I arrive at Cinema Nova fifteen minutes early.

I feel nervous.

I walk to the toilets.

Everything is off-white and the fluorescent light is flickering.

In the mirror I look at the space between my eyes, not focusing on any feature specifically but observing myself generally, and I think: you’re a twenty-five-year-old guy working in a warehouse with no specific goals or direction.

And I continue standing there, leaning forward with two hands on the edge of the sink, realising how insane it is to have no real problems, to be alive, to be living in Australia at this moment.

And I think about being with my family in Peru, that trip we took the summer I was fourteen, and how, as we were waiting in some bus terminal watching Mr Bean in Spanish on a flickering television, Dad told us he’d been made redundant, and how, hiking towards Machu Picchu, somewhere between the Peruvian Andes and the Amazon Basin, we shared a Snickers bar in the heat, and how he put his arm around me, and how we didn’t say anything for a while, and how people walked around us, smiling, and we smiled back, and how we stared straight ahead, watching this giant shadow rise up from the valley beneath us, with the clouds moving quickly around and over the sun. I remember how good it felt to stand there, how I felt strong, supported, and Dad said, ‘This is so neat,’ and I kept nodding my head and saying, ‘It is. It really is.’

When I leave the toilets I feel nervous again, and I wonder whether I should look busy.

Like, maybe being busy is an attractive quality.

I think: get out your iPhone.

No.

Put it away.

I want to be the image of someone who is content to wait.

In front of me, I watch a guy join the line for the candy bar — except I don’t think he meant to.

He was walking slowly with his head down, staring at his phone, and then he just stopped walking and became part of it.

Someone tapped him on the shoulder and said, ‘Are you waiting?’

And I wanted to know.

I wanted to know if he was waiting for someone.

I wanted to know if he was waiting for something to happen.

I wanted to witness this grand, movie-like scene, maybe directed by Baz Luhrmann, in the middle of Cinema Nova, where the guy removed his headphones and many dancers formed a human pyramid, where they picked him up and moved him vertically over their bodies, with lights flashing in time to the beat of a man now standing on the candy-bar counter, smashing a cymbal, yelling, ‘Hey! Hey! Hey!’ before dropping to a dead silence, and, with sequin vests shimmering, everyone would hold their breath as the guy opened up to a complete stranger, pausing and smiling, articulating that sometimes he felt sad for no reason, and that he felt guilty — no, stupid for feeling sad — and he would open his arms and look around … and I wanted to imagine a camera moving out at great speed from the cinema and then rising, rising so quickly over Melbourne, the lights of the city at night reflecting and distorting over the Yarra.

I look towards the doors, and Lisa walks through them.

My heart goes from beat, beat, beat to beatbeatbeatbeat, and she waves and I wave back.

My mouth goes dry.

I think: straighten your back.

There’s not enough time.

When Lisa gets close enough, she says, ‘Hey.’

And I say, ‘Hey.’

Smiling.

We hug.

We stop hugging.

She smiles.

I say, ‘Should we get our tickets?’

And she says, ‘Yeah.’

We walk to the ticket counter.

I feel jittery.

I think: be a man.

At the ticket counter, I say, ‘Two student tickets to Spring Breakers, please.’

Lying about the student part.

Having cleared my throat already so that I sound confident and masculine, but maybe also still a little squeaky, a little broken — or not yet broken, but on my way to being broken.

Cynical and studied enough to understand that things always break.

And, staring at the ticket seller, who is staring at a computer, I think: come on. Give me this.

The guy says, ‘Two students for Spring Breakers.’

Not looking up from the computer.

And I think: look up.

No, don’t.

No, do.

Look up.

Look at me.

Look at the effort I’ve made.

Look at the effort I’ve made for this discount.

Look at the effort I’ve gone to so that I can impress Lisa.

Look how I’ve parted my hair like a student would.

Look how I’m pretending to fumble through my wallet with my eyes downcast, like I’m looking for my student ID.

Look at me.

PAY ATTENTION.

PLEASE.

My hands begin sweating.

I want to hide them in my pockets because it seems safer than keeping them out.

The guy looks up.

He smiles.

And I put some money into his hands and he hands me two tickets.

We walk into cinema six.