A Cute Little Moment: Part VII: Thaddeus and Lexi's Movie Night:):):):):):):):)

 

Little scene that Lucy and I came up with😊Lexi and Thaddeus’s movie night😊(Three weeks after Adam dumped Lexi☹)

This is fine, I tell myself as I step out of my car. It’s just a movie night with Lexi. Everything is fine. I take one more deep breath as I hesitantly ring the doorbell. I break into a sweat right before I hear Lexi’s sweet voice saying, “One second!” just before she opens the door. “Hi!” she says, sounding happy to see me. I can’t hold back a grin as she envelopes me in a hug. I blush as I internally groan. Why do I have to blush at EVERYTHING?

“Hey!” I say as I walk in the door and drink in the familiar sight of Lexi’s house and the smell of whatever wax melt her mom had put in to make everything smell like home.

“Are you ready for this?” Lexi says, like we’re about to go through peril, which I guess we are. The movie we’re about to watch is a rough one.

“Let the games begin,” I say awkwardly and she beams at me. It may be surprising, but Lexi has love for more than just Descendants. In fact, I was with her when she read the first chapter of the first Hunger Games books. Poor thing actually screamed when Katniss’s sister was reaped. As Lexi walks to the kitchen to make some popcorn, I just kind of fall into step with her as she asks me how my day was.

“It was pretty good,” I tell her. “Uneventful, though. What about you? What did you do today?”

“Oh,” Lexi sighs, and I just now notice how tired she sounds. “I had ballet rehearsals for our up-coming show all day today. From 9:00 until 4:00.”

My eyes go wide in shock. “How are you still standing?” I ask her in surprise. She laughs.

“I wasn’t dancing the whole time. There was a lunch break, and I’m not on the stage for the whole show,” she explains. I shake my head as I chuckle.

“Still, I don’t know how you do that,” I tell her honestly. Lexi is seriously a great ballet dancer and she just amazes me how she just stands on two little boxes and turns a million times on them. “Which ballet are you guys doing this year?”

“Sleeping Beauty,” Lexi replies as she pulls the little bag of popcorn out of the microwave and dumps it into a bowl.

“And what role did you get?” I ask her.

“The Lilac Fairy,” she says with that cute little smile of hers. I smile at her excitedly.

“Wait, you got your dream role?” I enthused.

“Yep!” Lexi squeals. “I get to wear lavender, too! Could this get any better?”

“No, I guess not,” I say, grinning from ear to ear. Lexi was still eagerly nodding as she started walking to the living room and once again, I follow her. “Well, I want to come to the show,” I say as Lexi hands me the popcorn bowl so she can turn on the movie.

“Really?” Lexi says, sounding heartened. I nod.

“Of course! I need to see you perform your favorite variation.”

“Thank you!” Lexi grins just before she turns out the lights. She turns to me. “Are you ready for this?”

I smile as I grab her extended hand. Then I mirror one of Peeta Mellark’s famous quotes. “Always.”

Lexi beams at me as she fingers the remote with her other hand and pushes play to start the movie.

 

“Aah, Katniss, RUN,” Lexi exclaims, almost spilling the popcorn all over her lap. I wince.

“Man, I would hate trying to outrun that fire storm,” I say. Lexi shrugs.

“Well, we had to outrun some villains like a month ago,” she replies, just as a tree that was also on fire falls in Katniss’s path. Lexi lets out this cute little shriek, grabs onto my arm and leans her left cheek against it while she covers her eyes. I just stare down at her, not quite sure what to do.

Should I put my arm around her? I think to myself. No? Yes? Oh, I have no clue what I’m doing! What do I do? What do I do?

Luckily, I’m spared from answering that internal question because she pulls away from me. Probably because the stressful fire scene was over. “Uh oh. Careers!” I say as Lexi looks up at me and nods. “Run for it, Katniss!”

“Climb!” Lexi says excitedly a few seconds later as Katniss starts doing just that. I take a handful of popcorn from the orange popcorn bowl and pop a few in my mouth.

“Oh, Cato, I wouldn’t climb up there if I were you.”

Lexi giggles. “Yeah, he’s so dumb,” she says. “Good with a sword, but he’s an idiot.”

I can’t hold back a laugh and I can see Lexi shrug, like she wasn’t sure of herself. “Oh, that wasn’t funny.” she whispers. I shake my head, feeling a little confused as Katniss shouts at Cato and suggests that he should throw the sword instead of shooting an arrow. Whenever I used to laugh at something Lexi said (she could be pretty hilarious sometimes), she didn’t usually shoot herself down. She would usually just giggle and smile proudly to herself. This wasn’t normal for her.

“Yes, it was. What are you talking about? It’s like you don’t- “I stopped myself because it just hit me. Adam. It was another one of those moments where I realized the depth of Adam’s abuse toward Lexi. It started when I would just do something normal, like compliment her T-shirt that she was wearing one day. “Hey, Lex! I like your shirt!” I had said. Lexi had smiled wryly and shaken her head.

“Oh, no,” she had replied. “It’s really old.”

Or another day, when I had finally plucked up the courage to tell her that she looked pretty, which she always does to me. Lexi had just said, “No, I don’t. I’m not wearing any make-up.” I guess another thing that Adam did, was tell her that she wasn’t funny and would never laugh at her jokes.

How am I going to help her believe in herself again?

