soulmates

Smoke

Three hours. Three hours until the movie starts. I've been basically panicking all day. Thank goodness I didn't have to work today because I seriously doubt I could've focused on making orders. I'm way too distracted. I've been looking at King's Angels pins all day on Pinterest and listening to the soundtracks on repeat. They released the soundtrack for Deliverance already, but I swore off listening to it or even looking at the track names because I didn't want to spoil anything.

I know one of the track names though, because it popped up on the side of youtube one day. And it makes me nervous just to think about it - Funeral.

But you know how movies are. They always make you think something's gonna happen, and then it doesn't. Like, raise your hand if you thought Tony and Cap were gonna die in Infinity War. *raises both hands.*

I drive over to Taylor's and park in her driveway, and let myself in through the garage door. "Tay-tay," I call, sliding out of the flip-flops.

"I'm so EXCITED!!" I hear her scream from another room.

"I KNOW!" I walk into the living room and see her reaching for her purse by the front door.

"I'm almost ready, I just need to grab my keys."

"Keys?" I shrug. "We can take my car."

Taylor laughs. "Are you kidding? You couldn't drive home after seeing the trailer, remember?"

"Well but that's all anticipation," I say, waving her away. "Once I see it it'll all be there, you know?"

"Yeah, sure." Taylor scoops up her keys from the coffee table. "I'm driving."

I roll my eyes. "Okay, fine."

"You underestimate how incapacitated this movie will get you," she says, heading to the garage.

I follow, a little offended, but it's totally true. Besides, Taylor has a really nice car, so I'd rather ride in it anyway.

We get on the highway, and every red light makes me anxious. I know we have, like, an extra hour, but I'm still afraid we'll get there late. And who knows what the traffic is like in the city? And what if there's construction?

There's no construction, and we fly down the freeway, windows down and music loud. I'm so excited my stomach hurts. And then we get to the city, and Taylor is an expert at navigating the weird avenues downtown. The mall is way crowded, and we have to park way at the back of the lot, but we park and start walking.

The mall's huge inside- by the way, I love this mall. It's got all the shops that my hometown doesn't, so if I ever need to buy clothes I come here.

"It's busy in here," I say as we walk along the huge crowds.

Taylor smirks. "I forgot, you weren't here last year on Black Friday."

"Oh yeah, you lost your shoe, didn't you?"

"Never saw that thing again."

I laugh, and we round the corner to the theatre. All of a sudden the crowd gets really thick, and something isn't right.

"What... is going on?"

Taylor stands on her tiptoes, trying to see past the crowds. I can see theater workers at the front, but it doesn't look like they're letting anyone in. I check my phone- half an hour until the movie starts. Are all these people here for King's Angels? Amen there's assigned seating or we'd be in the worst seats ever.

"Hey, do you know what's going on up there?" Taylor asks some guy.

He looks over at us. "I think there was a fire or something."

She gasps. "Inside the theater?"

"I don't know, but I saw fire engines outside."

"Do you know if anyone's hurt?"

Before the guy can answer, one of the theater workers at the front is getting everyone's attention, holding a megaphone up. "Hey guys, sorry for all the confusion," he started. I look up at him, my heart pounding. "So there was a fire inside the theater, with our popcorn maker." He laughed a little. "No one was hurt! But there's a lot of smoke, and the fire department is closing us down for the night." There's a collective gasp from the crowd, and I'm a little in shock. "We'll refund or exchange all your tickets. Sorry guys! Thanks for your patience."

He lowers the megaphone and Taylor has to physically grab my hand to drag me away from the crowd of people dispersing disappointedly into the mall.

"Well, that's... annoying," Taylor says.

It would be really stupid to cry, but I mean, I've been banking on this night for months, so yeah, I'm really disappointed.

"What are we gonna do? I have to see this movie. I should've just gotten tickets at the theater back home," I say, burying my face into my hands.

"We can come back," Taylor said. "They said it's just smoke, so they might be open tomorrow."

"I don't want to come back," I say frustratedly. "Maybe there's more showings back home tonight, we can make it back in time. Then we can come see this again in imax some other time."

"Yeah."

"Yeah." I sigh. Okay, so there's our reasonable and logical solution, but we just DROVE TWO HOURS to get here. And now we're just gonna turn around and go back? EVERYTHING SUCKS.

So we go back to Taylor's car and I check showtimes at the local theater. There's one that starts at 10pm- so we have five hours. I exhale slowly, puffing out my cheeks. Okay, I'm supposed to work at 5am tomorrow, but I don't really care. I just want to see this movie.

"You wanna grab something to eat?" Taylor asks.

I shrug, trying to regain my positivity. "Yeah. Might as well since we drove all the way here."

Just a change of plans.

By the time we eat and head back home, I'm feeling a lot better, and my excitement is returning. It was just derailed for a little bit, but now the feels are flooding in.

"Hey, can you swing by my place so I can grab a jacket?" I ask as we enter town. "I'm gonna be cold in the theater, I know it."

"Sure."

When she pulls up to the curb in front of my house, I see a car outside that I don't recognize. One of my mom's friends is probably over, but I'm surprised she didn't tell me she had someone coming over. She probably just forgot, and I skip up the steps and push open the door, already reaching for the coat hook when I see someone standing in the middle of the living room, laughing with my mom.

"Ben?"

"Hey!" He runs over and hugs me, and I squeal excitedly.

"What are you doing here?" I exclaim.

"My mom's birthday is this weekend, so I came back to town to visit. And guess what?"

"What?" I say, still bubbling over with excitement that he's even here.

"I saw Deliverance last night," he states. My eyes widen. "I can't believe Tamara dies!"

Everything inside me slides to a stop. It's like my world is frozen.

I don't even know what to say. My mouth opens, but there aren't any words, and I stutter for a second. But it's- but I haven't even...

"You?!" I finally get out. My anger at having spoilers spat in my face is definitely overwhelmed by a completely different feeling right now. "You're the one?"