“Huh? I don’t get it.”
I sighed. “It feels like you’re trying to do something more than just have sex with me. You keep trying to get me horny enough to say yes to you. I really appreciate that you listen when I say no, but it’s just a little weird.”
Strangely, Taylor started laughing. “Haha, wow, I’m a fucking monster,” she mumbled, mostly to herself. “If you had told me anyone else was doing that to you, I’d be saying, ‘yeah, welcome to my world.’ It sounds like what a lot of guys did to me. Keep doing. Keep doing to me.”
“That’s very mature of you to admit that,” I commented, not knowing what to say.
“Doesn’t change that I’m doing it,” Taylor mumbled again. “I’m sorry. I don’t know if you’re willing to believe me, but it is just sex. I just want it so I can, like, I dunno, prove to myself that I can get sex from more than just assholes? I mean, what kind of person am I if I can’t even get the school nerd to fuck me? No offense, just speaking in, like, clichees here.”
“I get it,” I replied, knowing that she was being insensitive again but also knowing pointing that out would solve nothing. “Like I said, this isn’t a no. It’s just… not now. It doesn’t feel right. And if you want to prove that we can, you know, have sex, it only makes sense that we should wait until it feels right.”
“I would have felt bad fucking you if Morgan didn’t say okay,” she replied slowly, almost with a dry throat. “I want you to know that. Like, yeah, I played the part, but I don’t think I could have gone through with it.”
“I believe you,” I lied. In truth, I had no clue if she would have or not. But I would have been lying to say I truly believed that she wouldn’t have done it. “Do you feel bad about the Joel thing? If I get to ask.”
“No,” she replied immediately. “He’s doing the same thing. As far as I care, we’re in an open relationship too, but as soon as one of us brings it up, we’ll fight or something.” She turned to me and cracked a small smile. “Mutual cheating is like being in an open relationship with don’t-ask-don’t-tell in it.”
“No it isn-”
“I know it isn’t, I’m making a joke,” she clarified. “But my choices are, talk to him about it and be single and known as ‘queen of the bitches’ to all of his friends tomorrow, or I can be a good girl and suffer in silence, or I can live in his world and have my own fun.” She stood up, looming over me. “Which one would you choose?”
“I’d talk to him about it,” I replied earnestly.
“That’s cute, Quinn,” she replied, helping me up. “And that’s what sounds the best to say. But I bet that’s not what you’d actually do. Remember yesterday?” I shivered. I hated to admit it, but… maybe she was right. Wordlessly, I accepted her help and stood up.
“Good job on the review,” I mumbled awkwardly, not knowing what else to say. “I think you’re going to do really well on the final.”
“I fucking hope I do,” she said. “Do you wanna go home?”
“Yeah, I think I do,” I replied.
***
Planning a date is so much easier and less anxiety-inducing when you have already gone on one before. My first final went successfully and to celebrate, Morgan and I planned going out to the movies together, with her older brother acting as our chauffeur. I wasn’t crazy about that last part, but I went along with it.
Because I paid for our bubble tea, Morgan insisted on paying for the tickets and the popcorn, which I thought was a kind move, until I realized that meant she had full control over the movie we’d watch. Unfortunately I discovered my error too late, and I swear at the exact moment I opened my mouth to voice my concern, Morgan, still at the ticket machine, turned her head to me and gave me her rare smile, in the form of a mischievous grin, as she produced two tickets.
The name of the movie alone made me want to hurl. It was everything I was fearing from the land of pointless movies. Some sappy romance with completely unrelatable characters — no doubt the guy would be rich, good-looking yet alone, and confident except in the ways that others could capitalize on. The woman would be frazzled and claim that her life is ‘a mess right now’ even though she’s weirdly calm and cool in a crisis about it.
Well, at least Morgan would be able to find a character to relate to.
One large popcorn later, we were finding our seats in the theater. I couldn’t help but notice that there weren’t too many people there — mostly other couples, most of them older than us, most of them guy-girl. No doubt I wasn’t the only victim of their girlfriend dragging them to this movie.
I turned to Morgan expectantly and she rolled her eyes and picked our seats for us. It was odd — the theater was mostly empty, so we could have picked some really good seats in the middle, but out of all of them, Morgan picked some seats near the back.
More oddly than that, Morgan’s response when I pointed it out was shock. “Hey Morgan, don’t you think we’d get a better view of the movie if we were around the center? These are kind of out of the way, don’t you think?”
I swear, for a second, Morgan looked at me as if I was stupid or something, but she quickly shifted her expression. “Do you think so? I’ve always found that these seats always give you the best sound, and, I mean, the screen is pretty big anyway, it’s not like we won’t be able to see it.”
Oh. Huh. Sound. I hadn’t heard about that before, but then again, the last time I went to see a movie was with the family for Kevin’s and my birthday back in primary school, so I simply shrugged and accepted that Morgan was probably more adept at movie watching than I was.
Once the movie began, my worst fears were confirmed: I was going to hate this movie. I already didn’t watch too many movies; they weren’t really my thing. It didn’t help that this movie showcased the exact type of people I cared the least about, in the most overdramatic way possible.
I probably had a terrible poker face, though in this case it was more like a poker body. I found myself enjoying the movie so little that I was constantly shifting and squirming in place. I wanted to tough it out for Morgan’s sake but the movie was testing me.
I guess I was squirming a little too much, because during a quieter moment in the movie, I could hear Morgan giggling next to me. I turned to her to see that she was paying no attention to the movie by this point. “Enjoying the movie?” she asked sarcastically.
I smiled sheepishly. “These types of movies just aren’t my thing, I guess. I’m sorry if it looks like I’m making a scene, I’m actually trying to have a good time.”
“Well, there’s no need to be dishonest,” Morgan continued, talking in a whisper since it was still a quiet moment during the movie, despite most of the rest of the moviegoers being decently far away from us. I guess they didn’t care too much about sound. “Is there anything we can do to make sure you have a good time here too?”
I paused. “Not really, I guess. We can just talk for longer next time about which type of movie we both enjoy.”
Morgan looked at me through half-closed eyes until I began to feel weird. “What?” I asked.