Page 65 of The Second Chance Cinema
Two!
“Yeah. You make me want to celebrate things. And I love that about you.”
One!
Someone shot Silly String out of a can. Cheers whooped across the bar, and people bumped into Ellie and Drake as they kissed, but it didn’t stop them. Another year together, the year of their wedding, was set in motion.
29
Drake’s plan for a fresh start was working. Some of the tension from the last movie had been washed away by the holidays; it was like a storm had dropped in and swept up the debris. They kept their conversations light. They finalized flowers for the wedding. They burned a roll of premade cookie dough, then scraped the seared edges off the pan while inventing real-life mysteries for Nancy to solve.The Case of the Scorched Chocolate.
But under the surface of the calm was a knowing that Drake couldn’t ignore. There were still two movies left to watch. Ellie would see the worst of it, of him, soon.
And when they sat down for the ninth movie that night, Drake learned that the worst was moments away.
TICKET NINE:HEARTBREAK
Drake glanced at Ellie in the seat next to him and gave her a nod of encouragement.This is all going to be okay, the nod was trying to convince her.I promise that what you saw in the photo album will make sense. But before he could get any of that out, the memory started to play.
Ellie was inside of a grief group. A circle of fold-out chairs was arranged at the heart of the depressing space; it must have been a school on summer break or community center. Vague inspirational posters plastered the walls.You’ve Got This. The Only Way Out Is Through.
Drake hated that she was there alone. But then, she wasn’t.
“I tried therapy, but it was too stuffy,” Ellie told the man in the white Stetson. Dark circles underlined his stoic eyes, and a tattoo of a crow perched on a black fence decorated his forearm. The man had about ten years on Ellie and the kind of smile that might inspire her to make bad decisions.
Cowboy Love Affair, Drake remembered from the plaque.
“Anyway, that’s how I ended up here,” Ellie said. The cowboy nodded. He told Ellie about his late wife before he shared his name. “I’m Hudson,” he said a few minutes later, reaching for a glazed cruller inside a cardboard box. “Give me a doughnut, and I’ll play nice anywhere.”
Neither of them spoke much in the meeting. When a woman went on a tangent about the printer at her office, which was somehow related to her grief story, Hudson squeezed Ellie’s leg. Her eyes noted his touch; Ellie was drawn to him more than to the string of casual boyfriends they’d seen in the other movies. When Hudson and Ellie walked out together after the meeting, she toyed with his brim. “What’s with the hat?” she teased.
“I’m still trying to figure out who I am without her,” Hudson admitted.
“So, now you wear hats?”
“Yeah. I’m trying a hat thing. Don’t knock it.” Hudson spun toward Ellie and tipped the hat. Then, he opened his passenger door to give her a ride. While they rode to Ellie’s apartment, he mentioned a cabin his parents didn’t use anymore. “It’s a short-enough drive to get glued to an audiobook—then—bam, you’ve arrived.” He went there to be away from everything. “I cook shit, blare the Lacrimosa movement, weep. It’s super healthy. I call it Grief Mountain.” Hudson made the motion of gliding up a mountain with his hand.
“Sounds depressing,” Ellie said. “I think that would be good for my writing. Although I tend to hate cabins. And bugs.”
Hudson leaned closer to her. “Think of it as a small lodge. What do you write about?”
“Complicated people and things,” Ellie told him without hesitation. “Tragedy.” Hudson straightened in his seat. “Not really. But I am interested in things on the brink of death.”
“That’s not dark at all.” He nudged her. “So …do you want to join me at Grief Mountain sometime, or what?”
Grief Mountain was rustic. Hudson’s parents had left their mark everywhere, fromWELCOME TO THE LAKE!signs to a statue of a proud bear holding a bass it presumably caught. Family photos clung to the wood-paneled walls of the living room, surrounding a flickering fire and suede couch.
While Hudson plated the complicated stir fry he’d “thrown together,” he shared more about his wife, Vanessa. They’d met at her friend’s bachelorette party where he had worked as the private chef. He and Vanessa chatted in the kitchen, then snuck a bottle of champagne out by the pool later that night. The bride was “so very pissed off” by the distraction.
“I can’t imagine what it’s like,” Ellie said. “Losing your first love.”
Hudson shook his head as he tasted the food. “My first love was Jade Needer.” He got up and ducked his head inside a few cabinets, then turned back to Ellie. “Speaking of needer. This foodneeds …something.”
“What a name.”
“Yeah,” he agreed, returning to the table with a jar of chili oil. “Yeah. But she inevitably broke my heart. So, I dated a lot. Et cetera.” Hudson made a hand gesture meant to explain away a series of life decisions. Then he drizzled some oil onto Ellie’s plate, even though she was midbite. “When I met Vanessa, I was ready. I was older. I had lived. I knewthis is the person for me.”He sighed. “I like to think that a first love is finding yourself in someone else. And a second love,” he said, looking right at Ellie, “well, the second love is just sharing the self you found with somebody new. The real self, of course.”
“So, you felt more like yourself when you were with Vanessa than with Jade?”
