“Yeah, this is going to save me from slitting my wrists à la Conrad,” Connor said as he held up a metal water bottle.
Marlo gave an indulgent smile while the group did a small laugh in commiseration, even though it didn’t feel all that funny.
“Probably not. But it can’t hurt,” Marlo said. “And with that, I’ll see you all next week. Back at the Student Union.”
I gathered my backpack, putting my Stanley back in its side sleeve. Logan had his already slung over his shoulder and was waiting for me halfway to the door. “Food?” he asked.
“Definitely,” I said. “Want to see if Connor wants to join us?”
We both turned to see that everyone else was walking past us to the doors except Connor, who was standing by Marlo at the front of the screening room where she was gathering her bag. We couldn’t hear them, but their body language indicated Connor was saying something semi-heavy, because Marlo put down her bag and placed a hand on his arm. Connor continued whatever he was saying, his arm movements becoming more expansive. Marlo motioned for him to sit in one of the armchairs, which he did, and she sat next to him. Their backs were to us and Connor was leaning forward, his hands on his knees.
“Shit. Hope he’s okay,” Logan said.
“Me too. I wish there was a food court in this building so he’d know where we were if he needed to talk or something.”
“Would it make sense to go to the Union? Eat there?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe. It’s closer than the dining hall anyway.”
We walked mostly in silence to the food court in the Union. Logan knew a couple of people and greeted them with “hey, man” on our walk. I went with Panda Express and Logan chose Subway.
Connor didn’t shown while we ate. When we were done, Logan said, “I guess if he was going to show here—and that was a leap of anifanyway—we would have seen him by now.”
“Right. I’m sure he’s fine. Probably just wanted to ask Marlo about schedules or something.”
“Yeah, probably,” he said. We made uncertain faces at each other and then tried to shake the thought of Connor—and his possible reaction to the movie we’d just watched—from our minds. Which wasn’t easy.
“It’s weird that seeingRed Octoberkind of threw me, and now maybe this?” Logan said.
“The power of cinema,” I said, adding a faux-pretentious accent, like I was some film critic or something. I was dying to lighten the mood, but also didn’t want to ignore things like triggers.
“Huh. Yeah,” he said. He picked a few stray pieces of lettuce from his sandwich wrapper and ate them.
“Still hungry?” I asked. “Want to go back for something more? I can only imagine the calories you expend on the ice every day.”
“Nah, I’m good,” he said.
Neither of us made any move to clear our places or grab our stuff.
“Any plans this weekend?” he asked after a few minutes of silence. A comfortable silence, it should be noted.
I shrugged. “Not sure. It’s only Wednesday, and a lot can happen in two days.” It was said lightly, but what we both knew—and the reason we were sitting here together after Grief Group—was that, indeed, a whole world could change in two days.
It had for both of us.
“Agreed. Let me throw this at you. Would you like to come to the hockey game on Friday? It’s the home opener. I won’t push my luck and ask you to come to both games—you can if you want to, and that’d be great—but it’d be nice knowing you’re in the stands the first time out.”
I wanted to say yes. Fast and decisively. And I knew we were in a new place, that the awkwardness of the night I was at his house and met his friends had been cleared up. But this felt like another shift. This felt like girlfriend territory.
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” I said.
“Because of the ‘complicated’ thing?”
“Right.”
He waved a hand around us, then between us. “Yes, it could get complicated. But isn’t it already?”
“But this level of complicated I can handle,” I said—way more honest than I’d planned to be.
