“You have to tell us something,” Pete says.
“I’ll bring him home. You can go there and wait.” And I leave them all and hail a cab. I know exactly where he is.
Paul
The projector is harder to work than I remember it being. But after a few busted knuckles and even more curse words, I finally get it started up. The theater is completely dark, except for the screen, and it casts a small glow on the room. This particular movie theater is small, and it has old wooden chairs with barely any cushion on them. But this is the only place that my dad and I ever went to be alone.
We would sneak in here in the middle of the night when the other boys were in bed, and we would watch old films together. Sometimes, we would pop popcorn and bring it from home, and we would sit all night and watch film after film. I go and sit down in one of the seats in the middle.
I don’t think anyone has been here in a really long time, if the amount of dust on the seats is any indication. I don’t care. I sit down anyway and watch the screen flicker. There’s no sound because I couldn’t figure out how to turn that on. But I can watch the movie and remember. My dad wasn’t always bad. He was forgetful and he was never serious enough, but my mother was the opposite so they complemented each other really well. Where he didn’t care, she cared too much, and vice versa. After my mom died, though, there was no one to balance him out, which made him seem like a deadbeat. He wasn’t though, looking back on it. He was lonely. He was alone.
I hear the door open behind me, and the hair on the back of my fucking neck stands up. It’s her. I always know when it’s her. Her scent hits me before I even see her, and she doesn’t say a word when she sits down beside me.
She’s quiet, and she just watches the movie with me. When the reel stops, the room goes a little brighter because the lamps are still on.
“That was fun. What’s up next?” she asks. Her voice echoes in the open room, even though she’s speaking quietly.
“Why are you here?” I ask.
Her hand covers mine. “Because you needed me.” She squeezes my hand gently.
“Go home, Friday,” I bite out.
But she doesn’t. She just sits there, quietly. “Why don’t you start another movie?”
“I don’t want to watch another movie.”
I lay my head back and close my eyes.
“Why didn’t you call me?” she asks quietly.
“I couldn’t figure out how to tell anyone.”
“Even me?”
“Even you.”
“Why?” Her voice is soft.
“Because I feel so fucking guilty that it’s like somebody is taking a knife and stabbing me in the gut over and over and over.”
“Guilty about what?”
“I lied, Friday. I fucking lied, okay?” I lied to the people I love, and they’ll probably never forgive me.
“Lied about what?”
“Dad didn’t leave. I threw him out.” I pick at a piece of lint on my jeans.
“Why did you do that?” Her voice is so quiet that I can barely hear her.
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Yes, it does.” I feel her shift, and she climbs into my lap. She straddles me, one thigh on each side of my hips, and I reach for her bottom and jerk her against me. She yelps because I move so fast I scare her. But I need her. I need to feel her against me. I need her on top of me and fucking me. I need her. “It does matter.” She takes my face in her hands. “Why did you kick him out?”
“I came home in the middle of the day and found him in my mother’s bed with another woman. He was really careful not to bring women around us, and I had heard he was dating someone, but he hadn’t told us. But I walked in and found them together. I wasn’t supposed to be there.”
“Keep going.” She touches the pad of her thumb to my lower lip, and I chase her thumb and try to bite it. She smiles and rests on my chest on her elbows.
“Mom had been gone for a year, but I felt like he was taking a knife to her memory.”
“I can understand that.”
“I got mad, and I was bigger than him, so I jerked him out of bed. He tried to explain, but I wouldn’t listen. I kicked the woman out, and he was really angry. He swung at me, and he missed, so I punched him in the stomach. Then I hit him in the face. I threw him out. I tossed him out like garbage. I didn’t even let him get a change of clothes. Nothing.”
She doesn’t say anything.
“Then I told my brothers he left.”
“Oh, Paul,” she says quietly.
“They showed me the picture of his dead body. On his cheek is a slash. It’s from where I hit him with my fist. I was wearing my new class ring. I had just gotten it. I saw it across his face when I hit him. I saw it that day, and I saw it today. So, he died right after our fight.”