A Hopeless Case for Lost Causes
Wounded for Love — №9
The black and white movie plays in the background as I sit in the back row of the theater, waiting.
It’s another night under the Regime. The 24-hour cinema is the only perk in this sorry town anymore, though it shows films that have been out of vogue for decades now. Starlets dressed in gowns that would never make an appearance today walk in and out of the lives of men with mustaches and pipes holding substances that would get you thrown in prison now.
But it doesn’t matter. The censors make it all make sense in their heads how they can.
I shove a handful of popcorn into my mouth right before my eyes catch the silhouette of a woman coming into the same row as me. She’s dressed in a white Carer’s outfit — obviously having just finished her shift for the night — before she slides into the seat one down from mine.
Then her eyes meet mine, and I can feel her tiredness bleeding through the silence.
“Jemma?” I ask.
She nods.
“I thought you had bailed on me,” I say.
“No,” she murmurs, crossing her legs. “The truth is that I was afraid.”
“Afraid?”
