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disappears. Hugging myself to warm up my bare arms, I walked across the hardwood to the couch, plopped down, and wrapped myself in the afghan draped over the cushions. Snatching up the remote from the coffee table, I flipped on the TV and scrolled to the movie channel listings.
    Perfect timing. A bad old horror movie was about to start. I selected the channel and cranked the volume up, letting the surround sound fill the front room and chase away the freaky silence.
    I flipped open my phone and dialed reedy. Megan picked up right away.
    â€œHello?”
    â€œHi!” I sounded way too chipper. I coughed and attempted to tone it down. “Hey, are you near a TV?”
    â€œUh, yeah,” Megan replied from the other end. “Why?”
    â€œWell, we haven’t watched a movie by phone in forever , so I thought, if you’re not busy, we could now.”
    Silence. I bit my lip, waiting.
    â€œLet’s do it,” Megan finally said. “I was just reading the internet anyway.”
    I let out a shaky breath and smiled to myself. Okay. So far so good. Megan didn’t sound annoyed or anything, at least. In fact, I could almost hear the grin in her voice.
    The other end crackled, and I heard shuffling as Megan moved through her house to get to the TV. I switched the phone to my other ear.
    â€œOkay, what are we watching?” Megan asked.
    â€œLook for Urban Legend ,” I told her. “It’s like bad Scream fan fic, so prepare to mock mercilessly.”
    Megan laughed. “Anyone famous in it, or is this one of those movies where this is the only thing on the actors’ IMDb pages?”
    â€œActually, Joshua Jackson from Fringe is in this,” I said. “And the lead singer from Thirty Seconds to Mars. Sometime in the past decade they decided to trade hairstyles, too.”
    â€œSo weird.” Megan laughed.
    We watched the opening sequence, squealing in glee when we recognized Horror Movie Icon Brad Dourif as a stuttering gas station attendant, and then openly wondering how smart the killer must be to decapitate someone who is currently driving a car that he is also in. Then came much mocking of some truly cracktastic acting.
    It really felt, for that half an hour, like we were back to normal. We’d watched movies like this tons of times—not always by phone, sometimes it was by IM, but when we couldn’t hang out and watch something together, it was the next best thing. There was nothing I found more fun than finding a movie Megan had never heard of and getting to hear her unbridled first impression. And she was truly on her game that afternoon.
    â€œWow, this lead girl is a total downer,” she said from the phone. “She’s, like, sapping my will to live. I want the guy in the fur coat to come hang me from a tree right now.”
    I laughed. “I know, right? I’d much rather her roommate, Sort of Horror Movie Icon Danielle Harris, be the lead. No one expects the angry goth girl to survive.”
    â€œOh wait, I know this one,” Megan said. “Danielle Harris is … uh…”
    I curled my legs up under me and smiled, even though Megan couldn’t see it. “You know this, come on.”
    â€œOh! Was she the little girl in the later Halloween movies?”
    I laughed again. “I’m proud. Truly the student is becoming the master.”
    Megan giggled—actually giggled!—at my cliché and then, for a few moments, we both went silent. From my TV and through my cell phone I could hear more bad acting, and Megan’s soft breathing.
    â€œYou know, Em, I missed this,” Megan said quietly after a moment. “I was beginning to think…”
    â€œI know,” I said. “I’ve missed it too. I’ve been way too busy lately to just … like, hang out.”
    â€œWell, you know how to reach me when you want to. This is a lot more productive than reading fan-boy rants on message