"Is it okay if I just come with you after class ? We can go to the store to buy snacks, have dinner and I could drop my stuff at your place before we leave.", she asked while giving me her classic Alison smile. It reached from ear to ear and her beautifully shaped teeth were bare.
"Yeah sure thing", I smiled back at her, "so your mom thinks you're just staying over ?"
"Yeah, if I said we were going to pull and all-nighter watching movies, she wouldn't have let me go", she chuckled while looking directly in my eye – god I liked her.
Some club from the university organized a movie night, literally. They were going to play movies throughout the whole night, until like 6 am, and then there was a free breakfast for those who had managed to stay up – and that's what Alison and I were going to do.
Before I could answer, the professor came in and everybody shut up, so he could start his class.
About two hours later, Ali and I found ourselves on our way to the supermarket. I shivered as the cold October air seemed to penetrate my body. Neither of us were talking, and I let my mind wander to places they shouldn't.
There were several friends going to the event tonight, but still Ali asked me if she could drop her stuff at my dorm. I couldn't help but hope there was more to it. I've tried comparing how she acts around me with how she acts around other friends, and it is different. True, she is a flirt, but the flirting she does with me is about five times worse than the flirting she does with others. So I couldn't help but playing with the possibility that she likes me.
We knew each other for only like a month, but there was a strong connection that made it seem as if we had known each other for years. Meeting her sort of felt like coming home, in a literal sense of the word. We both came from a small town, we both were quite active there, and we both liked to go to the small, dirty parties in our towns. The ones where the floor was a wet mess of all the beer that had been spilled, and where you were obliged to take a shower after because your legs had mud on them and your face was the result of an aggressive fight between you and a friend with fluorescent paint.
I suddenly felt a stream of warmth flowing over me, and realized we had just arrived in the store. I brought my head back into reality and looked at Alison. "So what do you want to have for dinner ?"
"Uhm, nothing too big, or we won't be able to eat all the candy we're about to buy", she laughed.
"Good point, what do you have in mind ?", I've never been the decisive one, certainly not towards Alison.
"What… abouuuut…. noodles ?", she quirked an eyebrow upon seeing the food while we were walking past.
"Sounds good to me", I answered and took a package of noodles.
We ended up roaming through the supermarket for more than an hour, looking for food and drinks for the night. We had everything: something salty, something sweet, something thirst-quenching and something that would keep us awake.
After paying, we went to my dorm to cook the noodles and drop the stuff we wouldn't need. As the food was cooking, Ali and I were sitting on a chair in the kitchen that I shared with seven other people.
"Okay so, you have to tell me. How come your brother has a dorm room and you don't ?", I asked her.
"Well, my parents first want me to do a year without dorm, and if my grades are good, I'm allowed to take a dorm as well. It's not that terrible though, I have a good relationship with my brother, I can always stay over whenever I want to go out here in Philly."
"Oh I see", I was fighting the urge to ask another question, one that was keeping me busy much more than the fact her brother has a dorm room and she doesn't. I gave up the fight with my mind and decided to ask anyway. "So eh, why didn't you go there tonight ?", I tried to keep my voice as casual as possible.
"Well he's not going to the event, so I thought I shouldn't bother him. I mean, you were going so it was a lot easier to just chill here, right ?"
I wasn't sure if I was satisfied with her answer, but I didn't want to ask anything further. "Yeah, sure", I answered as I got up and took a look if our food was ready yet.
We ate, and then went on our way to the movies. We were a bit too late, the first movie had already started when we arrived. Nevertheless, there was a welcoming committee waiting for us to give us information. There were four different rooms, and each played another genre of films. There was a room for feel-good movies, one for comedy, one for horror and one for brain-breakers. After each movie, there was a pause so you could switch rooms if you wanted to. Throughout the night, five movies were played in each room, and if you managed to watch at least three, you got free breakfast (when you entered a room, someone marked a piece of paper and you only got the breakfast if you had at least three marks).
Alison and I decided to watch Forrest Gump (which had already started) in the feel-good room, as I'd never seen it and Ali claimed it was a hole in my culture. The rest of our friends hadn't arrived yet, so the decision was easily made.
