Thank You For Inviting Me

"You seem a little quiet," I gently ask, spinning around in my chair. "Everything okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," Alina responds, staring blankly at her phone.

Hopping off of my chair and joining her on my bed, I gaze wonderingly into her eyes. "So what's up?"

"Teacher just assigned three more assignments and I still haven't gotten my grade back for a test I took last week," She mumbles, showing me her phone screen. They look like huge assignments too. Like the kind that would take an average student an entire day to just finish one.

"Well you're a quick worker," I speak with sincerity in my tone. "I'm sure that you'll finish it in no time. A day and a half, tops."

She smiles softly and breathes, "Thank you."

"You two ready yet?" Knox's mother's voice calls out to us from the top of the steps.

"Yep," I call back and get up off the bed. Alina holds out her hand to me and I take it, pulling her up. I never noticed it before, but her hands are really soft. I don't know why now of all times I've finally noticed it.

"You okay?" She asks, giving me a confused look.

"Hm?" I shake my head to snap me back to reality. "Oh, yeah. I'm good."

"You sure?" She persists, her adorable eyes almost hypnotizing in this light.

My face starts to burn and struggle to hide my smile, "Yep, let's get going."

It seemed that she was about to ask me again, but I've already pulled her out of the room. As we step up the stairs together, each step creaks until we finally get to the top.

As we reach the top, everyone stares at us with amused grins. I follow their eyes to our still joined hands. I let go of her and look away, not willing to see what her expression could possibly be. It's most likely shame or embarrassment.

My mom lets out a little laugh then claps her hand, "Alright, everyone, let's get going."

One-by-one we all leave the house, Keita locks the door and we head to my mom's car. It's a red sedan, and it's pretty new too. It still has the new car smell and everything.

Mom unlocks the car and we all pile in. Afia sits up in the front, and Keita, Alina, and I all sit in the back. Alina had to sit in the middle since she's the smallest, I can visibly see her discomfort as she's squished between us. In an attempt to make her a little more comfortable, I push myself against the door. She seems to notice this and gives me a thankful smile.

The drive is compiled of a few of us singing to whatever songs we may know the words to. Several new songs have been released lately, so a lot of us only know the chorus that we hear on TikTok or Instagram reels. At one point I think someone started texting Alina because she got really distracted by her phone. It was probably just one of her friends.

We finally get to the theatre. Keita insists that we stay in the car for the rest of a song, in which he screams all of the lyrics at the top of his lungs. Alina even winces a bit at his pitchy and terrible singing. I could've sworn he was actually pretty good before. He must be doing terribly on purpose.

"Alright that's enough," Mom shuts off the car and cuts off the song right before it gets to its loudest part. Though, I don't think she knows how much she saved us by doing that.

"Aww," Keita groans and slouches back in his seat like a child. "But mommmmm!"

"No buts," He waves a finger at him. "Now let's get going into the movies."

We all pile out of the car and slowly make our way to the tall glowing building that sticks out nicely in the night sky. Alina seems pretty quiet as she continues to smile down at her phone, though it seems that she's concluding the conversation now. She looks so cute when she smiles.

"So what movie are we watching anyway?" Afia asks and I can't help but wonder the same thing. She never actually told us what we're watching or what the genre of the movie even is.

"A horror movie," She speaks like she's unsure. "It's one that came out recently."

"Oh yeah," Keita perks up, seeming excited. "A few of my friends went to see it, they're still having nightmares."

I swallow my fear, trying to keep it hidden.

Alina pats my shoulder and gazes up at me with a bright, motivating smile that makes me feel like I can take on the world. It makes me feel like I can take on Zack and all of his lackeys.

"Aww," Keita's voice sounds as though he's mocking me. "Are you going to jump into Alina's arms whenever you get scared?"

Our mom smacks him upside the head, giving him a stern stare. "Smarten up, or else I'm making you sit in the car."

"Mom, I'm seventeen," He mumbles.

"Yeah and you're still acting like a child!" She fires back, making Keita go quiet.

Ha suck it you ass!

We're quiet after that moment, no one seems to know what to say or don't want to risk also getting yelled at. The light of the theater grows larger as we get closer to the building, eventually entering it. Eventually entering the warmth of the theatre. Voices fill my ears. Laughter and chatter about the movies and games fill the large lobby. Two little kids play a dancing game, having terrible coordination but still enjoying themselves nonetheless.

