AARON: I’ll message you when I get home.
AARON: This afternoon, maybe?
D1V: Sure?
AARON: It’s a date.
D1V: Date.
D1V: I’m making a face at you right now.
AARON: I’m sure you are.
Someone slams into me, muttering a quick apology as they continue through the crowd, and it pulls me away from my phone. Ryan and Alberto are walking over, a pair of jeans slung over Alberto’s shoulder. As they approach, Ryan looks down at the movies in my hand and scowls.
“Those are terrible movies,” he says with a disdainful sniff, as though I’m holding out trash.
“They are not!” I exclaim, wrestling my wallet out of my pocket.
Alberto plucks one out of my hands and examines it.
“You can’t be serious,” he says, looking up at me, a smirk on his face.
“I like that movie!” I snatch it back and turn to the man behind the table, a thick beard and long locks of curly hair framing his face.
“One...two...” he mumbles, counting the movies. “Alright, six movies, that’ll be twelve dollars... Let’s just call it ten, sound good?”
I hand him two crinkled five-dollar bills from my wallet and turn back to Alberto and Ryan, who are both staring at me, arms crossed, shaking their heads.
“Look, you don’t get it. I’m going to—”
“Oh, I figured it out,” Ryan says dryly.
“You could have at least picked something better,” Alberto adds, smirking.
“You guys are the worst,” I complain. “I’m skipping pizza and heading home.”
I move to brush by them, but Alberto holds out a hand, blocking my way. He flashes me a grin. He knows I’m not going to bail on our usual trip to Lorenzo’s, not when we’re this close to the place, with its monstrous two-dollar slices that are bigger than my head.
“Goddamn it. Fine, let’s go,” I grumble. “But then I’m heading home.”
I have a date to prep for.
* * *
I’m sweating like someone playing a round of competitive StarCraft II as I get myself situated in my room. Running around in the summer heat on the streets of Center City, Philadelphia, the pavement unforgiving, sending waves of warmth against you...it doesn’t make for an attractive look at the end of it all. I pull my T-shirt off and use the still-damp fabric to wipe at my forehead, then give up, hustling into the bathroom to wash my face.
I look in the mirror, my brown skin flushed, bits of red in my eyes from the stinging of sweat and salt...
And I laugh.
It doesn’t matter. None of it matters. I’ll have a headset on—we can’t see each other. Yet there’s still this...this something, that makes me want to look nice. Bits of stubble are starting to pop up along my jaw again, even though I just shaved a few days ago, and I tilt my head, still fussing with myself in the mirror.
I towel my face off and take a few deep breaths. “Here we go,” I announce to the mirror.
I hurry back to my room, but not before stopping in the hallway to listen for noise downstairs. All is silent—Mom is probably in the practice, and Dad...he’s probably on the computer, doing...
Whatever the hell he’s doing.
I shake my head. It doesn’t matter. I’ve got some popcorn on my bed, a can of soda on the nightstand, a bag of Sour Patch Kids next to that. And, most important, I’ve got movies.
It’s now or never.
RECLAIM THE SUN: CHAT APPLICATION
AARON: Hi!
D1V: Well.
D1V: If it isn’t Mr. Date.
AARON: You know, I really wish you could have gone flea marketing with me and the guys.
AARON: They love busting my chops too.
D1V: Heh. Maybe someday.
D1V: Not yet though.
AARON: I know.
AARON: So, look, I um...have this idea.
AARON: XPOE-8231-FK93-AALW-MP3Q
DIV: What’s that?
AARON: A download code.
D1V: For...what?
AARON: Claim it in MoviesEverywhere, and then load up the Ocutime app.
D1V: Oookay.
D1V: What.
D1V: Hahah, Aaron what is this?
AARON: So we can watch movies together! In the headset! In VR!
AARON: Like, that’s the date.
AARON: Was this uh, not a good idea?
AARON: I made popcorn and everything.
D1V: No, no. This is...this is cute.
D1V: It’s just, this movie...
AARON: It’s old, I know.
D1V: I’ll humor you, but then after this, we’re watching one of my movies.
D1V:Say Anything, Aaron? You’re such a cliché.
D1V: I like you though.
AARON:
In the VR headset, the movie looks huge and massive, as though it’s on a gigantic movie screen right in front of me. Like I’m sitting in the front row of the theater, or at least super close to it.
“Hey,” D1V says, her voice in my ear.
I turn to the side, but she isn’t there, of course. Just rows of faux seats.
The smell of the buttered popcorn I made in the downstairs microwave keeps me planted in the virtual reality I’ve chosen, this digital place. “What do you think?” I ask.
“It’s cute,” she says, and I can hear the smile in her voice. “The movie and...this.”
My hand twitches, and the fact that she isn’t here, in a seat next to me, weighs on me a little. The warmth in her voice, the fact that she’s here, but not. The urge to reach out and hold her hand in this movie theater feels so real, so present, and I have to push myself to keep staring straight ahead. At the screen. At John Cusack as he bumbles around, a romantic mess.
I look over at the empty seats in the VR and reach my hand out anyway.
And I wonder.
If she’s doing the same.
Reclaim the Sun: Chat Application
D1V: Hey you!
D1V: What’s going on, it’s been a minute.
D1V: Beks? I see you online. Come on.
BEKS: Hey, sorry.
BEKS: Didn’t realize I was signed on.
D1V: What? What is happening?
BEKS: Div, I don’t think we should do GamesCon.