Popcorn

“What would you like?” the tired looking sales clerk asked me. She appeared as though she had spent hours putting on makeup but it couldn’t completely cover the black circles under her eyes. Not to mention they were half opened and red. I briefly wondered about her. But a poke in my side from my friend Larissa brought me back to life.
“Buy me a popcorn,” she whispered. I told the lady this and she nodded, running her fingers through her hair. I could tell the last thing that she would ever want to do was go through the effort of making this for me. She would anyway though, like she always did. I had seen her here day after day, year after year of my summers spent at the movie theaters. She always had the same exhausted expression. She was the sign of summer to me. Yet, I didn’t know her name.
The sales lady came back with our popcorn. An empty bottle of soda in front of her caught her foot. She tripped and Larissa’s popcorn flew. I could hear Larissa sigh next to me, annoyed and impatient. The sales lady heard it too. “I’m really... I’m really. Sorry about that. Just tired today. That’s all.” She looked at us, avoiding our eyes. I gave her a small smile and nodded.
“It’s okay,” I said softly.
Larissa glared at me and spoke, “Umm well excuse me but we’re going to miss our movie.”
“I’m sorry miss. I am.” The lady stood up slowly, ignoring the blood running from her knee. She came back with two bags of popcorn. “This is... on me. For making you wait.” Larissa just grunted but I smiled at her and thanked her.
When we were out of ear shot Larissa smirked. “I’m umm sorry miss. I am,” she mimicked the lady’s voice perfectly and I couldn’t help but laugh. I grabbed a handful of popcorn and threw it in my mouth. My teeth bit down on something hard and I yelped in pain……

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It was days like this that she couldn’t help but remember the past. People whizzed by and she couldn’t remember a single face. She couldn’t care to remember. Her job sucked. She couldn’t sing anymore no matter how hard she tried (not that there was anything to sing about) and she was sitting here waiting for someone who would never come.
It started out years ago when she was 17. She was working at the same exact job she had now as the theater’s food seller. The movies were different back then and so were the people. ‘Or maybe all that’s really changed is me,’ she muttered.
“Umm, hello. Did you hear me? I wanted a soda,” a young boy said. His friends laughed but she just stared on in her own little world. She had had a late shift one Monday night. Not many people were there and she was in a good mood, thinking she would get off of work early. It was almost Christmas and she felt joy for no reason and every reason at all.
“Deck the halls with bells of holly,” she sung, holding an empty soda cup to her chin as a microphone “.. Lalala la la lala. Tis the season to be jolly fa la lala. Down we now our AAh!” A young guy stood behind the counter.
“Gay apparel. Fa la la la la. La la la la,” he finished for her smiling mischievously. “Nice song.”
She nervously looked at the floor, avoiding his eyes, a bad habit that happened when she spoke to people that she still had this very day. “I didn’t known anyone was here,” she muttered.
“I think I realized that,” he laughed. “I’m Trey. And your name has got to be Angel.” He stared at the tag on her shirt. “You sing like one.” She glowed, still avoiding his eyes. “How about I skip the movie and meet the heavenly being?” He was already climbing over the counter, not caring about a reply. An hour and a half later they were laughing together, her shift’s end completely forgotten about.
“Get me popcorn?” he said as he focused his gaze right on her eyes. She stared back. It’s funny in all those 17 first years he would be the only person that she would ever look right back at. With him she wasn’t afraid. She broke the stare for a moment to scoop up some popcorn for him. Before she could get back with it she tripped on his empty soda cup and it went flying, bits and pieces of popcorn in her hair and on the floor. He walked over to where she was sprawled out on the floor. But he tripped over the cup too landing next to her. They were overcome by laughter and just laid there, too happy to do anything besides laugh and laugh. She sat up a while later, still giggling, her face red. He sat up too and smiled at her.
“Angel,” she took a few deep breathes to slow her laughing. But she wouldn’t stop smiling at him. “Angel, kiss me.” And after that they were be inseparable.

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He was her own personal prince charming who swept her away from the theater every night and brought her to her castle, better known as home. Then he would gallop home on his horse, better known as a cheap car. She found herself wishing he would stay behind and not leave for his distant world but she was too scared to ask. Not scared of him, no. She could never be scared of him. She was scared of the response. All she wanted was for this to last. She had fallen in love when she fell on his soda cup. And things had been an awkwardly written faerie tale ever since.
She hadn’t planned to tell her parents but they knew right away. She had never been that happy before. They knew instantly the little princess had fallen head over heels in love. Everyday she prayed for more and more minutes to live with him. Why couldn’t time stand still just this once? Why couldn’t she freeze this frame of life and live it forever? It seemed like it would back then. ‘Things change,’ she thought. Oh how well she knew that now. Months passed in her daydream from the beginning of meeting Trey to the part when her dad found the love letters.
She had been out living a dream. The rain had soaked her, her damp hair lay on her solders. She hardly noticed it though. Trey’s kiss made the rain almost disappear. She walked in the family room humming a song she made up herself. Her family was far from her mood though. They sat there, stone faced. Her mom was crying.
“Angel, sit down,” her dad belted out. She immediately sat on the couch close to her sister Jamie. Jamie scooted away from her. This could not be good. Her attention turned towards her father. He held pieces of lined paper. She recognized it immediately.
“My love letters! You took my love letters,” he just looked at her.
“You call this love? All your boyfriend wants is sex. And you gave it to him. Whore,” he spit out the words like they were poison to his lips. “I forbid you to see him ever again. Do you want to get pregnant?”
She stood up to him for the first time. “And what if I do see him? What if I see him anyway?” Her heart ached but she loved her own defiance. She suddenly hated her father for not understanding. It hurt but she was living. And feeling. Something she couldn’t do now.
“Then you are not a part of this family. I will never call you my daughter,” she cried then, all defiance gone, all hate leaving her. But it came back, strong and spiteful.
“Don’t even try it. I’m leaving before you get the chance to disown me. I am disowning you…DADDY!” she spit out the words in her rage and walked out of the house and into the storm. She was running before she knew where she was running to. She was drenched in rain drops and thundered clambered on in the background. She could feel it all and she needed to find the one person who would make it stop.

