Chapter 6 : The Movie

“Hey sorry! I had a visitor! Did you drop by?”

Jacob woke up with a bad hangover early afternoon the next day. The scene that he saw at Alexandra’s house is still vividly clear in his mind. Albert, the guy they met at the mall last week was at their house in the late hours of the night, and they seem to speak quite comfortably with each other. Alexandra even served him coffee. 

He must have been caught up in the moment and misjudge things. The second he witnessed the scenario last night, the coward inside him got the best of him. His mind went completely blank as if no information or reasoning was being processed aside from what his eyes were looking at.

With a heavy heart, he went back home, chugged out all his stockpile of beers which are supposed to be his supply for the whole week. Since he’s controlling himself to one bottle of beer per day, out of seven bottles, only one bottle remained unopen. The last half of the brandy that he is keeping for terrible insomnia nights was also emptied.

“Ugh!”, was the only sound he was able to produce as his headache felt like his skull’s about to break into two.

Topless, yanking his hair to a fist, he hung his towel to his right shoulder. He searched for his phone in the corners of the sofas but was unsuccessful in finding it. 

It’s just here.

Jacob told himself as he’s not in the mood to stress about anything. He proceeded to go to the kitchen to drink cold water from the fridge to clench his thirst. Luckily, he saw his phone, on the countertop beside the fridge. As he was chugging the water, he picked up the gadget, and tried to open it, but was failed. The battery must have drained out overnight. Before heading to the shower, he stopped by his room and plugged his mobile phone into the charger. 

He felt refreshed after taking a shower. Drying his hair with a towel, he checked his phone again. After the short welcome clip when he opened his phone, he saw on the screen that he has one missed call and one message. Jacob decided to open who tried to call him few hours after returning home from Alexandra’s house, with the silent expectation that the caller was her. The woman who caused him to drink so much and basically the reason for his hangover.

Disappointed, he pressed the back button as soon as he saw that it was just Kevin. Effortlessly, he then proceeded to open the text message he received. His heart started pumping fast. It was from Alexandra.

Did she just look for him?

Still thinking about it, Jacob thought to himself, “Come to think of it, she also offered to make him coffee the last time he helped her carry her groceries”. Jacob, as he tried to analyze the situation. 

But that time is so late for a visit! He thought again, as he contradicted himself.

After a long pause, he types a reply to her.

“Hi! Sorry, I just woke up. Ah yes, but you didn’t come so I thought you were busy.”

“Haha! Sleepyhead! What time is it? You just woke up? I had a late-night visitor last night. If you remember Albert? My friend, who we bumped into last week at the mall?”

My friend? 

Jacob read the message once again. Her friend? Yes! It means he’s not someone special. Knowing the situation, Jacob was back to his usual self. Happy as put his doubts to rest, he replied and planned on how to invite her to watch the movie together.

“Hehe! Yeah! I just woke up, because had a lot to drink last night. Oh, so he was your visitor. I see. By the way, I rented the Norweigian Wood movie on the internet. Do you want to watch it together say next Saturday?”

“Wow! That’s great! I actually started reading that last night, and I’m reading it till now.”

Alexandra replied to him. Jacob unconsciously held his breath for a moment upon receiving her reply. Does he have to ask again or is that a no, because she didn’t answer his question. He felt a slight relief upon seeing that she started typing again.

“Hmmm? Sounds good! By then, I’ve finished reading it. Just about time. Where are we watching though?”

“Are you OK with our place?”

“OK, sure. But we might disturb Kevin?”

“Oh? Don’t worry about him. We don’t care about what each other does. Lol! Also, he just went to a week-long conference in Cebu, so we’re all good.”

“Haha! You guys! Ok then. Waaah! I’m excited.” Alexandra attached an excited bear sticker afterward which made him chuckle a little.

“Me too! I’ll see you next Saturday then? Around afternoon? So it’s not too hot, and not too early too.”

Alexandra forward him another sticker that looks like an excited fox sticker punching the air up high while jumping, with a “Let’s Go!” on the side. 

***

A week has passed, Alexandra has agreed to watch the movie adaptation of Norwegian Wood. The book that they both read. 

Interestingly, it seems to her that it's a very dark story but left her with such a positive outlook. It's a story about how the sorrow of losing people we love leaves a scar on us for the rest of our lives. And no matter how little we think of ourselves as a person, we still make an impact on those people that surround us. Life is hard, life is tough. But life is a gift. As long as we live, there is hope. Because of hope, we are able to dream. A dream that one day, we will be able to achieve what we've so long wanted to achieve, what we’ve wanted to feel, what we’ve wanted to be. Everything is going to be fine, as long as we try. 

Alexandra was brought back to reality by Jacob's text.

"You ready? I'm outside your gate."

Huh? 

"What? Are you picking me up? Haha!"