I’m spared from answering that question, too, because Lexi was still caught on the sentence I hadn’t finished.

“I don’t what?” she asks.

“Nothing,” I reply. “Forget about it.”

“Okay. I’m going to get some more popcorn,”

Well, at least she was eating like a normal person again. “No, that’s okay. I’ll get it.” I say as I get up and start toward the kitchen.

“Do you want me to pause it?” Lexi asks. I shake my head and continue my walk to the kitchen. I refill the popcorn bowl, not really knowing which scene was playing, but, hearing Lexi’s reactions, I could tell that it wasn’t pretty. I come back to Lexi’s living room to find Lexi hugging a pillow to her chest with her eyes closed. My eyes scan the TV as I remember that it was the Tracker Jacker scene and that Lexi was afraid of bees.

“Are you alright?” I ask her tentatively as she nods.

“Yes, I just don’t like this scene very much,” she says, her eyes still shut tight. I sit back down, not feeling sure of what to do. Lexi was clearly not okay and then she leaned her head against my right arm again.

Should I put my arm around her? I think again. Where’s Hailey and Breanna when you need them?

Lexi was still just leaning against me, seeming to still be a little frightened and she probably expected me to say or do something to help at this point. Oh, I wanted to help, I just didn’t know what was okay and what was crossing a line that I really shouldn’t cross right now. After all, she had just broken up with someone and I didn’t want to be insensitive about that, but still. What did she need me to do? Would she care if I put my arm around her? Would she be weirded out by our closeness? These were all questions that I didn’t know the answers to.

Oh, screw it! I think fiercely as I finally wrap my right arm around Lexi’s shoulders and she didn’t object. In fact, she did exactly the opposite. She snuggled right next me, her head resting on my chest. I hoped she couldn’t tell that my heart appeared to be doing some of those ballerina turns that Lexi was so fond of doing. Pirouettes, I think they’re called. Or if she could tell, I hoped she would think it was because this scene is stressful. In a few moments, the Tracker Jacker scene was over, but Lexi didn’t pull away.

The movie continued, moving through Katniss and Rue blowing up the food from the Careers’ pile, and then moving into my least favorite part of this movie where Rue dies. I had started reading the first book just three months after my parents’ deaths, and I had been haunted by nightmares of losing my aunt and my uncle, my cousins and my sisters. So, Rue’s death had brought those nightmares back to me, particularly the one where I lost my youngest sister, Hadley, in a house fire.

“Are you okay?” I hear Lexi whisper, and I’m brought back to reality. Lexi was looking up at me, a concerned expression on her face. I’m just about to tell her that I’m perfectly okay, but I just don’t have the energy for that anymore and I shake my head.

“No. I don’t like this part.” I mutter. Lexi’s concerned expression grows more concerned.

“Is it your parents again?” she asks hesitantly and I nod.

“Yeah,” I reply quietly. Lexi’s all gentleness, reaching up and wrapping her arms around me.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispers. “You know, you don’t always have to be so tough. Especially around me. You can let your feelings show,”

“I know that. Thank you for always supporting me.”

Lexi smiled at me. “Of course. Thank you for always being there for me.”

“You’re welcome, Fangirl.”

After that, we just watched the movie with no drama of any sort. Lexi was still huddled up, her head resting on my shoulder. Her hair was gathered on her left shoulder and I reach out and start stroking it. I don’t even know what makes me do it. I debate stopping because it’s a little weird, but Lexi didn’t seem to mind. I take in how her hair feels in my fingers. Soft, with just a touch of crispiness from the liberal amounts of hairspray she must have used in her ballet bun today. My eyes traced up her lengthy mane of hair, up to her hairline, and just as my eyes stopped at her eyes, I could see that Lexi’s eyelids were drooping a little bit and her expression was becoming more relaxed.

“Are you awake, Fangirl?” I whisper, sounding barely audible. Lexi didn’t answer, so I assumed the answer to my question was no. After all, she did have a really long rehearsal today, so I just let her sleep. Katniss now knew that she and Peeta could both win and now she was going to find him. Peeta’s wounded, Katniss is trying to fix it, they’re in the cave. Only at that point, the scenes of the movie started blurring together and I could feel myself drifting off…

BOOM! I sit up with a start and so does Lexi and we both found ourselves wrapping our arms around each other. One of the Capital’s Mutts had just run and jumped on Peeta, a very loud and startling jump scare.

“Oh, my gosh!” Lexi exclaimed quietly. “I forgot that was in the movie,”

“Yeah, I did, too,” I reply with a nod. As my heart started going back to a normal pace, Lexi glances over at me, her cheeks turning pink.

“I didn’t even realize that I fell asleep,” she says in a soft voice, blushing a little more until her skin looked like cherries. I feel just as awkward about that as she does, but I try not to show it.

“Well, you were tired!” I tell her. “You danced for seven hours today,”

Lexi smiles up at me, making me feel all warm inside. I just now take in how we’re sitting. Our arms are still wrapped around each other, as if we were a couple having a movie night, instead of just two friends. I want to remove my arms from around her because this isn’t normal for us at all, but just as I’m about to remove them, Lexi pulls me closer to her. Once again, I can’t stop the blush that appears on my cheeks.

Oh, Lexi, I think, leaning down and kissing her forehead. If only you knew how much I love you… If only I could tell you.