Out of Grasp

“I’m pretty sure Steve Martin doesn’t age,” Tori said, shoving a handful of popcorn into her face.

“I feel like hes always had that silver hair.” Tori and Melanie agreed with me, nodding their heads.

“He’s probably immortal.”

“Like Dumbledore?”

“Dumbledore’s not immortal. Did you ever watch the movies?” I shook my head at Mel’s question. “Well, he gets killed.”

“That’s just a minor technicality. He was really old and died a major badass,” Tori declared.

“That is true.”

On a Saturday night, most girls wouldn’t be sitting around watching Cheaper by the Dozen or talking about Harry Potter while shoving their faces full of junk food. But then again, Tori, Melanie, and I aren’t like most girls.

We were at Melanie’s apartment, squished on her small couch under a large comforter together. The coffee table in front of us was full of sweets; candy, cookies, soda, ice cream, whip cream, chips. Basically every heart attack inducing snack ever made.

“If I ever soaked my sister’s boyfriends pants in raw meat like that, my sister would probably slice my head off.”

I looked over at Tori with an amused look. “Uh, Tor, you don’t have any siblings.”

“…..oh, right.”

I leaned my head back against the couch, a laugh slipping through my lips. Melanie grabbed the already half eaten bag of Doritos and grabbed a handful out of the bag, stuffing them all in her face at once. Crumbs fell onto her chest and the blanket and she brushed them off with a grunt.

“You’re going to be so fat if you keep eating like that,” Tori grimaced.

“You’re eating all the same food that I’m eating!”

“You’ve eaten twice as much as Em and I combined.”

“Do you have a black hole for a stomach?” I asked.

“Are you two saying you wouldn’t like me if I was bigger? You guys are shallow!”

“I am not shallow,” I defended with a laugh, shaking my head.

“You are so shallow.”

“And you are so annoying.”

She just let out a laugh before pinching my arm. I yelped, grabbing my arm and looking over at her. She smirked over at me and cocked her head, raising an eyebrow, daring me.

“Did you really just pinch me?”

“I did.”

“That hurt you bitch.”

She shrugged her shoulders, “Oops.”

“Oops?! I’ll show you oops!” I grabbed the pillow from behind me and smacked her in the face with it. Her jaw dropped and she looked around for something to hit me with, but there was nothing within arms reach. “Ha! I win.”

“Winning!” Tori shouted, pointing to Charlie Sheen on the TV. “God, I love Two and Half Men.”

“What happened to our movie?”

“It got boring, so I changed the channel.”

“I was enjoying it. Put it back on.”

“Mmm, how about no?”

“I’m going to punch you.”

“I’d like to see you try!”

“Hey! I’m in the middle of you two. No one throw anything,” I ordered, sending them each a warning glance.

“Oooh, snappy.”

“She’s definitely breaking out of her shell.”

“A little too much. Maybe we should send her back in?”

“Oh God,” I mumbled, shaking my head.

“I prefer Melanie thanks.”

Tori and I both looked over at Melanie, who sat staring at us with a straight face. We all burst into laughter, our eyes watering and our stomachs cramping.

“So, Emily,” Melanie began, once our cackling had died down. “What’s going on with you and John?”

“I-“

“And don’t even try to deny it. Everyone and their mom saw you two at the beach the other day,” Tori interrupted.

“I’m pretty sure my mom wasn’t there…”

Tori sent me a glare, “You know what I mean.”

“I don’t really know. We aren’t dating or anything, we’re just…having fun.”

“I remember those days with Pat.”

Tori leaned forward and looked over at Melanie. “You and Pat never had those days. From day one you two were inseparable.”

“He’s just so cute! We’ve been dating for almost a year and a half and not once have we had a fight.”

“Well, honestly, how could you even fight with him?” I questioned. “He’s got this baby face that just makes you want to pinch his cheeks and coo.”

“If he ever heard you say that, he would throw such a bitch fit.” Melanie rolled her eyes.

“What about those hears of his! Oh my god, it’s like the human form of Dumbo.”

I bursted out laughing as Tori shook her head, smiling and chewing on a stick of red licorice. Melanie rolled her eyes and bit her lip to fight away a smile, threatening to break through.

“Oh! X-Men! Put that back on!” I snatched the remote from Tori’s hand and went back three channels, where X-Men was playing on Fox.

“I’d like to be Storm,” Tori said, “Shooting lightning and shit from like, my fucking wrists.”

“Your mixing her up with Spiderman. She doesn’t shoot anything from anywhere. It’s all mental.”

“The point is, I would like to be able to change the weather.”

“Buy a weather machine.”

“Yeah, because those exists.”

“Okay! Quiet!” I demanded. Tori and Melanie each mocked me before turning their attention to the TV screen.



"God, that movie is so good," I mused, stretching my arms over my head. "It makes me want to inject some liquid metal shit into my body."

"Yeah, but too bad Wolverine is the only person in the world that experiment could work on," Tor said, pouting and doing a tear motion down her face.

"Awe, you’re right! My dreams are ruined!”

"Cheer up," Mel said, clapping me on the shoulder, "There may only be one Wolverine in the world, but there's also only one Emily Daniels in the world," she said jokingly, motioning her hands.

"And that is all the world can handle.”

I looked over at Tori and glared at her. “You are just such a life downer.” Then a thought hit me and my eyes widened. "What if I have a clone?" I gasped.

“We are never exposing you to sci-fi movies again," Mel shook her head, laughing all the while.

“Think about it! Right now, there could be an exact replica of you all the way in…fucking China!”

“She’s not going to shut up about this for weeks.”

“We should set out to find our clones.”

“Maybe we should just stick her in a closet.”

“Oh oh oh! What if their life is completely different from ours?!”

“She’d break out somehow with even more psycho ideas.”

“I hope they aren’t prostitutes!”

Laughter erupted from the three of us at my outburst. We spent the rest of the night watching movies, eating more than our stomachs could handle, joking around and playfully arguing. We didn’t go to sleep until that sun had already risen and by then we were passed out cold, curled up on the small couch.