Give and Take (poly) (bxb)

Ten

Gunshots blaring in my right ear, I can smell the gunpowder feel the smoke dirtying my skin. Tires screeching in my right. They're scrambling to get away, to get safe. Driving away from the annoying whiny noises as much as they are driving away from their adversary. Two men in black attire fire the large, noisy weapons, both from different car windows. Handsome and tall, another man skillfully manages to dodge each and every bullet while simultaneously killing the two men. 

Instantaneously, the woman who also managed to escape the attack completely unscathed is in his arms. They kiss despite the surroundings. The passion escalates. They're ripping clothes off like they were never even there in the first place. In no time, he's thrusting into her partially off-camera, and I suddenly remember why I hate going to the movies now. Because I have to go with my father and awkward shit like this happens.

"I'm going to go get more popcorn," I say, and before my father can offer to do it himself, I'm out of the aisle and speed walking towards the door.

The sex and shootouts on the big screen are boring anyway. They are borderline unrealistic at best. Nothing compared to what I've experienced in real life. The four men have pleasured me enough for me to know anyone else would be inadequate. Even without touching me, even just leading me on, the sexual tension provides a different type of desirous pleasure.

As far as the on-screen violence goes, I know that you can't just leave unscathed. If you're lucky, the scars are merely physical, red cuts on the loose skin of your knuckles. But for me, at least, the emotional scars take a bit longer to heal. The emotional scars left me shaking and cold and crying on a bathroom floor then later in my bedroom that night and the next two nights after that. Until Seven said he'd stop teaching me how to shoot because it was obviously doing more harm than good.

He taught me how to fight instead—directing my uncoordinated limbs in the right direction as he showed me how to use them. I'm walking down the dark theater halls. Halfway lost, I imagine how I'd react if I were the main character in the action film. The exact moves and reactions I'd have to everything, exactly what Seven taught me and how I could apply it.

I roll my eyes as my father joins me outside. Apparently, the movie is over. It ended before I could even muster up any intentions of going back in there.

I don't realize until we're already in the car, but even if my father wasn't here and I had come alone, I'd still find a way to criticize the movie. Whether it's the realism or the parental awkwardness, I've tasted too much. I've seen too much. The gang has me going through the symptoms of a recovering drug addict. Nothing else gets me as high as being with them.

"I can't believe you missed the ending. That was a five-star film, Mia!" My father exasperates, clearly still pumped by it. "I can't wait for the sequel."

"Maybe I just don't like action movies." I stare out the window into pitch blackness. The movie was longer than I expected, and now we're out when it's almost midnight, a rarity for me at least.

The blacks of the eerie, crooked tree branches, the dark blues of the reflective night sky, my view out the window crashes against me. My head bumps the glass as my body braces against my seatbelt. I watch my father's frantic hands on the steering wheel. He stretches one out across me to ensure my safety in this spinning vehicle. I want to push him away and scream at him to worry about the car before it kills us, but before I can get the word out, everything halts. The two of us are unscathed, and our unbalanced car has pulled up on the side of the road.

"Dammit." My father sighs across from me, losing his grip on the steering wheel. "You okay, sweetie?"

"I'm fine." I lie, feeling a headache and a knot coming on. My heart is in my throat too, and this is what I get for saying I don't like action.