"Hehe! Well, I bought pizza, and your house is on the way, so I thought we could walk together."

"Oh Ok. One second, I'm going out now."

Alexandra decided to tie up her hair to a high ponytail. She just opted for a white t-shirt and denim shorts one span above her knee - not too short, not too long, and her usual slippers.

The moment she opened the gate, she saw Jacob, wearing a dark ball cap, a white v-neck t-shirt with dog paw prints, and dark blue short pants. On his wrist is a big black leather watch that highlights his big strong arms and some veins on his knuckles as he was holding his phone in the other hand, and two boxes of pizza on the other.

She smiled upon seeing him, trying to hide her attraction. As she was about to approach him, she was cut by Albert suddenly calling her to whom Jacob also look at.

"Hi, Alex! Where you are guys going?" Albert asked as he was walking towards them.

"Oh hey, Albert! We're going to watch a movie. You remember Jacob, right?" She responded while pointing her thumb to the latter.

Albert looks up at Jacob, and Jacob looks back. Both of them nod at each other as they met each other's eyes.

“I see…” he responded while rubbing his hands.

After a short pause, before Albert even begin to continue saying anything more, she turned to Jacob and invited him to get going.

“Let’s go?” to which the guy agreed.

She looked back to Albert to bid goodbye. He waved his hands at her as a response to her waving at him. Afterwhich, she turned her back to him and went their way. 

The room was dark when they arrived at Jacob's apartment. He put down the pizza and headed to the window to open the curtains. Alexandra remained standing by the door. She was waiting for him to ask her to come in. 

They were taught to behave in someone's house when they were young. The good manners and right conduct that were taught to them when they were young is still instilled in them until now.

As soon as the daylight from outside entered the room, Jacob found her standing by the door and asked her to come in.

“ Ok, thank you!”

She then walked in front of the counter to where the pizza was. She was acting to help him prepare their setup when Jacob opened the fridge and showed her the different kinds of drinks they have.

In the fridge are bottles and cans of beers, different brands of soda pops, and different flavors of juices.

“Wow!”, amazed, Alexandra complimented. “You have a lot of drinks, why is that?”, she continued.

“Well, it’s just Kevin and I love taking one drink everywhere we go in the house. Even when we’re just watching TV, we just like having something different to drink that’s within our reach. What do you want to drink?”

“Oooooh! Interesting! I’ll have coke, thanks!”

“I’ll have coke too!” 

Jacob happily took two cans of coke from the fridge, picked up the boxes of pizza, and headed to the living room to where she followed.

“Let’s just take some more from the fridge if we ran out, so it’s still chilled”.

“Yup, better!” she answered, as they were walking towards the living room.

They both automatically sat down on the carpeted floor just right beside the center table. 

Jacob crawled towards the setup laptop that was connected to the TV set and started playing the movie.

She on the other hand, slowly became comfortable as the movie played, while they eat, drink, and talk in every scene.

***

As expected, the movie was dark as the novel, but it was a good watch. However, Alexandra felt embarrassed as she was not able to suppress her tears every time the sad scenes come up. She felt Jacob’s stare on her peripheral vision, looking at her, and smiling. He’s making fun of her in his mind for sure. There were also some awkward moments when they were both watching a scene intently, and the characters will kiss. So many times where they will both lock the eyes of each other and will feel embarrassed as soon as the other breaks the scene. Nevertheless, the movie left her heart feel heavy.

Alexandra stayed at their apartment for a few more hours. They sit, talk, and discuss the wisdom and lessons they’ve learned in the book. They also critique it together. Something, she’s really happy about, since she doesn’t really have a friend who’s into books. It’s fun now that she can get to share her opinions about the books that she’s reading.

She plans to leave at six o’clock so they started tidying up. They were both in the kitchen as she was helping him wash the plates and glasses they used. Jacob is the one scrubbing, she’s in charge of rinsing. Due to her wet hands, and his foamy hands, the saucer plate slipped in between as they were exchanging it. To save the saucer from falling, they both made an effort and tried to catch it simultaneously. Luckily, the fragile hardware fell to Jacob’s hand and was safely clipped in between his fingers. Apparently, it is not only the saucer plate that he caught but also her hand.

Time seemed to have stopped as they both got caught up in the moment. Alexandra looked up at him and saw him staring intently at her as if he’s seeing something bewitching. She found her hands being caressed by his foamy big hands that gave her a different kind of pleasure. This is the first time that someone has touched her this way. Where she can feel the emotions seems like it’s being transferred by the sense of touch. To her surprise, she is rather accepting it. The more she looks up at him, the more she is drawn to his beauty. Top it all up with the sensation of his hand caressing hers, she thought, she must have been really attracted to this man. Alexandra found herself closing her eyes and inhaling a whole chunk of air, as she saw his face coming closer to hers.