Dirt Lifter | Craig of the Creek High School AU

Movie Night

As they say, Saturday nights are for the boys. By the boys, Craig meant Kelsey.

There used to be a lot more "boys" in their friend group, but since J.P. left for college and Omar went AWOL (and he still hadn't opened any texts Craig had sent him, and it had been a month at this point), it was just them for movie nights. It meant less debating over what movie to watch, and no arguments of comedy vs fantasy vs sci-fi vs horror. It meant less people having to leave early, making them put off the King of the Gauntlet marathon they'd been planning for another weekend. It meant that he and Kelsey could enjoy the film in silence instead of side-conversations breaking out every ten seconds.

Craig wished they could all hang out as a group again. Omar was absolutely a lost cause, but J.P. had been growing distant, too. Their group chat had been somewhat active after they all met up in the fall, but that spark had long since died. Movie night was definitely different with half the people, and Craig wasn't sure if he liked it. He had offered to let Stacks come a few months ago, just after J.P. left for college, but Kelsey had said that he "would third wheel so hard", so it was still only them.

"I'm just saying," Craig said through a mouth of popcorn. "I barely talked to J.P. all month. We used to call every week. Now he just sends memes every other day."

"Memes are funny, dude." Kelsey shrugged. They were both sitting on her couch in her living room. There was a sci-fi movie on the TV that they both agreed to watch. It had Theodosia Chalet in it, and she was usually good in space flicks. "They're the communication of the future."

He gulped down the food to speak clearer. "I don't even know what he's doing over there!"

"You mean in Baltimore? You're not his mom, dude. Unless...?" She made a fake-shocked face.

Craig was not in the mood to joke around. "I am his friend."

"What, d'you think he died? I'm sure he's fine. Probably just busy with the semester ending. Bro, she did not just say she loved him." She took another handful of popcorn as the movie drew her attention away from Craig. "They met forty minutes ago, fuckin' rushing it much?"

"Hm. Weird," he said about the movie.

J.P. being busy with studying would make sense. Craig's homework problems had only persisted after break ended, and he hadn't seen Kelsey in a while because of it. He should've gotten more work done over the break, instead of just feeling sorry for himself the entire time and sleeping in too late every day. Now, he was rushing to get last-minute projects done before report cards came out.

The love-confession-after-knowing-each-other-for-forty-minutes-scene kept playing. It's too rushed for him to focus on, so he's once again stuck going over and over all his mistakes in his head. He really should have studied for his biology test over the break. Now it's this Tuesday, and he's over at his friends house watching a mediocre movie that is definitely not worth the grade if he failed it. Well, if Craig could avoid pressing tests to watch a movie, then somebody could stop studying for half an hour to call him. College end-of-semester tests couldn't be that much more work than high school, right? Crap, they probably were. Another thing for him to worry about, even if it was in the distant future.

"One phone call," Craig muttered. "That's all I'm saying."

"Oh my God," Kelsey turned her head to glare at him. "If you do not let this go, I'm shoving the remote up your ass."

"I'm sorry, I don't like it when my friends don't talk to me!"

"I'm your friend. I'm fucking here. Hi, hello! D'ya miss me?" She punctuated it with a grimacing smile and jazz hands.

He returned her sarcasm. "You haven't left for college yet, have you?"

"Oh, I forgot I'm gonna abandon you one day. Wait, no, actually," Venom coated her voice as she sat up on the couch. "I forgot that I'm stuck in high school for another year after you leave! I guess you're the one that'll abandon me!"

They both realized at the same time that Kelsey was yelling. She leaned back down on the couch, but anger still furrowed her brow. "Like, God, it's like you don't think I care. They're my fucking friends, too! We got left together, and now you're gonna join them and- God. Fuck." Her voice broke with the swearing.

Craig didn't say anything. The movie filled in the silence, and Craig wished he had turned it off when they first began talking about this.

"You spend so much time on schoolwork and shit, it's like you've already left sometimes. I don't want you to leave. I don't want anyone to leave, but that's not possible. You're not gonna stop anyone by bitching about it."

"I'm not bitching," he finally replied.

"Yes, you are. You're being a bitch." She sighed. "It feels like every time we hang out, you focus on who's not here. You gotta live in the moment, you know?"

He's been trying to live in the moment, but the moments keep passing and passing, faster and faster. Can't he just stay somewhere stagnant for a bit? Did everyone have to leave? Did he have to leave?

If this is how he felt about it, he could imagine how Kelsey did.

He brought his legs up on the couch. "I miss them."

There's a beat before Kelsey replied. "Me too."

They kept watching the movie. Craig didn't even remember the character's names. This movie was trash. He had no idea why he wanted to watch it so badly.

The confession scene was long over, and the characters were back in space-battle. The main guy pulled out...

"When did he get that sword?" Craig felt like he would have caught that, even with their arguing. That was during a confession scene, did she give him a sword along with it?

"20 minutes ago," Kelsey replied.

"They're in space. They have space lasers. Why does he need a sword?"

"Swords are the superior weapon."

He scoffed. "Says the fencer."

"So I know how superior they are!"

"Okay." But he was forming a plan to put Kelsey and her fencing knowledge back in their place. He inched his hand into the popcorn bowl, as if to take some to eat. He brought it up to his face, as if to take a bite.

To be fair, he did give Kelsey a warning by saying "Fence this!" just before he threw popcorn at her.

"Oh, you fucking jerk," she laughed, and she took a handful from the bowl and threw it at Craig, and he retaliated, and it turned into an all-out food fight before Kelsey's dad yelled at her for swearing too much and getting popcorn all over the floor.

"Sorry, Dad!" She yelled back at him as she began picking up the bits of popcorn everywhere. "Don't just stare at me, Craig, help out."

That was a really stupid thing for them to do, but heat-of-the-moment play-fighting seemed to ground him back in reality.

He helped clean up for more than a moment, and he savored the stagnancy.