Hold Me Close

Chapter Twenty Three: In Between

-=Evan=-

And here we were. The week long gray zone in between Christmas and New Years when no one knew what day it was...or what time it was either for that matter.

Everyone was staying over at my place, filling in the bedrooms. Rob in one, Alex and I in mine, Summer in one, Brandon in another, Alyssa and Jason in one, and Amy nominated herself to sleep on the couch, an arrangement in which I could not complain with. Currently we were all hanging around the kitchen, eating bowls of cereal and leaning against the countertops. We had all planned to go to the movies, a new horror movie had come out and it had great reviews so far, also, we had nothing better to do.

The movie started at 10:30, and it was 09:47 right now, which gave us about 28 minutes before we needed to get going so we could make it on time.

"I'm gonna go take a shower." I announced, to be honest I felt disgusting and a nice long shower would probably do the trick. I walked off to my bedroom and to my dresser and pulled open my underwear drawer. Because Alex had been sleeping over here for a couple of weeks now he had been keeping a lot of his clothes in here too, which was fine by me of course. So I wasn't too surprised going through my clothes that I saw some of his mixed in. But as I was going through, trying to find a pair of socks, I accidentally knocked over a pile of his underwear. I went to go put it back together, when I noticed the blue corner of a wrapper. I pulled it out from in between two pairs of briefs to discover that it was a condom. Hm, that's weird... I thought. We never used condoms. Must be an old one from forever ago...

I grabbed the rest of the clothes I needed, as well as my bluetooth speaker, and walked across the hall and into the bathroom. I started the shower and waited as it sputtered into a steady rain. I wanted a hot shower today, so I made sure that it was all the way to the warm side. I stepped back and started to strip off my clothes, taking my shirt off first, the my pants, then the rest of me. I unclipped the chain around my neck and without testing the water, jumped right in. Big mistake.

"FUCK!!" I yelled, falling backwards and over the lip of the tub, onto the floor. The water was ball-searing hot.

"You okay in there?" Alyssa called from outside the door.

"Yeah! Just really freaking hot!" I shouted back over my shoulder, turning down the water temperature. She giggled and I could hear her walk away, probably to tell the others. Testing the water this time with a paw, I go into the shower and closed the curtain. While I was washing myself, I noticed something...irregular. A patch of fur on my stomach was thinner then usual, and the skin underneath was tender to the touch. I decided not to pay too much attention to it, as it was nothing to be worried about. After rinsing off my fur, I shut off the water and got out, put kn my clothes, combed my fur, and walked out.

"Ready to go?" Alex asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Mhm." I hummed, sitting down on the couch to slip on my shoes. After Everyone had everything they needed, we all walked out of my dorm and down the stairs and into my car. I drove us all to the mall where the movie theater was. We walked inside, and as we were walking inside I looked over to see Jason and Alyssa holding hands, looking happy, Rob and Summer, blushing like crazy, which made me snicker a little bit. Amy and Brandon were just chilling, and Alex was on his phone, tapping away. That kind of made me a little upset, compared to Jason and Alyssa. But whatever, let's just get to the movie.

We walked through the self-opening doors and into the carpeted rotunda where the concessions and tickets were being sold. Alex and I got into the line to get us all tickets, while everyone else was going to get food. Alex was still on his phone and I sat there behind this old wolf couple, bouncing on my toes. The old couple walked away, reviewing their ticket and heading to the offshoot hallway to where the theaters were. At their leave, I walked forward, nudging Alex  to tell him to move up as well.

"Sorry..." He mumbled, turning his phone off and sliding it into his pocket. I walked up to the raven running a computer.

"8 for [Insert generic scary movie title here] please." I asked her.

"One sec..." She replied, tapping away at the touch screen monitor. With a final tap the tickets printed out of the bottom of the monitor and into her grasp. She then handed them to me, accepted the cash I gave her, and wished us a nice day.

Alex and I walked over to the center of the room, meeting up with the others. We exchanged tickets for two bags of popcorn and drinks and we all walked off to the theater hallway. After finding the correct one, theater seven, we all walked in and took a row in the middle. Once we were all settled in, the previews had started, showing some meh movies that I know I would never want to go and see. But anywho, we all sat through the mandatory previews and started to pay more attention when the auditorium lights faded out and the movie started. I'll say this, most scary movies aren't scary. In fact they're usually laughable because they are just. That. Corny. But this one was very unlike all of the other scary movies I've seen before. This one was balls-all-the-way-up scary. [Idk why I'm making a lot of ball references lately, don't judge.] There was one specific moment that almost made the extra-large Dr. Pepper come out the bottom. The main character, a female lioness, was walking through a hallway that never seemed to end. Then she looked into a mirror and her reflection gave an evil grin, and shattered the glass from the other side and attacked her. I jumped in my seat and I instinctively grabbed tightly onto the nearest person to me, which was fortunately Alex and not some random stranger. He wrapped his arm around me and pulled me closer to him, which made me feel nice...and safe. But clearly someone behind us didn't feel that way.

"Can you two fags stop ruining the movie?" One asked rather rudely. Ironically he was with another guy, but that's besides the point. All I could do was stare in shock, but Alex had a different plan in mind. He grabbed my head and turned it back to the screen, and I cuddled up to him ahain. Alex then reached behind me and through the gap in between the backs of the seats and flipped the guy off, causing him to give a low growl. But that wasn't our problem, it was his, because we just kept watching the movie as the guy had many pairs of eyes on him for so rudely interrupting the movie.

After the final credits had rolled and we were all doing the typical slow movie theater shuffle towards the exit, a hand grabbed my shoulder. I turned around to see the same fur who called us out in the movie with a very pissed off look on his face, and just when he was about to say something (probably obscene), someone came to my rescue. But instead of Alex this time it was Jason.

"Touch him again and I'll rip your shit-covered paw off and stuff it down your fucking throat." He threatened, smacking the fur's paw off my shoulder and pulling me along with him out of the exit. I made a very obvious movement to brush off my shoulder and we headed into the parking lot.

"Thanks Jason." I laughed.

"Anytime." He grinned.

I looked around to find Alex, and when my eyes finally caught sight of my boyfriend, he was back on his phone. It's kind of like he's halfway here, in between this world and whoever he was texting...

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Hi, so this isn't going to be a typical "thanks for reading," even though I do thank you guys, almost 1k reads (btw the next chapter will be really long to express my gratitude.). So I am not accusing anyone of everything but I felt the need to get this off of my chest. I am not going to directly say an issue out loud, but I do want to say, don't be brainwashed like so many others to fufill corrupt agendas. Think for yourself, read all sides of the story, don't let your voice be silenced because you may have an unpopular opinion. Thank you, and get ready for another chapter!! (I'll start writing it as soon as I'm done writing the next chapter of the prequel.)