I shake my head to get the train of thoughts to stop running, or to slow down enough that I could continue to enjoy the movie. There was a scene that made my blood run cold.

The flashbacks had been slowly getting earlier into her life. We find out that the reason behind her drug fueled downward spiral was sexual assault. I felt bile rising up in my throat and tears in my eyes.

“Isn’t this supposed to just be a ghost story?” I ask the movie, plaintive. Of course, it couldn’t hear me though, it was a movie. I could have chosen to stop it, but I didn’t. I wanted to know how it ended.

In the end she ended up falling in love with one of the ghosts. She deiced to commit suicide so she could become another one of the ghosts that lived there. It was unfortunate that she had to find her happy ending in death, but it was better than the life that she had left behind.

After I turn the movie off it makes me pause. Would I be willing to die in order to be with someone? Have I ever even pretended to love anyone that much?

The answer was no, no I had never been in that kind of relationship, and I am not sure if I had ever wanted to be in a relationship like that. It just felt wrong to me, not romantic. You hear that cabin, this is not foreshadowing!

Taking this one step further I had never really had the option to be in a loving relationship at all. I moved around too much to be able to develop the kinds of crushes that most girls developed. It was something that always left me as an outsider.

It didn’t matter if I wanted to be friends with a certain group of people or not. I never had that background or foundation with them. Also, I had something else that was more important to me than other people.

I look over to where I assume Noah is and wonder what he is thinking. How did the movie impact him? It was a ghost story, but it hit on a lot of deep topics. Did he experience any of those things? What had his terror been, what had he been scared of? What was he afraid of now? What did he think of the love story? Did he think that it was realistic, or did he find it cheesy and thrown in because there has to be a love story in everything now?

The questions just led to more questions that kept popping into my head until it was too much. I wanted to ask him all about everything, but I needed some fresh air to sort out my own thoughts.

“I’m going to go get some air”. I say out loud, letting Noah and the cats know where I was going.

Bastet gave me a concerned, or at least that is what I thought it looked like? I flash a smile at them. “The movie just really spooked me or, was disturbing? It just hit a little to close to home, so… Yeah, fresh air.”

I pull myself off the couch, almost tripping over a blanket edge that was on the floor. I catch myself and try to take a normal step. “I meant to do that.” With that completely believable statement I left the room.

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For the rest of the movie Noah would go between watching with his full focus and wanting to pull the blanket over his head during the scarier parts. As much as he watched the movie he spent more time watching Aurora’s reactions.

The only people Noah had really been able to watch movies with had been some of the overnight nurses. He just hadn’t been close enough to anyone else, not enough to cuddle on a couch and watch a movie, especially a horror movie.

Was that what Aurora and him had been doing? Did this count as cuddling on a couch, I mean they weren’t really touching and there was plenty of space between them. There however had been a movie, and snacks. Holy guacamole, was this a date!?

He shakes his head at himself. What was it that he was allowing himself to think about? There had been no real possibilities of romance and he had accepted this. It would be forbidden love, between the living and the dead. He nodded his head and felt good that he had re-come to this conclusion.

He inwardly laughed at himself that this was where he had drawn the line.

As if sensing something, the smaller black cat looked over at him and stared. “Meow?”

“What do you know!”

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Leaving the area I make my way up onto the roof. It was evening so there was a chill to the air. I make an “eep!” sound as the cool wind caressed my skin.

It was colder than I was used to now. Something to reacclimate to for sure. I step back inside and grab the blanket, shaking it a few times, hard, before wrapping it around my body. Bundled up I make my way back up on the roof and look out across the sky.

I look up at the stars, twinkling in their own inky blanket. Ah, there was the big and little dipper, and over there? That was the constellation Orion. It brought a smile to my lips and a memory rose up in my mind.

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“Look up there, at the sky. At the stars.”

“I love the stars!” I say, a big and goofy grin on my face. “They are so pretty!”

“Pretty just like you are.” He says placing a hand on top of my head. “Some of the stars make up special shapes in the sky and have stories to them. That one there is the big dipper. It is also known as Ursa Major and is big bear that protects us up in the sky!”

“How did it get up in the sky”?

“A really long time ago there was a big and kind bear that looked over the people in its area. The bear was so kind that it let the people eat all of the food around it, not saving any for itself. Eventually the bear got so hungry that it started seeing fish flying in the sky.

“The bear decided to chase the fish. As it leapt up its feet stuck to the sky, allowing it to run higher and higher. It worried about the people that it was supposed to be protecting, but knew that it would be able to watch over even more people if it was up high in the sky.

“Knowing this it ran up into the stars where it could eat all the fish that swim through the sky while looking down on its people.”

“Wow!” I said, not knowing that this was something that my dad had made up on the spot, and that it wasn’t one of the many stories that were actually attached to the big dipper.

“See the little stars under it that look really similar but smaller.”

“Yeah, right there!” I say, pointing up at them.

“The bear ended up falling in love up in the sky and that is the bear’s cub.”

“Yay, the big guardian bear doesn’t have to get lonely if it has its cub”!

“That’s right, though it does have to share all those tasty flying fish.” Dad said and ruffled my hair. After that Mom called to us so we raced each other back inside.