t even ask if I want anything—he just orders two tickets to a movie I’ve never heard of, a large popcorn, and two drinks. Finally, he looks back at me. “What do you want to drink?”
“Pink lemonade,” I tell the employee who is filling my cup with ice. Then, my gaze jumping back to Tor, I say, “Thank you. You didn’t have to get me anything.”
“Gotta have popcorn at the movie theater.”
“It’s so expensive.” Leaning close so the employee doesn’t hear, even though I’m sure they know people do it all the time, I whisper, “When we come to the movies, we usually smuggle in candy.”
Tor smirks. “Do you want candy?”
I shake my head. “No, just the popcorn is good.”
“She wants candy,” he tells the cashier, pulling out his credit card. “Tell him what kind of candy you want.”
“No, really, I’m fine with the popcorn.”
He looks at me, cocking an eyebrow. “Cassie. Tell him what you want, or I’ll guess. Either way, we’re not leaving without candy.”
Cheeks flushed, I sigh. “Twizzlers, please.”
“There we go,” Tor says. “Was that so hard?”
Once we have all our movie treats, we head to our theater—the last one at the end of the hall. When we go into the dimly lit room, I realize we are the only ones here.
“Oh.”
“I figured it’d be pretty empty. This movie’s been out for a while.” He sinks into one of the recliners in the middle near the front of the theater.
I take a seat next to him, situating my lemonade in the cupholder and putting my purse and candy on the empty seat beside me.
Tor looks back to make sure he didn’t miss anyone and that we are, in fact, alone. Then he leans over and says, “I was thinking we should have some code words for when we need to communicate about what’s going on. A red, yellow, green system. Red is urgent, a pretty big emergency, we need to talk now. Yellow is pretty important, but not an emergency yet. I don’t know if we really even need a green, but I guess it can be for good news. If we want to let each other know, ‘hey, I have good news about something next time we talk, no urgency,’ then I guess green would work for that.”
“So just find a reason to use red, yellow, or green in conversation?”
He shakes his head, grabbing a piece of buttery popcorn off the top. “What about popcorn for our yellow word?”
I glance at the bucket and nod. “Okay.” I glance at his drink, red beneath the plastic lid. “Fruit punch could be red?”
“Sure, we can make fruit punch work. What do you want to be green?”
“How about flowers?” I suggest.
He nods. “That works.” Then he looks over at me. “What kind of flowers do you like?”
“I don’t think there are any I don’t like. I’m partial to the classic, though. I love the smell of roses.”
Behind us, we hear the sudden sound of feet shuffling and a man murmuring. Tor glances back. “Huh. Guess we’re not alone after all.”
Since there are other people in the theater with us now, we stop talking. The trailers are about to start anyway, but I hear my new phone vibrating in my purse and my anxiety ramps up.
I know it’s my mother, and I know I’ll have to deal with that soon.
But for now, I just want to enjoy the peace and quiet.
___
When the movie’s over, Tor finally drives me home.
It was a long movie, so my mom should be in bed, but with everything that has happened today, I’m not sure if she will be.
I check the windows for light. I doubt she’d have the living room light on, but I should see a glow from the television if she’s waiting up. The house looks pretty dark.