Chapter 5
E verywhere.” Drake sighed. “I’ve looked everywhere.” He was on their couch, searching for internet proof that the cinema existed. “A few people mentioned a historic movie theater being in that spot, but I can’t even tell if it’s open anymore. There’s also no mention of what it shows. Or showed.”
“That makes sense,” Ellie called from the kitchen as she let Nancy out.
When she trotted back inside moments later, her fur was covered in a layer of dead leaves.
“If there was an old-timey cinema in our city, I would know about it. Also, this theater played our memories isn’t the kind of thing you normally find on review sites. ”
It was morning, and they still hadn’t slept.
Out the window, faint pink light brushed the rooftops of the other Queen Annes and Craftsman homes.
A lone runner glided down the sidewalk that opened up to the city skyline in silhouette.
Ellie sat on the couch, curled the toes of her wool socks over the coffee table, and began to pick the leaves off Nancy’s coat.
How many times had they missed out on this view by calling it a night too early?
“It feels like there should be a record of something so …” A tiny earthquake rocked his hand. “Unbelievable.”
Drake’s nerves reminded Ellie that there were two types of people: those who dove into the crevices of invisible things and those who confined themselves to the stories that fit the logic of daily life.
Ellie fell into the first camp. Drake was in the latter.
Getting along was so effortless for the two of them that she often forgot what set them apart.
But earlier that night, she’d been reminded of those differences.
“What the … What the hell was that?” Drake had stammered after he dragged her into the lobby to make sense of what they’d seen.
Ellie hesitated. She wasn’t sure how to proceed—the fastest path to witnessing herself, and her brother, on-screen again. “Maybe,” she suggested, searching for a form of logic that would appease him, “it’s playing home videos somehow?”
Drake shook his head at the suggestion. While his mom had snapped endless photographs throughout the years, she was paranoid about video cameras because of something related to Nixon. Drake’s early memories weren’t on film.
“Well, I think we should go back in there,” Ellie said softly.
“Maybe we made it all up. Right?” But when they swung open the auditorium doors again, the movie continued exactly where it left off.
Tiny Ellie and Ben were sprawled out on a red play mat in the middle of a giggle fit.
Ellie saw a bright light coming from Drake’s chair.
Before she could stop him, his phone was held up to the screen.
“What are you doing?” she snapped.
“I’m getting proof.” He waved his hand around in the air. “Of whatever this is.”
“No,” she said. “That won’t work.” She was right. Sure enough, the movie stopped playing the moment Drake pressed Record. The auditorium screen turned black. None of the unbelievable parts had been captured on his phone.
“Because of the dancing hot dogs,” Ellie explained. “They spelled out the rules for this place. You can’t record the movie, or it will stop playing. And, like the announcer said, the movie pauses when you step out to the lobby. That also happened just now.”
Drake tucked his phone away. Luckily, the movie picked up right where it left off—but as soon as it did, Ellie felt Drake’s arm tugging her back toward the lobby.
The ticket boy, who was busy wiping down a shiny slushy machine, was his target.
“The movie,” Drake barked at the snack counter. “Why is …it our lives?”
Ellie stepped forward to interject. “Can you tell us more about the movie?” she asked, trying to emanate composure.
“The midnight screening is The Story of You ,” the ticket boy said. He spun away from them and yanked the microwave door open, removing a bowl of silky butter sauce that he walked over to the popcorn machine. “Is there a problem with the picture quality?”
“No, that’s not the issue,” Drake nearly shouted. “The issue is that it’s our story. We’re the story!” When the ticket boy finally glanced up, he asked Drake if he wanted a sample of the popcorn. It wasn’t very good, he noted. It would be free, though.
“Can we talk to the manager?” Ellie asked, attempting to make “manager” sound cotton soft.
The ticket boy reached for a large white binder. He flipped through the pages, scanning each one with the tip of his finger. “Natalie’s on vacation this week,” he said. “She’s doing nothing at the beach.”
Ellie hesitated. “Maybe …we could give her a call?”
The ticket boy crouched behind the counter and moved on to sorting candy that was already organized in neat rows. “That wouldn’t be doing nothing at the beach,” he replied. His eyes were shrouded behind a row of Junior Mints and Milk Duds. “Would it?”
Now, back in the quiet of their living room, Drake was about to smash into the coffee table.
He paced around it in a circle, double-checking that the front door was locked on every second or third lap.
“I don’t get how you’re … relaxed about this,” he said.
Ellie burrowed her shoulders into the couch and tuned out his voice.
