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MICHAEL was half-tempted to steal the keys to Miriam's car and drive them to the local movie theater, but Coraline refused to get in. He didn't have his license and never drove a day in his life. No way was she getting in a car with him, and she had no way of driving them either. "The theater is just twenty minutes away," she told him. "We can walk."
Her tight jeans made that difficult, but she still managed to move as fast as she could. The wind blew her dark hair off her shoulders, causing her perfume to fade into the crisp air. Even in November, it was never really that cold in California. However, Coraline found the thin sweater she was wearing tonight not warm enough. She hugged her arms over her torso as they walked.
Michael stayed silent. He was wearing his usual attire, but also adorned an old, jean jacket and black boots. As they passed a corner on the block, he looked over at Coraline, noticing that she was cold. He frowned and laced his arm through her left. Coraline glanced at him with hesitation, but gladly tightened her hold around his. He was so warm. Coraline thought that he could be the human embodiment of a furnace.
It ended up taking a few minutes longer to get to the theater, and Michael didn't let her forget that. Once they were outside the old, local theater, Michael looked out amongst all the people and bit his lip. He threw up his hood and kept his head down. Coraline didn't think he was actually going to do it and almost pulled the hood off herself. She decided against it when she thought about how her mother would reprimand her. So she continued to guide him through the theater as he kept staring at his feet, unaware of the teenagers eyeing them with confusion.
She paid for the tickets. (Eleven dollars each.) He paid for the popcorn, like she asked. As Michael approached the food stand, he made sure to keep his head down, even though it was hard for the young cashier to hear any word he said. Coraline stood idly next to him, clasping her hands together.
"I wonder who Coraline Avery is with."
Her ears perked up upon hearing her name. From the corner of her eye, Coraline saw two people looking over at her. The faces looked familiar, but they were probably nobodies, who liked old gossip. Coraline was still a somebody, despite being an outcast.
"I don't know," the other person said, "but they must have mush for brains to be out with Crazy Coraline."
She bit down on her lip – hard. Her teeth almost threatened to draw blood. No, she told herself. Just ignore them. Nobodies only talk about somebodies. That's just the way it went.
Michael almost tripped over his own feet as Coraline led them to their seats, all the while he was keeping his eyes trained on the floor. "You can look up, you know," she tsked, dragging him by his sleeves up the stairs of theater six, where their movie was playing. They were already late for it, so the whole room was dark and he clearly couldn't see.
