I was dressed in a casual striped, cropped shirt and blue jeans, letting my brown hair naturally loose. My father was going to come back home at midnight because of his burning, senseless passion to waste time on his company. I decided to take full advantage of his absence, agreeing to go to the cinema to watch 'Invisible Man' with Tony, Allison and Isaac.

The cinema was a fair twenty-minute walk from my apartment and I sheepishly arrived just five minutes before the seven pm show. Under the flickering streetlight, Isaac stood with a soft glow on his face, his eyes searchingly looking for me. I haphazardly crossed the dark street and our eyes connected, both of us smiling at the same time.

"Hey, it's been such a long time seeing you," I jested, having seen him merely an hour ago at Bailey's Nuts. "Are Ally and Tony late? The movie's going to start in another two minutes and I swear that I won't miss even a tiny bit of it."

"You don't have to," he said a bit coyly, shifting the weight of his body from one leg to another. He was smartly dressed in a plain white t-shirt, black jeans and white sneakers. His bouncy curls were neatly arranged to the right side on top of his head. "They aren't coming---" He paused for a second, gauging my countenance. "---because Tony had a surprise which was to celebrate Ally's birthday today at a lavish restaurant. After the disaster that had happened. Just the two of them."

"Then why drag us into their lovey-dovey plan? We don't even get to eat good food at a "lavish" restaurant!" I complained for the sake of it for I knew that I would shamelessly choose the movie with Isaac over eating out with the three of them in a heartbeat. But I had to conspicuously appear that I wasn't interested in what seemed like a movie date.

A kind of sudden uncertain sadness swam in the two misty clouds of his eyes. "I bought the tickets, but if you want to cancel---"

"Oh fuck," I interrupted, spontaneously flashing the screen of my phone to him. "It's seven! We'll have to step on people's feet to get to our seats." His face relaxed to a pleased smile like a Cheshire cat's and both of us hurried inside. To my chagrin, he had booked the corner seats, prized thrones for couples wanting to makeout. However, Isaac and I were far from a couple and I didn't want us in that uncomfortable situation. "Let's sit right here. The middle seats are the best for viewing."

"What if we're sitting on other people's seats who are yet to come?" he whispered in my ear, leaning closely behind me.

"There's fun in hogging, isn't there?" I flumped on the red seat, gesturing him to sit. He dubiously sat beside me and I gently patted his arm. "The movie has started, no one will come now. And if they do, let's pretend to be deaf and our eyes focused on the subtitles. They'll give up their seats for physically impaired people."

He chuckled quietly and I removed my hand from his arm. "Your altruism melts my heart, Ana."

"Mine too, if I had a heart." The moment we let ourselves surrender to the movie, two drooping figures loomed over us. 

"These are our seats," an old man claimed, already vexed. His physiognomy screamed for a challenge. His old wife said something incoherent and squeezed his arm, trying to placate him. "Did you hear me or not? These are our seats. Look at the tickets." He thrust the tickets in front of Isaac and my faces as we tightly gripped each other's hands, suppressing our giggles and pretending to be deaf and mute at the same time. "Can you not hear me? Are you both deaf?"

Isaac and I both nodded simultaneously.

"We can sit there, there's plenty of space," the wife said, bothered how certain heads in the cinema had turned in our direction. "Come, Richard, let's not create a scene. Let's sit there."

"They think of us like we're clowns!" he barked, glaring down at both of us. "You kids these days have no respect! Zero respect!"

Someone from behind us shouted, "Sit down suckers!"

"Sorry, I can't do this anymore," Isaac said, apologetically letting go of my hand and getting up. "We were just playing, sorry. Here are your seats."

I groaned, ignoring the old man's reprimand and shifting to the corner seats with Isaac.

"I'm sorry," he mumbled as we both sat down, eyes now glued to the screen."I tried my best, but man, he looked like he would strangle us."

"I was surprised you lasted so long," I said lightly. "You did the right thing because we were this close to getting kicked out."

"We should keep quiet or else we'll definitely be kicked out."

"Yeah, you should!" Someone shouted from behind us again, causing me to bite my lips from laughing irrationally. I knew that I was the biggest hypocrite in this world because if anyone would dare utter a word in the cinema, I would make it my moral duty to shush them. Over and over till they obey my shushes.

The intense movie made sure that I didn't chat with Isaac, just occasional comments that I would find necessary to pass based on my impressive critiquing abilities. In the middle of the movie, my phone rang loudly and I fumbled with it, trying to silence it. The movie was horrifyingly gripping and as I blinked at the screen which showed a call from my mother, I struggled to make sense of why she decided to remember me. My silenced phone buzzed continuously till I accidentally swiped right instead of left, picking up the call.

"I'll go out," I mouthed to Isaac while holding my phone near my ear, deliberately stomping on the old man's feet on my way out. "Hello? Yeah, yeah, I can hear you now." My mum wailed, a screechy noise and I thought that my ears were playing tricks on me. "Uh . . . Hey?"

"I lost my child! My child! Your baby brother!" she cried out, sniffing in between. "I had a miscarriage, Mariana. Oh Lord, help me . . . "

"Mamá?" I hadn't said that word in years. It felt foreign on my tongue. "Where . . . Where are you now?"

"At the-the hospital. Dave has gone to bring me coffee and you're the first person I wanted to tell this to, mi amor."

"Why?" I asked shakily, fiddling with the buttons on my shirt. They were perilously weak and with one easy pull, I could detach them. I didn't wish to be that button in her life, getting pulled apart by her doting words.

She seemed disconcerted by my question. "Why? It was your baby brother!"

I recalled my hand on her belly at the wedding, my dead, baby brother kicking at me. I freaked out and turned to Sam for comfort. Then, I cursed the baby and my mother's life, wishing them nothing close to happiness.

I swallowed hard, tightening my clutch on the phone.

"I don't feel anything for him!" I burst out, losing my tolerance to listen to her sobs. "For me, he never existed, okay?"

The silence stretched between us and all I had to say was I'm sorry for our loss.

But it was her loss and it meant nothing to me. I wasn't sorry either. I didn't know what I was.

"I-I shouldn't have called---" Before she could complete the sentence, I thoughtlessly cut the call.