Page 46 of The Second Chance Cinema
Ben had died, she learned, right there at the hospital. Her dad sat with her for a few minutes after he explained it again. He told her she was in the car with him, near the Grover exit. The other driver ran a red light. So far, it seemed like the other driver wasn’t drunk. It was just “one of those things.”
One of those things.
Ellie’s dad left the room. Her mom was somewhere down the hall. Ellie could hear her crying, she thought, or maybe it was somebody else. How many families were grieving in this space, at this precise moment? Losses wrapped around them like bad wallpaper. Grief pushed down on her chest and made it hard to stay in her body, but there was a tinge of something else there, too.
Guilt.
Ellie forced her eyes shut and tried to remember the accident. Sober driver. Red light. Grover. Sober driver. Red light. Grover. Grover, Ellie, and Ben—Ben who was such a good driver, wasn’t he? The best driver. Responsible. Wild in his whims, but never when it came to safety.
Which only pointed to one thing.
Sitting in the theater, Ellie realized there was a reason her mind had blocked out what happened. Her body was trying to protect her.
She was, as she’d always feared, to blame.
20
The prickle that formed in Ellie’s chest was like the tail end of a firework; hot to touch, fleeting, an ending. On-screen, the movie blurred, and Drake’s memory started to play, but Ellie was already standing, flinging the auditorium doors open, and moving down the curved stairwell through the pulsing red lobby. The prickle became pressure. Doom swirled above her head, but Ellie wasn’t going to give in to it. No, if she could get out of there fast enough, away from the theater, maybe she could outrun the memory.
Cold air stung her cheeks as she pulled on the heavy brass handles and burst out into the night. Ellie wrapped her coat tight around herself and started the descent down all the slick cobblestones. If only she could press rewind. Had her strategy of forgetting been so bad? Clarity was overrated. And at least, before that night’s showing, she didn’t have to live with the truth.
She had gone to the cinema hoping it would prove her fears wrong.
Instead, it had proven them exactly right.
Ellie felt herself pulled in by a big black coil. Mae’s Famous Scoops was on her periphery, but the world around her wasn’t real. She had the sense that if she reached out and touched anything—an iron bench or a wooden store sign—they would evaporate. Ellie was wound farther into the coil. The only comfort came from the glow of the theater growing dimmer and dimmer behind her.
“Ellie. Slow down.” Drake’s voice.
Drake.
He’d never see her quite the same way again, would he?
“Ellie?” His hands brought her shoulders to a stop. “I think you wore the wrong shoes for a chase sequence.” His humor was an attempt to speak her language. When tough things happened, Ellie leaned on levity. But right then, she didn’t want to make light of things. She started to move again toward an unknown destination. The idea ofawaygrew shinier in her mind. “Can, can you slow down?”
Ellie couldn’t slow down. She only wished her feet would move faster. Her heels got in the way as she darted toward the bottom of the alley, leaped through the open doorway, and returned to the street lined with whimsical storefronts. A beeping sounded in her ears. Drake’s truck was being unlocked. He ran ahead to grab the passenger door for her, sending out smoke signals with his breath.
“I can’t—” Ellie told him. She didn’t finish the thought, but Drake seemed to read between the lines. Ellie could not, under any circumstance, get inside a car after what they had just seen. Drake flicked his watch forward to check the time. He opened the trunk to rustle around for something and returned with a fleece blanket, which he draped around her like a cloak.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“It’s late,” he said, rubbing the soft material over her shoulders. “And cold.”
“So?”
His hands found his pockets. “So, everything around here is closed.”
“So—”
“So now you’re the queen of the blankets.” Ellie’s fingers started to thaw. Drake’s thumb brushed her face and rubbed offsome of her tears. “I’m here,” he said. “Whenever you’re ready to talk.”
“The rules,” she reminded him.
“I think this is a good moment to press pause on those.”
Ellie knew she was closed off when it came to sharing her inner world. People before Drake had hinted at this. Lucas, one of her boyfriends in her twenties, had described her as a castle. She was beautiful, he’d told her, but out of reach, full of mysterious hallways and secrets. His assessment was right, she worried. Yet, Drake had just seen it all. She feared he’d love her less after learning the truth. But no, he was standing on the castle draw-bridge, waiting to be invited in.
Where should she start? Ellie’s mind strained to hold on to every detail about Ben. It was important, she recognized this time, to preserve the nuances of her brother. Because she had promised she wouldn’t forget him, and she had been failing at that.
