“You’re right.”
“There she is!” Ben pointed toward a woman running through the food court to the movie theater. There was a man behind her.
“Who is that?” I asked.
“How would I know?”
Ana slowed herself as she reached us. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”
“I’m sure you had a good reason,” Ben said to her. You could hear in his voice that he had no expectation of a good reason. Ana jokingly glared at him.
“Marshall, this is Elsie and Ben.” The man behind her extended his hand to us, and we each shook it. “Marshall is going to join us.”
“All right, well, let’s get to it, shall we? We’re already missing previews!” Ben said.
“Well, I still need to print the tickets. Will you guys go get us some popcorn?”
Ben looked at me incredulously and rolled his eyes. I laughed at him. “I want a Diet Coke,” I said.
Ben and Marshall ran ahead to the concession as Ana and I picked up the tickets from the kiosk.
“Who is this guy?” I said to her. She shrugged. “I don’t know. He keeps asking me out and I finally just relented and invited him here to get it over with.”
“So it’s true love, I guess,” I said. She picked up the tickets and started walking toward Ben and Marshall.
“True love, schmoo love,” she said. “I’m just trying to find someone that doesn’t bore me to tears for a little while.”
“You depress me,” I said, but I wasn’t paying attention to her when I said it. I was looking at Ben, who was asking the cashier for more butter on his already buttered popcorn. I was smiling. I was grinning. I was in love with the weirdo.
“No, you depress me,” she said.
I turned to her and laughed. “You don’t think that one day you’ll meet ‘the One’?”
“Love has made you sappy and gross,” she said to me. We had almost met up with Ben and Marshall when I decided to tell her the news.
“Ben’s moving in,” I said. She stopped dead in her tracks and dropped her purse.
“What?”
Ben saw her face and caught my eye. He knew what was going on, and he smiled at me mischievously as he put a handful of popcorn into his mouth. I smiled back at him. I picked up Ana’s purse. She pulled me aside by my shoulders as Ben watched, standing next to a very confused Marshall.
“You are crazy! You’re basically sending yourself to a prison. You wake up, he’s there. You go to sleep, he’s there. He’s going to always be there! He’s a great guy, Elsie. I like him a lot. I’m happy that you two found each other, but c’mon! This is a death sentence.”
I just looked at her and smiled. For the first time, I felt like I had something over her. Sure, she was stunning and gorgeous and lively and bright. Men wanted her so badly they’d hound her for dates. But this man wanted me, and unlike Ana, I had felt what it was like to be wanted by someone you wanted just as badly. I wanted that for her, but there was a small part of me that felt victorious in that I had it and she didn’t even know enough to want it.
SEPTEMBER
Ana and Kevin are only three minutes late. She opens my door with her own key. Ana looks hot. Really hot, spared-no-expense, pull-all-the-punches hot. I am dressed like I’m going to the grocery store. Kevin is right behind her, and while I am expecting some overly tailored douche bag with hair better than mine, I find a much different person.