Page 100 of Nothing Like the Movies

I sighed and nodded.

“Do you trust me?”

I nodded again, and he dropped his hand and said, “So here’s the thing. I started interviewing Sarah and her mom in the car, but decided to scrap it because the mom has verbal diarrhea and overshared a lot that I don’t think Bennett would want in the doc.”

“Okay…?” I wondered what she’d shared, but I also knew I was better off not knowing.

“But, like, it was insane stuff. Stuff that you need to see.” He unlocked his phone and held it out to me. “Watch it. It’s only, like, four minutes long.”

I am dying to, but I can’t.“Clark, I don’t want—”

“I’m going to go inside and smooth things over so your friends don’t kill me,” he said, setting his phone in my hands as he spoke over me yet again. “The company line will be that you and I have agreed we’re better as friends, and all is well. You’re on a phone call and will be in, in a couple minutes. Got it?”

I looked down at his phone and wondered what I was going to see. “Okay.”

“The worst that can happen is that nothing changes,” he said quietly, reaching out a big hand to grab my shoulder and start pushing me toward the bench on the side of the building. He gently pushed me to a sit and tousled my hair. “But I feel like it’s important for you to see this.”

I watched him walk away, and after he went inside the ice-cream shop, it feltstilloutside.

Like everything in the universe was on pause.

I stared at the phone in my hand and didn’t know what to do. The best move would be tonotwatch it. Their words were for Clark, not me, so I had no business eavesdropping. I’d be doing therightthing by moving it into the trash file and forgetting what Clark told me.

I mean, what could Wes’s mom possibly say that would bethatimportant for me to see? I barely knew the guy anymore. Aside from a weak moment on a living room floor (that my brain would justnotlet go of), we were merely acquaintances now.

So why am I about to watch it?

My fingers were shaking as I took a deep breath and started the video.

Clark was in the front seat, and he was filming Wes’s mom, who was in the back seat behind Sarah.

She was looking directly at the camera as Clark asked her, “What doyouthink makes Wes’s story so special?”

From off camera, Sarah said, “He has a sister who’s cool as hell.”

“Oh, I haven’t met her yet,” Clark said under his breath, but the camera stayed trained on Wes’s mom.

She crossed her arms, and said, “The fact that he survived everything that was thrown at him. Like, literally the fact that he’s not in a gutter somewhere is a triumph, right?”

That made me want to smile, her flair for the dramatic.

“Like, everyone just thinks his dad died, so he came home to help out and managed to make it back to baseball. They think that’s the story. But that’s not the story, kid.”

“Ma,” Sarah said. “Maybe don’t.”

“Whatisthe story, in your opinion?” Clark asked.

She tilted her head and narrowed her eyes, like she could see it playing out. “For starters, he felt like Stu’s death was his fault, so from the get-go, he’s had to deal with a lot of guilt.”

I felt my breath catch, and my eyes were fixated on the screen, dying to know more because I’d seen firsthand thatsomethinghaunted him. Some kind of heavy grief was eating away at him.

Clark sounded shocked when he asked, “Why would he think that?”

She gave her head a shake, like it was a sad story. “He called home, and they had an argument. Stu was bullheaded and pushy as hell when it came to baseball. So Wes got mad and said a lot of terrible things that he didn’t mean, including telling Stu he didn’t want him at his exhibition game, which we were already packed and ready to drive across the country for.”

I watched, frozen, dreading the rest.

Because his dad diedbeforethe exhibition game.

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