After a year and a half of trying to move on from the what-ifs, the tides have pulled Alexandra Rivera and Zachariah Kim back together again.
*****
In the h...
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"What do you mean you don't like movie theater popcorn?" I gasped in disbelief.
Zachariah glanced down at me from the corner of his eye, mischief dancing along his lips. The line crept slowly forward and we followed it, the smell of butter growing stronger with each step.
We were both fresh off rough shifts at work, but I had no plans of maintaining any sort of attention once we were in our seats. I was a little more tired than I would like to be, and with just my luck, I'd fall asleep sometime in the middle of the movie, but Zachariah was used to that by now.
"It's so greasy," he replied. "Nobody needs that much butter on their popcorn."
"You're wrong but go off, I guess."
Work hadn't been the only stressor as of late. The home situation hadn't improved, and even though Emmie and Zach were coming up on their one-year anniversary, things hadn't improved much to the point where I could make sense of why they were still together. We had even invited her to the movies with us tonight but were kindly turned down. I tried not to take it personally, even though part of me couldn't help but feel that way at times. I hated feeling like I had to choose between them.
Sometimes when two people stayed in a relationship long enough but were no longer happy in it, the familiarity became the only thing that kept them together. A crutch that kept them from pursuing something on their own.
"Can we sit at the back?"
Zachariah stared down at me as we pulled away from the counter with our goodies in tow—a bottle of water for him, a large slushie for me, and a giant bag of popcorn to be shared between us. Or mostly me because, as he'd just enlightened me of, he did not like movie theater popcorn.
"You're gonna fall asleep on me, aren't you?"
"I would never."
"You fell asleep during the first movie we ever saw together. You've fallen asleep during at least eighty percent of them, actually."
He grabbed the box to pour out my portion of the popcorn.
"What did Anthony say?" he asked as we walked toward the auditorium.
I yawned. "Someone called out so he had to cover their shift. You're gonna have to drive me home."
We had ten minutes before the showing so we sat down on the glossy red bench outside. As soon as I sat down, I closed my eyes and felt another wave of exhaustion cascade over me.
"You need to just suck it up and take your car in to get fixed," he scolded, dropping bits of popcorn into his mouth.
"Yeah, but I won't have enough to find a place to move out. My car is ancient. It's going to be so expensive to fix." It was already out of the question that I'd be able to find anything affordable on my own, which meant I'd have to find a roommate. Emmie or Jem would be ideal but neither of them were options. I'd even asked Calum but that didn't pan out. Asking Zachariah was tempting but I wasn't sure how that would go over with Emmie and he already had roommates anyway.