In another area, a kid is in awe as his father hands him a chili cheese dog. With the first bite most of it falls onto the kids shirt. But the father doesn't get mad or make fun of him. He gives that nice fatherly laugh that shows they aren't judging you, if anything they think it's a part of growing up. The kid stops crying after that, and even laughs and smiles along with him as his father goes to get him a napkin.

There's a loud uproar of awes and chatter. As I look over, I see a group of girls looking at a stuffed animal in one of the claw machines. They then turn to their boyfriends, showing the best puppy dog eyes they can muster. Even though they worked on their boyfriends, I know for a fact that they wouldn't work on me. Although, I know one girl that can easily control me with her puppy dog eyes.

"Knox!" Keita shouts out to me, mom smacks him again for making a scene. Once I get over to them, Ketia gives me a pesky smirk, "Checking out other girls huh? What do you think Alina would think about that?"

I glance over to Alina who seems to be ignoring the whole situation. Is she mad at me? Looking over to Keita who still has that smirk that makes me want to punch him in the face, I remind him, "We're just best friends."

"Sureeee," He raises an eyebrow at me.

"Whatever," I roll my eyes and peek at Alina who's still ignoring us. Is she okay?

"What do you guys want to order?" Our mom prompts us and Afia taps Alina and she perks her head up.

We all stare at her, I guess that she's going to be the first to order. "Um, I'll like a FroYo and an iced tea please and thank you."

Our mom gives her a smile and glances at the rest of us to order. I'm the next to order, "I'd like a chili cheese dog, some popcorn, and a coke."

I stop listening to everyone else around me as I watch Alina. She's staring at the ground, she's smiling now. I wonder what she's thinking about. She glances up and notices me staring, but instead of looking weirded out, she smiles and all of my worries disappear.

She looks over my shoulder for a moment then looks back at me and waves, "Hey, food's ready."

"Hm?" I look around and notice my food sitting on the counter. "Oh thank you." As I pick up my snacks my family quietly laugh at me and lead the way to our theatre.

Alina doesn't laugh though, she walks by my side and happily eats her FroYo. It's a Frankenstein kind of FroYo. It has every flavour the theatre has as well as every topping there is. Even though she's a health freak a majority of the time, her period and special occasions are the only times she lets herself have whatever she wants. At this moment, it just so happens to be both. Lucky her. Oh wait. She's probably going to be on her period on her birthday too. Well all of the pain would have already passed by then and it would also be around the end of her period too, so she should be fine. Let's see, according to what she's told me before, her periods usually last around five days. She started it yesterday and our birthday is on the third. So that's, five… So she would be on the last day of her period by the time it's our birthday. I'd say that it's pretty much over by then.

"Hey, Knox," She whispers just quiet enough for only me to hear her.

"What's up?" I whisper back, giving her a friendly smile.

She looks over to me, giving me a stare that I am unable to read. We stay like that, staring at each other, as we continue to take an escalator up a floor. She then smiles wider and says happily, "Thank you for inviting me."

In the corner of my eye I can see my mother and sister smile as well as Ketia giving me the thumbs up.

I return the smile, still not breaking eye contact, "Of course, anytime."

She stays like that, smiling at me until we get to the top of the escalator and we step off. The moment completely ends as we turn a corner and enter one of the theatres playing the movie.

It's dark, the only light being the large screen still playing the advertisements. It's blaring in here, I always can't stand it whenever I first enter a movie. It's always so loud and it takes me a while to adjust to the eeries noises. There's a small crowd of people here too. A few seats taken here and there, but all in all, the gems are still open. Alina prefers the far back seats and I prefer the front, that's another one of the things that we can never agree on. So we usually either sit apart or we'd sit somewhere in the middle.

However, that won't happen this time. The rest of my family prefers the far back row, so I'm stuck sitting in the back with her. Which I'm not complaining about. But I still prefer the front far more than the back.

"Good luck," She whispers to me in a joking manner as we make our way to the top.

"Good luck," I copy her in a mocking voice. She giggles softly and takes a seat, I take the one next to her and Ketia is next to her on the other side, then it's Afia and finally my mom.

The ads continue to go by, each one louder than the other. Alina has already finished her FroYo and we haven't even started the movie yet. I edge my bag of popcorn closer to her and she smiles as she starts to eat that as well. Another group of teenagers enter the theater, I recognize them from school and I think Alina is friends with a few of them as well. Luckily they don't acknowledge us and just go straight to their seats with their girlfriends.

The movie finally starts and I already feel my blood pump as I remember that it's a horror movie. Alina leans over and whispers, "It's okay, I heard it's not that scary."