She beat her fists on the door and screamed for him over the thunder. A light turned on in the hallway and his familiar face appeared at the doorstep. Always waiting, always welcoming. “Oh, Trey,” she threw her arms around him and wept. He stood there and held her wondering who would make this beautiful girl so upset. She told him her story and hated herself for it. If only she hadn’t kept his letters. If only. He would be so mad now. But he wasn’t. Not at her anyway, it was her father he felt a great disdain for. He said none of this as he took her hand.
“Angel, come with me,” he led her to his bedroom straight down the hallway. He opened a drawer and searched for something. He came across a familiar green box and gave it to her. At her puzzled expression he spoke, “Angel, ever since I met you, I’ve loved everything about you. I promise you, I always will. Open the box, darling.” Her hands trembled as she popped open the top and saw the sparkling ring. “Angel, it’s not expensive. Hell, it could break right now. I’ll love you longer than the ring lasts. That’s a promise. I don’t break promises.”
She sat down on his bed and sobbed. He patted her back for a while as she laid back and shook with every tear. She cried herself to sleep but she didn’t feel quite so alone anymore.

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He woke her up the next morning. She had slept soundly and couldn’t remember her dreams. All she knew was this empty feeling that she didn’t know the cause of. Until it dawned on her why she was here. She would stop crying though. It had no use. That seemed to make Trey happy.
He gave her a weak smile and watched her stretch out on the bed. “Angel, I’ll make this better. I swear I’ll help you. When your shift is over everything will be alright.” She believed him. Only Trey could make things right. ‘He always does,’ she thought to herself. ‘He will this time too.’ Yet she still felt that feeling of dread that she felt now with every step and every dream she had with him in it. She always wanted to go back and warn him. Tell him to leave her, but she never could.
He drove her to the theater. They sat in the car waiting for the clock to strike seven. Waiting for her shift to start. “I wish I could stay with you, Ang,”he broke the constant noise of the pattering on the windshield caused by raindrops. “I wish I could talk to him and be right with you while I do it. Angel, are you wearing you ring?” She nodded her head and stared out the window. He took her hand and ran his index finger over it. “Take it as a promise that I’ll be back for you. And everything will be alright.” She nodded and opened the door to leave. “I’ll be back,” he said. She closed the door and walked into her shift. She walked into the rest of her life. For she didn’t know it but at that very moment Trey’s car had crashed into a tree, breaking his neck. He would die instantly.
She sighed, her daydream over, and absent-mindedly felt for her ring. She wouldn’t admit it to any breathing person (much less herself) but she was still waiting for her shift to end and for the promise to come true. Trey had tried to save her, but he couldn’t save himself. But then she realized something. She couldn’t feel the ring. After 19 years of having it always on and always waiting it was gone. She checked the floor, she checked her pockets. Missing, missing, and missing. She grew frantic searching the floor, picking up popcorn, kicking trash and ignoring customers. ‘It couldn’t be gone. It couldn’t,’ she thought, still feeling for it. A sick thought came to her. It told her just how desperate she was. 19 years and she hadn’t taken off the ring given to her by some boyfriend. 19 years and she still worked selling food at the cinema. She was in denial and she wouldn’t be any longer. She hadn’t really lived for 19 long years. She was a fucking zombie.
“Where’s my water,” an annoyed customer barked.
“I don’t know,” she glanced at him and defiance that she had only showed once before came in her eyes. She looked him straight on. “Get it your fucking self.” She walked out of the stand and quit right there and then. She got half way out of the cinema and began to sob. It was over. It was over.
A girl she vaguely remembered walked over to her, holding something small and shimmering. “I found this in my popcorn,” she said. “Maybe you lost it”. She cautiously gave her a ring. Her ring. She was happy for a moment as she saw the familiar thing. The one thing she had been sure of in her life for the past 19 years. But then as she stared at it, her face glowing with happiness, she saw something she hadn’t seen before. In the ring was engraved Angel 1984. The ring had held on to the same unhappy girl that had owned it in 1984. It represented everything of who she had been so long ago and kept it with her. ‘I need to let it go. If I hold on to it, I’ll always be waiting,’ she thought. She got up and ran after the girl. She looked her straight in the eyes, “This ring isn’t mine.”