"This is going to be so embarrassing", I sighed as I thought about going in in the middle of a movie.
"Lol yes probably. Let's go", she basically shoved me into the room and started laughing.
"Shh", I hushed her as my eyes were adjusting to the lack of light. But Ali's laugh was so contagious I couldn't help but start giggling too. We hobbled forward to nearly the last row of seats and sat down next to each other while trying to contain our laughter. Luckily, the movie wasn't that far, so I could easily catch up on the story. We made ourselves comfortable, and I couldn't help but notice Alison's leg touching mine.
"It's just innocent, there's not much space for legs so it's only logical we are touching", I convinced myself. I didn't want to think something else of it, I would only end up heartbroken.
After about an hour, I started to wonder why this movie was played in the "Feel-good room", seeing that I had gone through three crying sessions already. Something else that bothered me was Alison's leg that was still pressed against mine. I wandered my eyes from the screen to our touching body parts. My mind started to go through all sorts of what if's. What if she's doing this on purpose ? What if not ? What if she is and I do nothing about it ? What if she is and I do anything about it ? But what if she isn't and I make a move ?
Suddenly there was a loud gunshot in the movie, which made Alison grasp and take my hand in hers. I jolted up, my train of thoughts interrupted as I tried to take in what the fuck just happened. I blinked a few times, sort of trying to make sure I wasn't dreaming, as I looked up at our hands, which were now intertwined. I tilted my head to find her gaze, trying to keep a straight face.
"Oh my god, that shot scared the shit out of me", she laughed and looked me in the eye. Damn. Why does she always have to be so casual. I'll never figure her out.
I chuckled lightly, "loser". I was ready for her to let go of my hand, not being able to hold off feeling slightly disappointed. But she didn't. She didn't loosen the grip on my hand. She just returned her attention to the screen, keeping our hands firmly together.
If it was difficult not being distracted before, it was impossible now. My eyes and mind kept wandering to our intertwined hands and the possible motives as to why she was not letting go. I sat out the rest of the movie, trying to concentrate on the screen and not on the girl next to me, which was proven to be fairly difficult.
When the end credits started rolling over the screen, I turned my head to face Alison, who was already smirking at me. "Holding hands during a movie, just how cute are we ?", she joked, her eyes glistening with fun.
I did my best not to be awkward, as Ali was being so… so casual. If only she hadn't said something like that and let us be in the moment, who knows what could have happened. But reality was reality so I just let out a chuckle and started gathering my stuff.
Once we were out of the feel-good room, we met up with the rest of our friends who had arrived by now.
"Hey guys", Tim said, and then aimed his attention towards me. "How was the movie ?"
Before I got a chance to answer, Ali jumped right between us in her classic, bubbly self: "It was hilarious, Emily started crying and by the end of the movie we both were a sobbing mess.". She started laughing and I joined in, although I tried to defend myself.
"Hey ! It's a sad movie !". Everyone started snickering and I put up a pout.
"And", Alison spoke up again, making sure she had everyone's attention before continuing, "we were like, holding hands the whole time, it was su-per cute. Y'all should have seen us." Everyone burst into laughter again and I pretended to be amused too.
In reality, I felt like someone had stabbed me with a knife. Ok so, if she jokes about it, it means for sure that there was nothing even remotely serious going on. Fine.
The second movie was about to start so we headed towards the horror room. "OK so, as we have agreed in the group chat, I'm sitting in between Tim and Ezra. And I'm gonna hold your hands.", Alison announced before we took our seats.
I felt a sting of jealousy, but realized I just had to get over whatever it was that I was feeling, because this sure wasn't going to work. I didn't really look where I was going to, and ended up next to Pineapple – who is obviously not really called Pineapple. The real name of the tiny brunette was Aria, but literally no one from the club called her that.
