Movie Night with Natalie*

After school, Chloe joined me in the library once again. Like before, she was late to meet with me. I filled her in on the new information I’d gathered and together we worked on completing our project. Despite spending the same amount of time working, we accomplished less than half of our first meeting. Chloe was much more talkative this time around and I was content to listen. It surprised me to learn we had a similar interest in music. I didn’t take her for an electronica girl, but when she listed off her four favorite bands, it matched two of mine. That sparked a long conversation about music and some other genres we enjoyed. Before long, we’d spent most of our two hours talking with little to show for it.

Not that I minded the distraction. We had plenty of time to finish and learning more about Chloe was interesting. What little I knew of her was from rumors, but it seemed the real Chloe was nothing like what others described her as. She was neither cold nor heartless. From what I saw from her Noise, she was genuine when she spoke with me and seemed like any other person our age.

There was something else as well. Underneath it all was a sadness I recognized. It stemmed from a loneliness that followed me as well. While her choices isolated her from others, my Gift made it hard for me to make connections. Without Natalie and Alexis, I would have been completely alone beside my aunt and uncle. Yet despite their constant presence in my life, there still seemed to be a separation there. I didn’t know if it was my lack of outward expression or something on their end that created that slight gap.

I expected to spend Saturday night alone. Most weekends were like that. Alexis usually spent the weekend out partying with friends and Natalie spent the weekend at her boyfriend’s. Hearing the doorbell ring was unexpected. Finding Natalie there with beer and take-out was the last thing I expected.

“Hey! You free tonight?” she asked with a smile. Before I could answer, she held up the beer and food bag. “I come bearing gifts.”

Stepping aside, I gestured for her to enter. Besides the unexpected visit, there was something in her Noise that was off. She was suppressing something and throwing my Gift off. Natalie was one of the few people I’d seen who had some level of control of her emotions.

“I found a new movie I wanted to watch,” she said as she brushed past. I don’t know what type of soap Natalie used, but it always reminded me of a sea breeze—in a good way. Unlike her sister who liked bold and powerful, it was a subdued scent. “How is this for a premise. Zombies… in space,” she said, drawing out the word space as she made a sweeping gesture with her full hands.

“Sounds horrible,” I said following her.

“I know, right? The reviews said it was horrible. Only positive thing I saw was the zombie makeup was good. Acting and cinematography are atrocious of course, but at least they went all out on the costumes.”

As she set out the food, I got the movie set up. Luckily, it was free on one of the streaming services. We had an arrangement where I paid for one of the more common ones and they paid for another on rotation and we shared accounts.

I had everything ready to go when I heard her pop one of the beers open. “Want one?” she asked after a long swig.

“You know I don’t.”

“One or two won’t hurt.”

“They taste disgusting.”

“Beer is delicious.” As if to prove her point, she took another drink.

“Perhaps, but not the cheap shit you get.”

“Hey!” I said nothing as I settled back onto the couch. “Tommy loves this stuff.”

“Thomas has no taste,” I said in a flat voice.

She gaped at me before swatting my chest. “He’s dating me! What does that say about his taste?”

“That even the dumbest of us can find sunlight if they stare at the sun long enough.”

Snorting, she held the back of her hand to her mouth. “Wha—What does that even mean?”

“It means Thomas is an idiot.”

“The man is in grad school for microbiology and knows three languages.”

“‘The ability to speak does not make one intelligent.’”

“No,” she said sharply, tipping the beer bottle towards me. “Do not throw Star Wars at me here.”

“Regardless of his actual intellect, he fails to show it by preferring to act like a manchild frat boy.”

“He’s not that bad,” she said softly as she rotated the beer bottle in her hand. “When he steps up and—”

“I judge the man on how he acts, not when he is putting on an act. Perhaps you should consider which one is the act.” I already knew the answer to that. Regardless of how the few brief interactions I’d had with him went, my Gift revealed another side hidden by most. Nothing outright, but there was something about his Noise that didn’t feel right.

Reaching over, she flicked me on the forehead. I recoiled from the hit. The surprise didn’t faze me, but the pain did. “I don’t need to be lectured by an eighteen year old brat. Tommy is a good man and a great boyfriend.”

I said nothing as the warmth and kindness of her Noise embraced me. This was the reason why I always felt her boyfriend’s Noise was off. Whenever we talked about her boyfriend, I could feel the love and care in her Noise. It was there when she was with him—among other emotions. Him though? I never got the same feeling from him. They were downright cold by comparison. The only strong emotions shared between them were lust and sexual desire. As one of two people—maybe three now with Chloe—who I could consider a friend, Natalie was important to me. The mismatch of their Noise meant trouble, but I never knew how to bring up the subject so I let it go. Natalie was a smart woman. She would figure things out. Besides, maybe that was what she liked about him. It wasn't like we had any heart-to-heart about her love life. My experience with relationships was exactly two: hers and my aunt and her husband. Hardly a good sample size.

We started the movie in silence, picking at the food. There was an awkward tension now. Perhaps there was more to be said, but I didn’t have the words. Fortunately, this only lasted the first fifteen minutes of the movie. The plot was ridiculous. Something about a colony ship carrying frozen people to a new planet when a meteorite hit the ship which carried some sort of alien spore. An emergency system kicked in which woke up people who immediately got infected. A good thirty minutes in, we were watching the seven crew members fight off a seemingly endless amount of zombies as they slowly fought their way to the bridge.

Natalie was almost done with her six-pack at this point. She snorted before laughing as a zombie nearly got one of the crew members. “How the hell are there so damn many of them?” she asked as she did her best to breathe and laugh at the same time. “Like… a dozen or so people woke up at the beginning and I think they’ve killed like, a hundred of them by now.”

