-My Life is a Lie...Who Would Have Guessed?- (Prologue)

RECAP:

Mike said that he worked until eleven, which he didn’t mind because he needed the money. So we said our goodbyes and let Mike get back to his other customers, who were now coming in a little more frequently because it was closer to dinner time. After we pitched in our money, and even gave Mike a ten dollar tip, we headed out to the car, waving to Cassie as we did so.

“That fudge sundae was amazing,” I commented.

“I know right?” Renae agreed.

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It was about 4:30 now, and still four and a half hours until the mall closed and Billie got off work. We sat in the car, letting our stomachs settle, and decided what we should do for the next four hours.

Bowling was out of the question. No doubt Lana was still working, furious than ever. Plus we had already mini-golfed, and Darren didn’t want to be confronted by Tre` again and listen to the “Teapot-Winner” song.

Billie didn’t want us bugging him while he worked. He actually demanded they stay out when Darren was driving him back and Billie made him promise that we wouldn’t until nine.

Sidney and Darren didn’t want to go to the park because there would be too many little kids running around. I didn’t want to go because I was afraid of having another bad dream with Blade involved.

The video rental store was no good, since we had no T.V. to put videos in. But then I had an idea.

“Why not a movie?” I blurted out randomly. “It could kill a bunch of time.”

“Is there anything good to watch?” Renae asked. I had just noticed she was sitting at an odd angle, feet sticking out the window and lying on the seat next to me. I was just leaned back like a sack of potatoes. Sidney took the advantage of leaning her seat back up front but Darren laid sprawled out in the small space in the very back of the car.

“I haven’t been able to see Hancock yet…” I said.

“Wanted looks good, too,” Darren said from behind me.

“I heard it had a sucky plot and no point,” voiced Sidney. “But it was good enough to watch all the violence.”

“What about Hellboy two?” Darren asked.

“I haven’t seen the first one,” I said.

“Same here. Journey to the Center of the Earth is supposed to be in 3D,” Renae said, randomly sticking her hands up in the air trying to touch the roof of the car.

“Dude, I haven’t seen a 3D movie in forever.” Sidney sighed. “But I don’t think our crappy-ass theater here supports 3D movies.”

“Damn it…” Darren groaned. “I would have seen that just because of the 3D-ness.”

I laughed. “The 3D-ness?”

“Yes!” said Darren excitedly. “The ‘ness’ of anything is amazing. Like…I have cool-ness.”

I smirked loudly. “You sure it isn’t nerdy-ness?”

Darren chuckled. “I’m positive. Besides, you have weird-ness.”

“I do not!” I gaped, sitting up and staring over the seat at him.

“Mhmmm…” He murmured, scratching his head.

“Well…your ness is retarded,” I said, ignoring the chuckles from Renae and Sidney.

This time it was Darren’s turn to sit up and stare. “Well your ness is…dumb!”

“Your ness is dumber!” I yelled, leaning over the seat.

“Your ness is dumberer!” He yelled back, getting up in my face.

“That’s not even a word! So, you really do have retarded ness,” I said, smirking.

He pushed his forehead up against mine and growled, “Well…you have…blonde-ness!”

I gasped angrily, pushing against his forehead with mine. “I do not!”

“Do too!” He said, pushing back.

“Says who?”

“Says me!”

I stared right into his fiery eyes, and he stared right back. His eyes were full of emotion, both angry and something else. I could get lost in those brown spheres. As I stared more I could feel the anger slowly drain from my body. At the same time, his eyes became softer.

“So are we going to the movies?” Sidney yelled toward the heavens.

I shoved Darren back on the ground, stuck my tongue out at him and turned around. “Yeah, I think we should. I can pay for you guys.” Even though I only used ten bucks at the restaurant, I still had twenty in my pocket. I had always kept money on me, even a hundred bucks at one time. I have it stashed in my room so my parents can’t find it.

“You don’t have to, Arianna. We can pay for ourselves,” Sidney said.

“Nah, you guys paid for most of the food. Let me,” I said, holding up my twenty dollar bill.

Darren spoke up before climbing out to get the driver’s seat. “At least let me pay for half. I didn’t pay that much with the food either.”

