In My Hour of Need

Chapter 20

I woke up ‪at around 5 P.M.‬, with Junior lying on top of me. "Junior", I said, "Wake up". He slowly opened his sleepy eyes, and looked up at me. "Huh?", he replied, confused. "Let's go to the movies". He tilted his head to the side. "Right now?" I nodded. "Yeah, I saw a poster for some horror movie earlier today, and I think the cinema's not far from here. It starts at six", I explained. He hesitated. "Uhh... Really? A horror movie?", he asked, "I don't know, Dave..." I chuckled. "Come on, I'm there to hold your hand if you get scared", I joked. "Alright", he finally agreed.

‪At 5.30 P.M. , we were on our way to the movies. We were early because we wanted to have time to buy popcorn and cotton candy. I hate to admit it, but I love cotton candy. I don't remember how my life was before I found out it existed. Walking into the little store that was there, we bought the two last tickets. I think it was the premiere, so we were lucky to get tickets this late. We also bought the biggest bucket of popcorn we could find, two large cotton candies and then some more popcorn. Hey, the movie lasted for two fucking hours, don't judge. Oh, and some soda too.‬

We entered the room they were playing the movie in fifteen minutes before it started. On our way, we met Chuck and Jeff. "Hey, man", I said, "I didn't know you two were going to see this horror movie too. I we knew, we could have fixed seats next to eachother". They had bought about as much popcorn as us, only they didn't have cotton candy too. "Oh, we're not gonna see that movie", Jeff said, "Some jerks took the last tickets right before we came". Junior started laughing, so I bumped him in the arm so we wouldn't get caught. Honestly, it was hard to keep the laugh in myself. "Yeah", Chuck added, "We're gonna see that one over there". He pointed at some alien-action shit at the other side of the room. "Oh, cool", I lied, "See you later then, I guess". We split, and Junior and I went into the horror movie. When we came in, they were just playing the commercials.

About five minutes later, the movie started. I started gobbling the popcorn, a handful at a time. We were probably the loudest people in there; sipping soda and chewing louder than the movie itself. Between bites of cotton candy, I noticed that this movie totally sucked. It was about some half-naked girl who lived alone, and got stalked by a murderer. Very fucking original. Junior seemed to enjoy it though. He was so scared I bet all my guitars he was pissing his pants. When the murderer appeared on screen, he was the only one to scream. He grabbed my arm tightly and hid his face in my curls. "Gee, Junior", I whispered, "It's not that scary". He was literally shaking. Hm, maybe I should have listened to him earlier when he didn't want to go. But I didn't know he was this easily scared though. Yeah, that's my excuse, thank you very much.

As we walked out after the movie was over, he was still holding on to me tightly. "Oh my god, Junior", I laughed, "You could've just said you didn't like horror movies". He took a deep breath, probably to calm himself down. "No, its fine", he said. I looked at him, and I noticed he had been crying. Good God, I thought, last time I'm bringing him to a horror movie. I grabbed his shoulders. "Hey", I said, "Its fine". I was smiling at him, hoping he would say it was all OK. I wiped at the dried tears on his cheeks. He sniffled. "Yeah", he said, and nodded. I gave him a kiss on the forehead, and he completely lost himself, practically throwing himself at me for a hug. "Dude", I exclaimed, laughing. We stood there awkwardly for a while. I was scared somebody we knew, for example Jeff and Chuck, would see us. But for a while I forgot about it. Junior was still hugging me. "I love you", he mumbled, pressed against my shirt. My pulse rose. He... loved me? "I, uh... I love you too, Junior..."