Where is a Bear when you need one?
It was the early 2000s; I had just broken up with my boyfriend of over eight years. We were still on good terms, which was a bonus since we were still each other’s emergency contact. I had started dating a mutual friend in our circle, and it was going well. I was living on my own for the first time in quite a while and was getting used to feeling safe on my own. My guard fish and frog were cute but not very aggressive unless you found a way to get into their tank.
We had a rather large circle of friends with a decent mix of couples and singles, guys and girls. It was nice. You always had someone to see a movie with or just goof off with. There was one guy who was perpetually single. We had all worked with him at some point and felt we knew him pretty well and brushed off his “nice guy” tendencies as anxiety and a little leftover teenage angst.
Being good x-lennainals, we tried to carpool to work and go on outings whenever the situation allowed. We tried to see a movie about once a month as a group, whoever could make it. It was our custom to digest the movie over food and drinks(thanks to whoever was our driver for that day).
This was a day and a movie like any other. My ex, my current boyfriend, our single buddy and a few other people were there. It was a Saturday a little after one pm when we went into the movie, we came out about…
