But I’ll happily admit that it is a lot more fun with other people. Definitely a lot more fun with Nathan. At a point about halfway through, I catch him mouthing along to the lines, staring wide-eyed at the screen.
“Leia was always my favorite,” he says when he catches me looking. “I cried for two weeks when Carrie Fisher died.”
“I was always more partial to Luke.” He wasn’t my “gay-wakening,” as Mariam so graciously put it, but he was close. In fact, Star Wars is entirely unfair when it comes to attractive leads. Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, and Harrison Ford? Totally and completely uncalled for.
We stay around for the credits, waiting and watching for everyone else to pack up their things and head out. Nathan balls up the blanket and tosses it into the empty basket, discarding our half-eaten sandwiches in the trash can by the entrance.
“Did you want to grab dinner or something?” he asks. “I know the sandwiches weren’t much.”
My appetite is long gone, the bread weighing heavily on my stomach even though I only ate about half of it. “If you want to. I’m not that hungry.”
“Nah, we’ll go some other time.”
I check my phone. “It’s only eight thirty. Seems early to head back home.”
“Up for a little stroll?”
“Sure.”
“Come on.” We walk back to the car and Nathan leaves the basket in the back seat.
“So where to?”
“Want to see the lake?”
“There’s a lake?”
“Well, it’s more of a glorified pond, but they put these string lights over the bridge and it’s really pretty at night.”
“Sounds nice.”
“The pond it is.”
I’m not sure exactly how far away this pond is, but I definitely don’t see any bridges or ponds around me. At least it’s nice out, and maybe this is just what I need.
“So, did you like the movie?” he asks as we start down the trail.
“I don’t know, the twenty other times I’ve seen it were great, but this last time … The magic’s gone, you know?”
“Okay, Mr. Sarcasm, that’s enough.” He bumps into me with his shoulder.
I swallow the lump in my throat. “It was great, thank you.”
“Next month is Empire. We can go if you want.”
“That’d be nice,” I say.
I follow Nathan closely. At least it isn’t too crowded anymore. I guess most people were ready to go home after the movie.
“Hey.” Nathan stops short, so I nearly run into him. “You okay?”
“What? Yeah,” I say quickly, trying to remember where I am. “Sure.”
“You seemed a little spacey there. I said your name like five times.”
“Oh, sorry. Got lost in my own head, I guess.”
“I know the feeling. What were you thinking about?” he asks me.
“Oh, um. Nothing,” I tell him.
“Really?”
I nod.
“Want to know what I was thinking about?”
I feel this tiny flare of panic, like he’s going to pick now to drop some bomb on me. I have to tell myself to stop it. He isn’t going to do that, especially now. It’s not going to happen.
But I don’t quite believe myself.
“Sure.”
“I was thinking about Ryder,” Nathan says. “Specifically this one time when we went to this specialty pet store downtown and bought him these chocolate things that were supposed to be safe for him to eat.”
“What happened?”
“The little punk wouldn’t eat them. I spent twenty dollars on treats just for him, and he turns his nose up at me.”
I snort. “What a jerk.”
“I told him that too. He just gave me those big eyes, and I couldn’t stay mad at him.”
“How old is he?” I ask.
“Nine. Mom got him for me when we first moved here, thought it might help the transition to a new place.”
“That’s cool. I’ve always wanted a cat.” Mom and Dad were strictly no mammalian or reptilian pets. They did let me have a fish when I was ten though. A little goldfish that I named Goldie. Because I was definitely creative with my name choices.
“It’s just up here.” He points, and I can just barely make out the lights along the railing. “Come on!” He grabs my hand, and we race down the trail and toward the bridge. Not slowing down until we’re a yard or two away.
I wait for him to give me back my hand, but he doesn’t. It’s nice. As nice as that night on the roof. Even better now, because it’s getting colder and he’s so impossibly warm. I try not to think about how this is what it would be like. If we could be together, if we could hold hands and walk around town without having to hide ourselves.
No. I push the thoughts away. I can’t. That’ll only make all of this worse.
“You should see this place on the Fourth of July. They have fireworks over the water and everything.” It’s dark, the streetlights along the walkway and the string lights on the railing only doing so much.
I let Nathan lead us right to the edge, and he finally lets go of my hand.
I don’t have the courage to tell him to take it back.
He wasn’t wrong, it’s pretty. It’s small, but it’s enough, with this little beachy area on the other side of the water, and a dock filled with those plastic paddleboats people love to rent for some reason.
“The water creeps me out,” I say, peering over the wood railing, staring at the way the water moves as the fish swim.
“You’re scared of a pond?”
I shrug. “Just never been a fan of water. One time my parents took me to the beach, and I cut myself on a shell. That wasn’t fun.” I still have the pale white scar along the bottom of my foot. That was also my first time in an emergency room. Apparently, it had cut so deep that it wouldn’t clot, and Mom got scared.
“Yikes.”
“Another time I was going swimming, and a bunch of fish kept going by me and it creeped me out. So, I started crying.” Dad told me to “man up,” but I just spent the rest of the day under the umbrella, the sand sticking to my legs like some tight second skin.
Nathan starts laughing uncontrollably, trying to hide his face in his hands. “You’ve been traumatized by the ocean, oh my God.”
“I was five, leave me alone.” I shove him. “Besides, you’ve seen half the things those marine biologists find down there. The ocean’s creepy as hell.”
Nathan does this thing between a scoff and a laugh. “Can’t argue with you.”
I lean against the railing alongside him. “I hate the beach too.”
“Why?”
“I hate sand. It’s coarse, and it gets everywhere.” I wonder if he’ll catch on.
Nathan groans so loud the people jogging at the other end of the park turn to look at us. “Please tell me you didn’t just quote the worst movie of the saga.”
“Thought you might like that.”
“I hate you,” he says with a smile.
We both laugh until we can’t anymore, until the night air is filled with nothing but the sounds of the water. It’s hard to know that just beyond those walls we walked past is an entire city of people. This place is too quiet for that.