‘I don’t watch on a computer. You do you – I’m not gonna yuck your yum – but I still think film should be enjoyed on the biggest screen possible.’
Then he’d probably be even more disgusted that my laptop screen was cracked.
I cough-said, ‘Nerd!’
‘Shut up, sourdough. And hit play in three … two … one …’ I hit play. ‘Wait, do I hit play on one or after one?’
‘I hate you. You’d better be synched up properly.’
Judging by the ticking clock sounds from his side of the phone, we were. ‘So, what is this movie about?’
‘Oh my God, shut up and just watch it.’
I watched the screen. ‘So we’re going to sit in silence this whole time? We could hang up and I could just call you when it’s over.’
‘I don’t trust you’ll watch it all the way through if I’m not here to keep you focused. And we can talk, but when there’s an important scene I’ll tell you.’
‘So this is one of the movies you deem essential but you have totellme when an important scene is coming up?’
‘Shut up, this scene’s important.’
‘It’s the first scene.’
‘Yes!’
I shut up and watched. Every once in a while I broke in with a stupid question or comment Iknewwas going to piss Gabe off – ‘Why is this thirty-year-old teenager friends with a nuclear scientist?’ ‘It’s very convenient that he goes back to theone weekhe can actually use the power of lightning to get home.’ ‘Oh! So he’s going to have sex with his mother and become his own dad? The eighties, man, wild times, amirite?’ – but then I actually started to get into it.
By the time Doc Brown was hanging from the clock tower I was completely silent. When the DeLorean hit the wire at the precise moment it needed to, I squirmed with the laptop in my hands as Marty made the jump back to 1985.
Did I also make an excited noise? Maybe. Hopefully Gabe didn’t hear it.
‘What did you think?’ he asked when the credits began to roll.
‘It was actually really good. But what the hell was with that ending? Why would they end it with a cliffhanger?’
‘You do know there’s two sequels?’
‘Of course, but didtheyknow that at the time?’
Silence from the other side of the phone for a moment. ‘Do you want to watch the second one?’
It was ten forty-five. It was summer. I didn’t have work at Sunset Estates until three thirty. ‘Sure.’
Gabe counted down from three and we hit play together.
The following Monday was Labor Day, and Ava and I were both working. She sent me a text that morning asking me to come over a couple hours early so we could hang out.
Usually, hanging out in Ava’s basement bedroom entailed eating junk food while I watched Ava play video games. I’m not a gamer, but Ava is. She especially enjoys anything where she can beat other people in the world, so I expected another day of teabagging killers at the exit gate duringDead by Daylightor shooting people while dressed as Ariana Grande inFortnite. Usually, I would find this boring, but there is something about Ava’s competitive nature and gaming ability that just really gets me invested.
But when I arrived, Ava wasn’t in her gaming chair. Instead, she was pacing around the basement, putting her hand to her mouth, only to realize shestoppedthe nail-biting habit years ago.
To be honest, I had never seen her like this before, so I just sat down on the couch and was right up-front. ‘What’s wrong?’
I secretly hoped it was just that her PlayStation had crashed, but if that were the case, I would have seen her down here with the console in pieces while watching a YouTube on how to fix it.
‘Remember the other day when you were all excited about Gabe starting at work and you asked me if I was okay and I just said I was distracted by GJ’s birthday?’
‘Among other things, yes. Is this really about struggling to find GJ a good gift? GJ is the most gracious human being in the world. You could buy her socks and she would show them off to the guy at Wawa every time she wore them out.’
