Page 70 of Honey Pot

“It smells like popcorn,” she hummed and let her head fall back.

“We can get a big one and dump all our candy inside until it’s a mess and doesn’t resemble popcorn anymore.” I linked my hand in hers and our bracelets rubbed together like they always did.

“Deal.” She said and tucked in close to me as we wandered down the street.

“We can make out in during the movie too,” I suggested knowing she’d shoot me down.

“In your dreams, Loverboy.” She rolled her eyes and giggled.

“It was worth a shot,” I nudged her as we made our way to the entrance. I bought the tickets and as promised supplied her with plenty of snacks as she fan-girled over the line up.

“Some of these films were never released in the States, how did they find copies?” She waved the pamphlet in my face as I carried the arm full of food.

“You can ask yourself,” I said, waving down a friend. “Clem, this is Margie,” I introduced her to a small redhead with freckles that covered her face and big blue eyes amplified by thick lensed glasses.

“Clem?” Margie put both hands out and wrapped them around Clementine’s shaking with enthusiasm, “Cael’s never brought a girl down here you must be special.”

“Margie,” I cleared my throat. “But she’s right, for the purpose of brownie points.”

“Mmhm,” Clementine shook her head. “It’s nice to meet you Margie.”

“Big Mac Margie here is in charge of this whole night, she’s an enthusiast.” I laughed and could see Margie squirming to say more. “She also has this incessant need to talk.”

“He’s right, I never stop. It’s like once I open my mouth all the words come out and I just can’t stop myself. Half the time I make a fool of myself but by then people have stopped listening anyway so it usually doesn’t even matter.” She said in one massive breath. “And I'm not an enthusiast. I’m a specialist. I didn’t spend four years studying film at university to have you belittle it with your lack of vocabulary Cael Cody.”

“Breathe, Margie.” I winked at her. “Why don’t you sit with us and then you can run Clem’s ear off about the feature film?” I asked her.

“Oh I couldn’t do that, you two look like you're on a date and I’d hate to get in the middle of that with my yapping.” She shifted in her black overalls and retro Ju-On shirt.

“He asked.” Clementine said before I could reassure her. “Besides, he’s barely educated on tonight's line up. I could use a professional.”

I watched with a full heart as Clementine and Margie started in conversation. A third wheel wasn’t exactly how I saw tonight going but I wanted to give Clementine one night out where we weren’t worried about the pressure weighing down on our lives.

“Have you ever seen The Wailing?” Margie asked her as I followed close.

Clementine shook her head and smiled, “I could never find anywhere to stream it.”

“The copy I got my hands on has the original subtitles, no dubbing.” Margie said with excitement.

“Dubbing ruins the integrity of a foreign film, I swear. The translations never do it justice!” Clementine giggled and I leaned into the sound as we found our seats. Half the nonsense that came out of their mouths was indescribable and I couldn’t have kept up even if I tried as they rambled about the movies.

I was just happy to be here.

In all honesty I had continued to watch horror movies because they had always been Clementine’s favorite. She found a calm in them that she didn’t in other movies. At first I thought there might be something wrong with her butas I got older and the distance between us grew I realized that it was the subject of the films.

It wasn’t even really that shelikedblood and guts.

It was that the worst possible outcome happened in horror movies, so bad that even the PG-13 ones made life seem not-so-bad all of a sudden. Leave it to Jason and Freddy to take the edge off every math exam I’d ever had.

“Save me a spot, I need to go make sure everything is set up.” Margie pointed to her seat next to Clementine who threw her plaid over it for safekeeping.

“She’s incredible,” Clementine whispered as she took off running in her platform sneakers. “How the hell did you trick her into being your friend?”

“Ouch,” I barked and clutched my heart, “I’ll have you know that I was here every weekend after we moved here. It was one of the only places I felt close to you and Margie’s parents own the place so she was always around.” I pointed up to the projection box. “They live on the second floor, so eventually we just became friends.”

The truth was Margie had found me crying more often than not at the movies but she never made fun of me, she never said a word about it. She just talked about the movies and the sound of her voice, the way she just genuinely enjoyed them…it made everything feel less urgent and heartbreaking.

Margie had been there when no one else could be.

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