Page 24 of The Second Chance Cinema
“In my defense, that baking class was the worst. I’m pretty sure it’s why I get dodgy around kitchen stores.”
“Hey, speaking of pie—”
They’d debate splitting the strawberry rhubarb to stay ontheme, but eventually go with French silk instead.
“You were an adorable kid.” Ellie would reach her fork out for the first bite when the dessert came. “I mean, that whole Valentine’s Day fiasco took a boatload of confidence.”
“I wanted to make Sarah feel better,” Drake would admit, fighting off Ellie’s fork in jest. “I wouldn’t say I was confident. At all.” He’d raise an eyebrow. “Is anybody confident in grade school?”
Ellie and Drake would stay at the diner until the coffee stopped flowing and the pie case slowed its pastel orbit. Drake would drive them home. They would sing in the car like happy people do, too loud, off-key, a blissful melody.
But Ellie knew her diner fantasy was just that. A fantasy.
The rules they had set prevented them from talking about what they saw. Instead of opening up, they stood in the lobby and stared at each other in silence, attempting to process what they’d experienced in the privacy of their own minds. Together.
“Are you okay?” Drake asked beneath the great chandelier. Ellie could feel him searching her. Maybe he was stacking up the similarities between child Ellie and adult Ellie—how her hair had darkened from strawberry to a fiery red or the wrinkles that had set in at the corners of her eyes.
The parts of Drake that Ellie loved most had developed so young, she knew now. While other kids—herself included—were busy gossiping or pulling fire alarms, Drake was concerned about the feelings of people around him. Everyone else in his class had ignored the crying girl. Drake stopped to offer comfort and friendship without judgment.
“Are you okay?” Drake asked for the second time because Ellie still hadn’t responded.
“I’m great,” she said. A bingo spinner of letters jumbled inside her mouth, forming combinations that demanded to be spoken. She tightened her lips to keep it from happening.
“Are you sure?”
Ellie gave Drake a kiss on the cheek and set her head on his shoulder. “Yeah. Of course. Let’s head home,” she said.
But they didn’t head home right away. On the drive back, Drake took a wrong turn that let Ellie know they were on the same page. Even if the rules prevented them from talking about the memories, they could still celebrate what they’d seen. Sothey set out on a mission to track down more candy, cookies, and frozen pizzas than any reasonable adult would consume.
They had decided—without saying it outright—to stay kids for the night.
“Your carriage awaits,” Drake announced as he rolled out a shopping cart and encouraged Ellie to take a seat inside it. Her jaw dropped a little; he joked a lot, but rarely instigated mischief. The wheels rattled as they wound through the aisles fast enough to make the cereal boxes shift on the shelves. When they slid back out into the cold night, arms loaded with bags, Ellie reached in her pockets for her gloves, only to find them empty.
“My gloves!”
“You’re cold?”
“No. Yes.” Ellie moved toward the car. “I must have left my Good Luck Gloves at the cinema. I guess I set them on the seat or something.”
“We can go back,” Drake offered. He grabbed the passenger door for her and threw the bags into the backseat. They were her favorite gloves—the ones she’d worn the night she had met Drake, embroidered with little rosebuds at the wrists, providing zero warmth. But Ellie longed to be back home, with their couch and their junk food.
“It’s fine,” she said. “We’ll grab them next week. It’s not like the other customers will steal them, right?”
Junk food overtook their kitchen table when they got home. Ellie opened the bags of candy that didn’t go together, and Drake shuffled around for something in the hall closet. When he returned to the living room, his arms were loaded with knit blankets and a restorative sound machine Jen had gifted them, still unopened in its box.
“It plays owl sounds,” Drake said. He pulled the machine out and set the switch to “forest mode.” Fake owls hooted on the banks of a fake rippling stream. Nancy, who had been midnap, attempted to hoot back a response. “Now we just need a fort.”
It took only two chairs and a few throws to build a blanket fort. They ate their pizza inside it; gooey cheese burned the roof of Ellie’s mouth. While perched on their elbows at the entrance, Drake pointed to their ceiling and listed off names of indoor constellations he’d invented.
“Ceilingus Minor,” he said, in reference to a small crack he’d already repaired three times.
“Breathtaking,” Ellie admired. “Is this how you used to woo all the girls?”
“Oh yeah. I’m great with star stuff. Astronomy. That is what it’s called.” Then, “Hey.”
“What?” Ellie asked, not yet ready for the moment to end.
“I realized there’s something important I’ve never asked you,” Drake said.