She wanted to stay in the moment, to stay bathing in that rare pink morning light.
When she tuned back in, he was asking if they could’ve been drugged.
“At the restaurant, maybe? That waitress had the right haircut for that.”
“She had a haircut for drugging?” Ellie asked, with a laugh. It was a ridiculous suggestion. She reached for his arm as he closed out a lap and pulled him closer. “Sit, Drake.”
“Why?” he asked. His pulse was beating on the side of his neck.
“Because you look like you’re going to have a heart attack,” she said. “And because, something incredible just happened, and
I want to enjoy it.”
Drake stopped for a moment and hinged forward at the waist. He was studying her; he prided himself in being an expert in all things Ellie.
Finally, he sat and took her hands. “Look,” he said.
“I understand why this meant something to you. It must have felt great to see yourself as a kid. Your dad. Ben. But I’m just …
freaked-out by this whole thing, to be honest.”
“I understand,” Ellie said, because she did.
She was so quick to shut out his doubt that she hadn’t noted it was a reasonable reaction.
“I can see how it would be spooky. It’s unknown.
But it’s also amazing, right? The cinema is this ode to nostalgia.
It’s everything I love in one setting. Movies.
Old things. Memories. It’s a place that helps us remember what we’ve forgotten, and that’s basically my life’s work, Drake. We have to go back.”
Everything she’d told him was technically true.
But there was something else drawing her there. Something she wasn’t ready to say just yet.
“I hear you,” Drake said. “But, Ellie …” His words were calm, but his posture stayed tense. “Something is telling me that we should forget this ever happened.”
The statement sounded an alarm in her.
Ellie pulled herself together and spoke Drake’s language. “Beach vacations don’t last forever.”
Drake shrugged. “Yeah, so?”
“Why don’t we go there next Saturday night when the manager is back?
” Ellie pressed on, trying to navigate his doubt.
“Then, we’ll get answers.” If they did that, they would know they hadn’t hallucinated, she explained.
They would learn how it worked. “Come on,” she prodded, her fingers creeping up his arm.
“Don’t you want to figure this out? Just a little bit?
” Yes, this would work. Seated next to her was the man who loathed unsolved mysteries.
Much to her relief, Drake reluctantly agreed.
“Okay. Just to ask a few questions. That’s it, though.
” The sun was more energetic now, spilling light onto the neat green lawns outside.
“But, Ellie,” he warned, “promise me something.” He turned her chin in his direction.
“Don’t go back there without me. It’s …it could be dangerous. ”
“I won’t do that,” Ellie said. She didn’t think the cinema was dangerous, but she agreed that she probably shouldn’t return without backup. “Next week, then.” She nodded. “It’s a date.”
When Drake finally went to bed that morning, Ellie stayed up and watched a movie.
She was too energized by what had happened to sleep.
Heathers was iconic, but it paled compared to the magic of watching their real lives projected on the screen.
The comparison wasn’t fair. Ellie’s focus on Winona and friends drifted as she recalled seeing herself so young and innocent.
But those early experiences were only the tip of the iceberg.
Under the surface of the memory was something more complicated.
When they went back, the cinema would play everything she’d been hiding from Drake.
And from herself.
Ellie pulled the blanket up around her. Even if she wanted to, she couldn’t have described what happened that night in college to Drake; she only knew the bare bones.
Her memory had blocked out the sequence of things and even how the horrific event began.
The how part—not being able to remember those details—had haunted her for fifteen years.
Ellie had done her best to leave that night in her past. First, she threw herself into other people’s stories.
She rebelled against what was expected of her.
She ran from people before they could get close enough to discover an awful truth about her that she couldn’t pinpoint herself.
She tried to make friends with the forgetting, to convince herself it was better that way.
But none of those strategies removed the guilt that hovered above her head.
So, lately, Ellie had done something different: she tried to remember her past instead.
If she could only recall exactly what happened, maybe she could absolve herself.
Time had turned her into an amateur sleuth, chasing down details that were slippery at best. How fitting, she thought, that Drake once compared her to a teen detective.
Still, she’d come up with nothing. And in lieu of the truth, she assumed the worst. A voice would forever whisper in her ear, a mean little lark: You did this.
Everything that went wrong, so very wrong, was your fault.
Earlier that night, Ellie was presented with an opportunity to piece the story together. To finally confront her past. She would need to watch the worst moments of her own life all over again— with Drake at her side.
A chance to know the truth was irresistible. She wouldn’t let it go. But if what she suspected was true, could he ever see her the same way again?