I hesitate. I don’t really want to do this, but my absent will collides with my curiosity to learn more about Knox. “Okay. You start.”
He looks at the ceiling and begins bobbing his foot. “My dad is always disappointed with me, and I don’t know how to change that without disappointing myself.”
Oh. Wow. That’s honest.
“I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to be. Your turn.”
“Right. Umm. I love this place.”
Knox laughs. I wish he’d do it again. “That doesn’t count.”
“Well, fine. I’m afraid of not being good enough.”
“For what?”
“For… I don’t know. The ice? Life? Everything?”
“Oh. I hear you.” He looks to the fire and loses himself before looking back at me. “I’m sure that you don’t need to be.”
“Yeah. Maybe. Your turn.”
He takes another sandwich. “I’m a star snowboarder, though I don’t want to be. You.”
“What?”
“No questions. Just answers. Your turn.”
Umm. Okay. At first I want to object and tell him that we need to talk about that, but then I let it go because I like the idea. Just being able to say things that are weighing me down without having to go into more detail sounds sofreeing. Just saying them, not having to carry them around with me any longer. Suddenly the whole situation strikes me as something out of a parallel world where we can both be open without having to go back to everything again later. Just the here and now, sealed off from our lives outside. The thought is exciting, so I stand up and consider ways of making it more comfortable for us. Bowie’s song “Heroes” is fading out as I lift the needle off the record and look around the store.
Knox wrinkles his brow. His hair falls across the leather as he turns to watch me. “What’s your plan?”
“To turn on a movie. Well, when I find them, that is.”
“They’re over there.” He gets up and leads me to a shelf full of boxes. They are labeled with years. “What decade are you in the mood for?”
“Hmm. The eighties?”
His eyes scan the shelf before he pulls out a box and opens the top. The rolls of film are packed in Tupperware containers and ordered alphabetically.
“The Breakfast Club!”
“I knew it!” Knox laughs. “Seriously, seeing the title I thought,This is what she wants to see, I’m positive, and then you said it.”
“Maybe you know me a bit already.” I take the film out and goto the projector. “Can you tell me how this thing works?” I come back to the sofa from the record player and sit down.
He laughs again, takes the film out of my hand, and puts it on. The credits begin to roll across the screen. and Knox says, “I’ll be right back.” Knox disappears behind a door. I have no idea where it leads. I take the opportunity to scratch the back of my thigh like a crazy woman, as, while drying out, my jeans have begun to chafe. Then I curl back up on the sofa under a blanket.
Knox comes back and remains standing next to me for a bit. He holds a cup of hot chocolate under my nose. “Here.”
I sit up. “Oh, my God. Where’d you get this?”
“From the kitchen.” He sits down on the couch, too, but grabs his own blanket. “I didn’t poison it. I swear. Drink away.”
I close my eyes and breathe in the sweet aroma before taking a sip. “This is the best hot chocolate I’ve ever had.”
“Don’t change the subject. You’re up, Snow Queen.”
