Then, from around the corner, appeared a face Mia did recognize. Oh Christ. Lou was going to the same movie as she was. She quickly looked away, then peered back from under her lashes. She was hidden by a group in front of her, so she could observe how Lou greeted the woman who had arrived earlier. Their hello was awkward. Not the greeting of people who’d known each other for a long time. A hesitant kiss on the cheek, not sure where to put the hands, stalling conversation and shy smiles.

This was a date.

Wait a minute. That woman. Now that she tilted her head and shot Lou a seductive smile… Had Mia seen her on Tinder the other day? She’d been feeling agitated because of the events with Lou that week, so she’d let Pat set up a profile for her on the dating app and then had promptly proceeded to swipe left on every single picture she saw. Truth be told, she had stalled at the woman who was now buying drinks for herself and Lou, had found something intriguing about her, but Mia didn’t need a dating app to get a date. She’d go to the Newtown Hotel on a Tuesday night, order a beer, sit at the bar, and get her date the old-fashioned way—as opposed to quickly judging someone simply on how she looked—thank you very much.

So Lou was on Tinder as well—if she was right about this set-up. She was only guessing, and she was giving herself a lot of leeway in her guessing game, but it could be possible. This was the twenty-first century after all, and everything was possible.

It was her bad luck that the movie she’d chosen to see today was only playing at this theatre. It had obviously appealed to Lou and her date as well, making them end up in Mia’s stomping ground. Her safe space, where she was the new Mia and nothing of the old one was let in.

Thank goodness the very nature of sitting in a movie theatre meant surrendering to the dark and to the lives depicted on the screen. Mia hoped the movie would be absorbing enough to allow her to forget about Lou’s presence. If not, a Sunday afternoon visit to the Newtown Hotel was on the cards. And she wouldn’t try to get a date with anyone there—not only because Sundays were not a favorite going out day amongst Newtown lesbians, but mostly because a date was the last thing on Mia’s mind when she was in a mood like this, forced upon her by the actions of her past self.