I shrugged. I guess Darren could add in some money. I sat up while Renae brought her feet into the car and Darren finally put himself in the front seat.

Darren backed us out of the Café parking lot and headed down the street towards the small movie theater. It had about five branches off from the main part where the theater halls themselves were. It was stony and crumbling, but they managed to keep the neon sign lit up, sporting the name “Hickersville Theater” in bright blue letters.

It turned out that they had a few kid movies, no 3D movies, and they didn’t even have Hellboy II. So now it was a choice between Hancock and Wanted.

Both were already playing, but Hancock had only been playing for ten minutes, meaning they’re probably still in the previews. Wanted had been playing for half an hour, and if the plot was sucky, we would get lost easy.

“Four tickets for the 4:30 Hancock, please.” I gave the guy at the front my money with an added ten dollar bill from Darren and we headed inside quickly.

The theater on the inside was just as bad, but was clean enough. It even had that theater smell. There was only one guy at the refreshment counter, which had very limited choices. He was leaned back in a chair, looked like he was sleeping, and the popcorn had overflowed. Darren snorted next to me.

“Stupid jock…that’s Trent, one of the football players at our school…” Darren walked past the refreshment counter, not wanting to bother with him.

“He’s also one of Lana’s sex toys,” Sidney snickered. Darren nodded.

“Yup. Well I don’t really want anything from the counter anyway, I’m still full.” Darren was now walking backwards toward a nerdy looking ticket guy.

“Yeah. Besides I don’t think we want to interrupt his beauty sleep,” Renae giggled to herself.

We decided not to get anything, and hurried off to the movie, throwing our tickets at the nerdy guy, who failed at catching any of them.

Silently we slipped into the room as the last trailer finished, showing something to start playing at 7-18-08.

There were hardly any people in here. Even in the dark we could tell that apart from us, there was a group of middle school boys in the corner messing around, a couple off to the side and some middle aged adults at the very back.

We scooted ourselves into the middle seats so we had a good view and not kill our necks all at the same time. I sat in between Darren and Renae, and Sidney on the other side of Renae.

Just as we got comfortable, the movie started. I scooted down into my seat a little more, my eyes transfixed on the big screen and put my feet up on the seat in front of me. Darren copied me unknowingly until he spotted my feet.

“Copy cat,” I said, snickering, not looking at him.

“Yeah, whatever,” I heard him say.

“Well you know what?”

“What?”

“I claim armrest!” I stuck my elbow on the plastic arm that was between Darren and I. I heard him scowl as we both returned to the movie, me laughing silently to myself.

“-“

About half hour in I was so into the movie I didn’t know what was going on around me. I had been gripping the edge of the armrest not out of fear, but out of anticipation.

I jumped slightly when I felt a hand on mine. I immediately blushed, snatching my hand to me as Darren did exactly the same. In his anticipation he forgot that I had claimed the armrest and tried to put his arm on it, and ended up gripping my hand instead.

We stared at each other for a couple of seconds. I was happy it was dark, yet again, because of my red face. Darren’s eyes seemed to glow in the dark. I stared, wondering why, yet again, I get stuck in them so easily. My stomach flopped as his eyes showed something else, something deeper… A sudden crash from the movie erupted around us and snapped us back to reality. We turned our attention back to it, not noticing that we had both tucked our hands under our butts.

“-“

We walked out into the lobby, laughing and talking to each other about the movie, although Darren and I avoided each other’s gaze. Even through the rest of the movie in the back of my head, my mind wondered what that look was in Darren’s eyes. Surprise? No…I just don’t know… I decided to shrug it off, making myself believe that it was nothing.

“…He’s such a good actor…”

“…I know, the movie was great. I like the part when…”

Renae and Sidney were talking to themselves mainly. Whenever they looked to me for an opinion I just nodded. I was still attempting to get rid of that look that was in Darren’s eyes from my head. I stole a glance at him. He was looking down at the ground, deep in thought. What is he thinking about?

The time now was around six. Still three hours to go. We decided that the park might not be so packed with kids now, so we headed there. I hid the fact that I was still scared about having a dream, but to not have a dream, you don't sleep. So why should I take another nap?