The Romantics(48)

“The schoolteacher dies,” Gael said.

Sammy rolled her eyes. “Fine, fine. Favorite slasher film, then. You know, where there’s a killer, and the killer is not, like, a pigeon.”

It was actually mainly crows and seagulls in The Birds, but Gael let that one slide. “Psycho.”

Sammy burst out laughing. “You, my friend, are a broken record when it comes to Hitchcock. You need to expand your repertoire.”

They crossed Cameron Avenue and made their way onto the upper quad. It was quieter there, fewer people, less revelry. Just them and the moon. Gael shrugged. “He’s the best.”

“Right,” Sammy said. “So then we should only read, I don’t know, War and Peace over and over instead of other good books because they’re not the best book of all time.”

She had a point, he had to admit.

“Have you even seen Friday the 13th?” Sammy asked.

“That’s the one with Freddy Krueger, right?”

Sammy stopped so short that a bit of hot chocolate sloshed out of her cup. “Wow, for a movie-lover you are totally lacking in the horror department. Friday the 13th is Jason. Freddy Krueger is—”

“Halloween,” he guessed.

“No!” she said with disdain. “A Nightmare on Elm Street! And coincidentally Johnny Depp’s first movie, if you need a reason to watch it besides the fact that it’s fabulous. Michael Myers is Halloween. You seriously need an education.”

And you’re the perfect one to give it to me, he thought.

But then—no—that wouldn’t really work. Once he and Cara were dating, he was certainly not going to be hanging out one-on-one with Sammy all the time. It would be, to borrow Cara’s oft-used term, weird.

Sammy started walking again and took a sip of her drink.

“All right,” Gael said. “I’m not so knowledgeable in what you would call true horror, you know, movies with no plot and a bunch of gore that aren’t half as awesome as the shower scene in Psycho.”

They reached the top of the upper quad. Franklin Street waited for them, with all its shops and restaurants and promise.

Sammy turned to him and smiled. “At least you stick to your principles,” she said.

“Hitchcock forevah.” Gael held up four fingers with his free hand.

They both laughed.

On Franklin, a group of sexy cops and nurses stumbled down the street, likely headed for a pre-Halloween frat party.

“So what are you doing for Halloween?” she asked.

Gael shrugged. “Nothing much. Just going to walk Franklin Street with Cara.”

Sammy’s eyes looked blank for a second, but then she smiled. “You guys are getting serious, huh?”

“I’m not sure about that,” he said with a shrug. “But we’re getting to know each other, I guess.”

Suddenly, he had an idea.

(All right, all right, I may have given him said idea.)

“Did you want to come with us? I mean, since you’re friends with her, too?”

(For a moment, Sammy considered it. I reminded her that she didn’t have any set plans for Halloween, that her roommate had kind of been annoying her of late, and it would be more fun to go with Gael, anyway. I even let the streetlights catch Gael’s eyes so they’d glisten in a way I knew she’d find downright adorable. But, alas, it was no use. Sammy was a Cynic, as I have mentioned previously. And she had too much freaking pride.)

“I have plans,” she said, shaking her head. “And I also don’t want to crash your date.”

Gael was about to tell her that it wasn’t a date—not officially, at least—but that’s when it started to rain. Hard.

(Okay, the rain was my handiwork. This is a love story, after all. You might call it clichéd, but I call it classic.)

“Shit,” Sammy said, as the two of them ran for cover under the nearest tree.

It began to rain harder.

Gael looked at Sammy, at her dew-kissed hair and the raindrops on her nose and her glasses, which were already fogging up. And all he wanted was to pause this moment, freeze it in place, just like this.

Their eyes met, and he could swear she was thinking the same thing.

Her lips parted ever so slightly, and he felt so nervous, like something might happen, something that could change everything.

But then she pressed her lips together and crossed her arms.

“I should go,” Sammy said.

“You don’t want to wait it out?” he asked. “It’s pouring.”

She shook her head quickly, making it clearer than ever that even if he wanted more than friendship, she didn’t.

And without another word, she took off into a run down the brick sidewalk.

To Gael’s surprise, the rain stopped almost as soon as she was gone. And so he crossed Franklin and headed toward Henderson Street, trying not to be too disappointed by her sudden departure.

He took another sip of his hot chocolate, but it had already gone cold.





gael’s netflix queue, pre- and post-sammy


Pre:


2001: A Space Odyssey

Alfred Hitchcock Presents

Reservoir Dogs

Moonrise Kingdom

Breaking Bad: Seasons 1–6