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“Yep.”
“I’m sorry. I feel bad I ever pushed you to do anything.”
He shrugged. “I wouldn’t have let you if I didn’t want to.”
She smiled as they stepped up to the line. “I’m glad.”
As they waited to order their tickets, Jason looked around like a cat cornered by a dozen dogs. She reached out and held his cheeks with her hands. At first, his eyes showed surprise, but then he relaxed. “It’s just you and me, okay?” she said.
He nodded.
Once she dropped her hands, he slid his hand into hers and squeezed her fingers. At the beginning of the night, she had seen things going very differently and had expected them to go their separate ways. But thank goodness both of them had more sense.
There were no other patrons in the theater when the two of them walked in loaded down with snacks and drinks. They had purposefully chosen seats in the middle of a row so they didn’t have to move when people came and went.
Jason smiled as he found his seat. “Maybe no one will come, and it’ll just be us.”
“Maybe,” she mused. “But I doubt it. This place is always packed.” When his face adopted a worried expression, she patted his hand. “Don’t worry. As long as we stay in our seats, we won’t need to touch anyone.”
As they watched the advertisements before the movie, she leaned on his shoulder and relished their closeness. But as soon as the first couple arrived, Jason sat up—ramrod straight—tucked his feet underneath him, and placed both hands in his lap.
She bit her lip as the worry settled it. “High school must’ve been hard.”
He groaned. “You don’t want to know. It got worse with each passing year.” In one swift movement, he took her hand again and brought it back to his lap.
“You must’ve felt so alone.”
He squeezed her fingers gently. “I did, but I’m not now.”
When people joined them on their row, instinctively, he turned his knees toward her. And when someone passed by, he seemed to hold his breath. Every time someone bumped into them, most of the time on accident, he flinched.
“Maybe this wasn’t a good idea,” she said, leaning into him.
“It’s fine,” he said hoarsely. “I want to be here with you. I want to have a normal date, to be out in public with you.”
She nodded and brought his hand to her lips. He shivered as her lips touched his skin, and he stared at her wide-eyed.
“Does that bother you?” she asked.
He added his other hand to hers and shook his head. “No, it feels amazing actually. Unless it’s unexpected—by someone I don’t know—I’m fine with being touched. Or maybe it’s just you. Your touches soothe rather than startle.”
She smiled and kissed his hand again. When the lights started to dim, he seemed to relax a bit and even picked up his popcorn. But as the movie started, she noticed him squirming in his seat a lot.
“What’s wrong?” she leaned in to whisper.
“It’s nothing.”
It wasn’t nothing. He continued to squirm like a worm in an empty jar.
“This is not nothing.”
He sighed and turned to whisper in her ear. “The person next to me keeps hitting his leg into mine.”
The guy on the other side of Jason was huge, took up much more of his seat and was probably not intending to bump Jason with every move. With anyone else, she would’ve ignored it, but it was making Jason visibly upset. She looked over to her other seatmate. It was an older couple that had been pleasant enough to sit by. “Want to switch places?”
Even in the dark, she saw the desperation in his eyes. All he could do was nod.
She stood, and the two of them moved quickly.
