Page 17 of The Second Chance Cinema
“With someone else, I mean.”
Ellie feigned an aghast expression. “It’s not that kind of a theater.”
Drake’s foot released its hold on the brake, and the truck rumbled forward. “Careful,” Ellie snapped. They stopped inches from a minivan filled with teens late for their curfew.
“What if you loved one of those …sex people?”
“What if I loved a sex person?” Ellie crossed her arms over her chest. “Well, I didn’t. You, Drake, are actually my first big love.” Surprise took over his face, followed by something else. Pride. Then, only because the question had presented itself, Ellie asked, “What, did you have some running-through-a-field type love story before me that you never happened to mention?”
The fact that Ellie hadn’t loved anyone before Drake was unusual at her age, she knew. The idea of romantic love had reminded her of two gorillas she’d seen at a zoo. After Ellie observed them for a while, the female and male gorilla had started a food fight of sorts. She thought those gorillas represented what she had heard about marriage. Resentment built up as people spent a lot of years stuck together. Eventually, they started to throw food at each other.
Now that she was engaged to someone she loved, Ellie was much more hopeful.
Drake still hadn’t answered her question.
“So, you had some big love story before me, huh?” She crawled her hands up his back, deliberately playful. The topic of their past relationships was one Drake had avoided from the beginning. He wanted to focus onthem, he told her on their third or fourth date. It seemed novel at the time. Now, she couldn’t help but notice how quickly Drake changed the subject.
“It’s just … What if I did something that would make you see me differently? Like, what if I went cow tipping?”
“You would remember cow tipping. The cows are fine.” The car lunged forward again.
“I mean, the equivalent of cow tipping,” Drake said. “What if I made fun of someone? Broke some girl’s heart.”
Ellie squinted to try to see the menu, searching for a palatable option. If anyone were tipping cows, it would’ve been her.
“You have to admit the cinema is amazing,” Ellie told him, switching gears.
Drake sat with this a minute, then nodded in agreement. “Of course, it’s amazing,” he said finally. “I mean, I was a baby. I could see my mom again—young—and all the goofy expressions I made. So yeah, it’s amazing.”
Ellie was winning him over.
“But look, things are really good with us now. Right?” Drake asked. They were, but he didn’t wait for her response. “I don’t want to go hunting around our pasts to find something that messes with our future. What if we get into some big fight about what we see—something that doesn’t even matter now?”
They pulled up to the window, and Drake handed his credit card over, then set two lukewarm tacos on Ellie’s lap. He had a point, she knew. The cinema could change the way they saw each other. It could put a rift between them, bringing the past right home when they were supposed to be moving forward. But as terrified as she was for him to observe her life before they met, her need to know what she’d forgotten was stronger.
The taco verdict, Ellie decided after the first bite, was “less than fantastic.” Tomatoes spilled out onto the wrapper as she ate. They kept the conversation light while driving home, but Ellie wasn’t fully paying attention. In the driveway, Drake unbuckled his seat belt, opened Ellie’s door, and gave her a look she didn’t quite recognize.
“For the record, you are my only big love story, Ellie,” he said. “That’s why I want to protect this.”
The outdoor lights were dead, which was an unusual oversight on Drake’s part. Ellie lost track of his face in the dark. Their boots crunched over the stone path and up the front steps. Then, back inside the house, the same look she’d noticed before on Drake’s face came into view again. She could see it now, for exactly what it was.
He’d just lied to her.
Ellie’s insomnia was relentless that night. Drake was hiding something. She knew that anytime he concealed the truth, he was trying to avoid hurting her. But as Ellie had told him and displayed so many times, she wasn’t a jealous person. Life didn’t allow for a truly clean slate; people came with fascinating, complicated histories. People including herself. Whatever Drake was so nervous about her seeing, Ellie could handle.
How could she prove this to him?
Things would’ve been so much easier if there wasn’t a wedding on the horizon. Labels and rituals meant something to Drake. If she were already his wife, already committed to him officially, she had the sense he’d be more willing to go to the cinema together.If only, she thought, for the hundredth time.If onlythey had just eloped in Vegas a few months earlier, Drake would have more confidence that no matter what Ellie saw, she wasn’t going anywhere.
“I think we should elope,” Ellie had suggested as they dragged their suitcases over tired carpet and past a row of slot machines blinking a rainbow of lights.
“You’re serious?” They stepped onto the elevator. Drake rested his weight against a poster advertising a Salisbury steak special. The steak was gray and lined with wear. Ellie wished she hadn’t let Drake choose a hotel with a gray steak special. He’dwanted to plan the trip himself in honor of their engagement. It was thoughtful, so she’d let him.
The elevator dinged. Ellie followed Drake to a room at the end of the hallway. She was serious, she insisted. The possibility of getting hitched without the hassle of other people was tempting, wasn’t it? Drake considered the question as they unzipped their bags and swung the drapes open, revealing floor-to-ceiling views of the Strip under the relentless afternoon sun.
“Let’s do it then,” he said, looking out the window.
“Really?” she asked.