“Maybe the zombies reproduce by mitosis.”

She chuckled. “Somewhere on the ship, a zombie is splitting into two zombies.” She took a swig of beer. “I’ll admit the airlock scene was pretty good, but damn the acting is terrible!”

Agreed. The acting was horrible, even for a low-budget movie. Any excitement the movie built in the last big fight scene that left one of the crew dead was squandered by the long exposition scene that followed. Probably to pad out the runtime. They spent nearly twenty minutes talking in a room not much bigger than a closet. By the time they finally decided on a plan, Natalie was leaning against me as she struggled to stay awake.

I’d known that something was up ever since she showed up. Even without my Gift I could see that. For one, Natalie was here on a weekend. The second clue had been how hard she hit her beer. She normally drank when we watched movies together, but nothing like this. With her guard down, I saw what she had been suppressing in her Noise. Sadness and rejection were the two big emotions floating about.

“Going to tell me what happened?” I asked, keeping my voice down. My eyes stayed on the TV, but I was no longer watching with my full attention on Natalie. Her Noise swelled as her emotions amplified.

For a moment, I thought she wasn’t going to answer—which was entirely in her right. I asked in case she wanted to talk about it. “He didn’t want me to come this weekend.”

“Thomas?” She nodded, face rubbing my arm. “He say why?”

“Out with ‘the boys.’ I mean, I get that he has a social life outside of me, but this is the second weekend in a row.”

“You saw him earlier this week.”

“He swung by for a booty call.” There was a bitterness in her voice.

“Sounded like you enjoyed it.”

Her Noise shifted as embarrassment and related emotions flowed through her. “Well… yeah. That’s not the point though!” she said as she pulled away from me. Turning my head, I met her gaze. “He’s over an hour away. Sex is great and all, but I want to spend _actual _time with him! It feels like I barely see him anymore. I get that he’s busy. I do. He’s playing a big role in putting together a paper to publish, which is a crazy good opportunity for him. His qualifier is coming up too, but it feels like all we ever do when we finally see each other is have sex—which is great. Really great,” she said with a tipsy giggle. She seemed to remember who she was talking to as her expression turned somber again. Clearing her throat, she continued. “I just want the relationship stuff that comes with it. Talking on the phone or messaging each other doesn’t have the same impact.”

I said nothing as she continued to vent about her relationship with Thomas. The entire time, I could still see the love and care she felt for him. Even with the added frustration and annoyance, that side of her never changed. She still cared. Probably why this was hurting her so much.

“Bah. I’m tipsy and ranting. Sorry. I know this is the last thing you want to listen to,” she said as she wiped at her wet eyes.

“I don’t mind.”

“God, they are still in the room?”

I followed her gaze back to the TV. “Actually, I think they are in a different room that looks the same as the first.”

She chuckled. I felt the weight of her return as she plopped herself against me once more. “Such a terrible movie.”

“Really is,” I agreed as I wrapped an arm around her. It seemed like the right thing to do and she didn’t complain. If anything, she snuggled in closer.

Natalie didn’t make it through the rest of the movie. Only a few minutes after finishing her rant, she was asleep. She didn’t miss much. The climax of the movie was venting the zombies out of the ship. It ended with the surviving crew celebrating and going back into their cryo sleep. The last shot was showing the rock that started it all was still in the ship, implying that the whole thing would repeat once they started waking people up again. Either that or it was setting up a sequel. Bold of them to assume people would want to see more.

Part of me wanted to let her sleep in my bed, but I didn’t want to wake her. Carrying her was out of the question. She wasn’t the problem in that equation, but my own build. Knowing me, I’d only get about halfway before dropping her. It wasn’t ideal, but she’d have to sleep on the couch. I carefully laid her down and went to go get a blanket and pillow. Gathering what I needed, I came back to see her still soundly sleeping.

It wasn’t often I saw her like this. Her normally well-maintained hair was a mess. The dark brown was a far cry from the red of her sister’s hair, though they shared the same green eyes. Now that I was thinking of the two, I found Natalie had a more mature atmosphere about her. It might have been an age thing since Natalie was around four years older than her sister, but I suspected it went a bit deeper than that. Natalie had been in a committed relationship for as long as I’d known her while Alexis never bothered to settle on just one person.

As I gently put the pillow under her head and covered her with the blanket, I found myself staring at Natalie’s face. It was weird seeing someone so quiet. With her lost in sleep, the Noise that always lingered was silent. It was a rare moment where I could see someone as others saw them. Thomas was a lucky man that someone like her was giving him her precious time. It was a shame he didn’t see it that way.

Making sure she was as comfortable on the couch as someone could be, I headed to my room. I stopped by the restroom to get ready for bed. Back in my room, I peeled off my shirt and tossed it towards the laundry basket before falling back on the bed. Closing my eyes, I pushed my Gift outwards. This wasn’t something I normally did. The last thing I wanted was to hear more Noise. The neighbors above me were having an argument. I could see the wild swirls of anger and adjacent emotions. The neighbors below were doing something that was spiking humor, amusement, and joy. Watching TV perhaps? Enjoying a pleasant conversation?

Finally, I found what I was looking for. Like Natalie, I knew Alexis’ Noise well enough to recognize it by sight. She was somewhere in her apartment. She wasn’t alone either. I could detect two others in the swirl of emotional Noise. Wasn’t hard to figure out what was happening. Excitement and desire were the dominant emotions in all three. She was enjoying herself, so I didn’t think any more of it.

Closing off my mind as best as I could, I turned onto my side and did the best I could to get some sleep.