"Tristan, get up! There's someone at the door for you," I heard a shout come from downstairs.
I looked at the clock on the stand beside my bed. 10:12am. Who could it be? Whoever had called me would have recognised Ethan if it was him, and I don't think anybody else would just randomly show up. But someone definitely was there, so I got up and threw on a hoodie and shuffled my way downstairs, still half-asleep. I walked past Lily's room where she was already awake, dressed, and twirling around to a tune in her head. Her endless energy was something I wished I had.
After miraculously making my way down the stairs without falling and bashing my head in, I went over to the front door to find...Evie?
"Um...hi," I managed, running a hand through my hair to try and coax it into some sort of order instead of the unruly mess that it was in at that moment.
"Morning," Evie replied. She was dressed in a medium length coat with a green knitted sweater underneath, which matched her sparkling eyes perfectly. Her signature knitted hat was fitted snugly upon her head, and her hair flowed down her shoulders and ended in little curls which I though was just adorable. I remembered just then that I was in an old hoodie and basketball shorts, and I felt self-conscious about my own appearance.
"What are you - why - how did you get my address?" I stammered, looking out behind her to see if anyone else was behind her hiding somewhere, if this was a practical joke. Nothing strange caught my eye, and I returned my attention to her, still a little suspicious.
"Actually..." It was her turn to stammer. "I got it off Becky. Who got it off Ethan. Who got it off you."
"Why?" I asked, maybe a little rudely. A slight hint of surprise showed on her face in the form of a raised eyebrow. "Sorry. I just woke up, let me take a quick shower and we can talk or something. Just like...here, come in and sit down over there yeah?" I invited her in and escorted her to the living room, where Mum was already watering her plants.
"Mum, Evie, Evie, Mum," I gestured to Evie and showed her to the couch. "I'll be quick!" I finished, and ran back upstairs for a quick shower.
All showered and dressed, I decided to spray a little perfume. After all, it couldn't hurt to to smell good. Not that I didn't already. At least, I hoped not.
I made my way back downstairs to the living room to find Lily firing question after question at Evie, with her only replies being "Um" before being bombarded with another question. Noticing me at the foot of the stairs, she visibly sagged with relief.
"So do you wanna go out or something?" I asked, a little pointedly. My mum was looking at me and her, and I knew what she was thinking. I wanted to get away from a potential awkward conversation as soon as possible, so when Evie nodded yes I quickly said goodbye to Mum and we left the house.
As I closed the garden gate behind me, I asked Evie again, less rudely now: "So tell me. What brought you here?"
"Well. It was Becky's suggestion actually. We were talking-" She hesitated. "A- about you, actually."
"Me? Why?" I questioned.
"It just came up in the conversation, I guess. We were talking about that day in the coffee shop, how I kind of ran away, and what I could do to make it up to you. So here I am. Sorry," she finished with a laugh.
"Oh that's okay," I answered. Why was she apologising to me? I had only been confused, I hadn't actually taken it badly.
"Ok then...So since we're out already, what do you wanna do?" She asked.
"Hang on. Is this like a date or something?" I was a bit embarrassed to ask but I mean, it was just us two, she looked very nice, and I began to think that she had planned for this to happen.
"Well...it can be, if you want it to," she said with a smile.
"Oh," was all I could muster up. As my face went red. Again.
"So...movies?" she asked as we neared the outskirts of town. I hadn't realised how fast we had been walking.
"Sure. Oh - I'm not sure I'll have enough money, I didn't think to bring anything extra," I added, taking out my wallet and checking my current wealth. £3.29, not bad at all. I could get a hot dog, at most a hot dog and a small drink, but no ticket.
"That's okay," Evie said, taking out a £100 note and waving it in my face.
I laughed and opened the door for her as we got to the cinema. The movies that were showing were listed on a screen: Transformers 4, A Poetic Affair (which looked like a very cheesy chick flick), Faces of Blood (probably a really badly made horror movie) and Overkill 2 (with a title like that, what do you expect?)
"You choose the movie, I don't mind what we watch," I said, mentally preparing myself for what was probably going to be two hours of a soapy love story and crying and happy endings, etc etc. I was taken by surprise however, when she said to the cashier person:
"Hi, two tickets to Faces of Blood please,"
"I - what? I thought you were going to - you know what, never mind," I finished with a shake of my head. Girls confused me.
I bought myself a small box of popcorn, and she decided not to have anything. Something told me that I wouldn't be having most of the popcorn.
We went in to the already-darkened room and sat down on those red cushioned chairs they seemed to have in every single cinema I had ever been to. These ones smelled of leather, a home-y kind of smell that served well to settle my nerves before the film began. Here I was, just plain me, on a date with my crush. And I hadn't even asked her. This confused me all the more, because she had asked after only an afternoon at a coffee shop during which she ran away without saying goodbye. She had apologised however, but I still felt kind of nervous for some reason.
The advertisements quickly started, and as the whole cinema fell quiet, I found myself concentrating on the little details of the person sitting next to me. Her legs were crossed at the ankles, arms hung loosely over the armrests. Her hair fell over the far side of her face, too much so that I saw her swing her head back to get it out of her face, a gesture I was growing to enjoy. She was staring intently at the screen, her eyes reflecting the flashes in a beautiful series of sparkles, and her breath a steady, light affair that made her shoulders rise and fall ever so slightly. We were sharing an armrest and as she shifted her position, her arm moved so that our forearms were touching lightly. The feeling of such a small physical contact caused me to catch my breath and stare at our arms. At that point I think she caught me staring and looked at me. As our eyes locked under the flashes of the screen in front of us and the blaring sounds of advertisements and people talking over them, everything else was blocked out apart from her eyes, her beautiful green eyes with hints of everything from blue to purple to red to black. Her eyes, which I soon found myself lost in. It was at this point, where I realised with a little bit of nervousness, that I had probably fallen in love.