It was a funny story: during one of the first weeks from college, in the week where we would get baptized, there was a small party which was mandatory if you wanted to be baptized. The president of the club had instructed her (and only her) to come to that party dressed up as something. She had been completely free to choose in what she would dress up, so everyone assumed she'd be a pirate or whatever she could find in the closet of her little brother, but no. She arrived at the party as a pineapple. She'd made the costume all by herself and it was hilarious. And well, no one ever called her Aria after that.
On the other side of me was Toby, a nice but kind of weird guy. Nobody genuinely liked him, it was more like they just tolerated him. People had been saying things about him but I tried to ignore it all and just see for myself what kind of person he was.
Unfortunately, everyone had been right. Toby was just a not very likeable person. He tried to be funny, but wasn't and ended up hurting people, he was kind of pushy and thought he was indispensable, and he was just so… Toby. But as long as I didn't have to be with him for too long, I could manage and have fun with him.
Next to Toby then sat Ezra and then Alison and Tim. Tim was also sitting next to his girlfriend, Sarah, who was at the end of the row. The rest of our friends were sitting in the row behind us, and that's how we settled for the horror movie.
"Well, that movie sucked balls", Tim said loudly as we were heading towards the brain-breaker room to watch Interstellar.
"Ugh, yeah.", Pineapple confirmed, "cheap story with even cheaper tricks to make you scared. Hopefully this one is a bit better."
"You've never seen Interstellar ?", I asked. I knew Ali hadn't seen it, but I assumed she'd be the only one, since the movie was so famous.
"No, never really had the chance. But I'm making up for it now, aren't I ?"
"Sure thing, I'm proud of you, Pineapple", I chuckled as we arrived to the third room of the night.
We were a bit early and the room wasn't open yet, so we had to line up before the entrance. There were about five people standing in between me and Alison but I didn't make an attempt to get closer to her. She had barely looked twice at me since we got out of the first movie and didn't seem really bothered by it. She was in what seemed an interesting and funny conversation with Ezra so I just turned around and continued making small talk with Pineapple.
After a few minutes, someone arrived to put stamps on our paper, and the line became shorter. I saw Alison going in and knew there was no way I'd be sitting next to her for this movie. She was popular, everyone liked her, sure people would already be sitting next to her when I got in.
Even though nothing was really happening, I still felt as though I just got rejected. I felt my heart getting heavier and had to remind myself that Ali was just a friend, and would always be just. a. friend.
My paper got stamped and my feet slowly found their way inside, my mood being nothing like the one I left my dorm room with earlier.
"So there you are, at last", I looked up to see a confident Alison watching me with a goofy grin. "Come on, let's find ourselves a seat !", she took my arm and basically dragged me into one of the empty rows.
"Space enough here, so if we get tired we can just lay down, is this good for you ?" She asked while turning around at me.
I was still completely taken aback by her actions that I only managed a "sure, fine", before I got in the chair and installed myself.
Alison was just being her normal cheery self and talked about everything and nothing while eating some of the candy we bought at the store earlier. Is it really just me ? Am I really looking into things way too much ? Not that it really mattered because I knew that it was too late. My mind had already made up its mind (yes, a Fields is capable of that) and decided to forget everything I promised myself about getting over Alison.
Soon, the lights went out and Interstellar began playing on the screen. As Ali and I started getting comfortable in our chairs, her leg touched mine again. I took a deep breath and decided to just quit worrying and enjoy the moment for how long it lasted. And it lasted. She didn't even make an attempt to change the position of her leg. We caught each other's gaze again and she smiled. Not that playful little grin she normally had going on with her teeth bare, but a genuine, meaningful smile. I returned it and we returned our attention back to the movie in a comfortable silence.
After the movie, we all decided to just stay in the brain-breaker room for the last two movies as well. The films weren't so bad and everyone was too lazy to pack up to go to a different room.
The fourth movie started playing and Alison clearly didn't care anymore as her tiredness took over (who can blame her, it was nearly 3am), and laid her head against my shoulder. I couldn't help but smile, the feeling that touch gave me was pure happiness. I knew it was all a big joke, she was merely a friend who was sleeping on another friend's shoulder, but I couldn't care less at that moment. I snuggled my head against hers and closed my eyes. Maybe, just maybe, she does like me back.