Watched

Sometimes we’re the show.

Fridays used to be for parties. Then they were for drinks with friends, even if there were only two of us. These days, Fridays are for flopping onto the couch and embracing the inevitability of my surrender to comfort.

By six o’clock I was already in sweatpants and a t-shirt. Not bad for a workday that ended at four. I readied my nest of blankets, sank in, and lifted a mug of hot tea. The remote clicked. Blue light flooded the room, casting an alien hue. I began my scroll.

Crime drama? Rom-com? Zombies, it would be.

Somewhere into the third episode, the tea failed its one job of providing comfort, and I began a mental inventory of what sweet treats might be in my kitchen. Thirty seconds of dialogue passed before I decided: cookies. Zombies and cookies- why not?

I paused the show. The lead character froze with his mouth wide open, mid-sentence, hand raised, eyes squinting into the distance. It was unflattering. I smiled. Childish, maybe, taking pleasure in someone else’s crap moment, but it reminded me even celebrities can look dumb. Proof they’re regular people under all that fame.

“Sorry, dude,” I teased, tossing the remote on the couch. “You’ll have to stay unattractive for a minute.”

The cookie selection turned out to be less impressive than I’d hoped. As I made my choice, I wondered if celebrities ever picked out their own cookies. If not, who did? And what did a celebrity grocery list look like?

Cookies in hand, I returned to the living room. As I moved toward the couch, I glanced at the TV. My eyes swept past the screen, then stopped.

I screamed, clamping a hand over my mouth. The other hand crushed the stack of cookies, chocolate scattering across the floor.

Everything was paused as I’d left it, except his eyes.

They were on me.