Page 11 of Survive the Night

Even better was Nana Norma’s running commentary, in which Charlie got glimpses of her Hollywood days.

“Nice guy,” she said of one actor. “Drank too much.”

“Went on a date with him once,” she said of another. “Got too handsy for my taste.”

When early-morning sun started trickling through the living room blinds, Charlie realized Nana Norma was right. She did feel better. All those churning emotions—the pain, the rage, the sadness so thick she’d thought she’d sink right into it like quicksand—had momentarily left her.

They watched movies until dawn the next night.

And the night after that.

And the one after that.

By the time Charlie realized they were using cinematic fantasy to escape their horrible reality, it was too late. She was hooked.

On the day her parents were buried, everything felt larger than life. The closed coffins side by side at the front of the church sat in a patch of sunlight colored by stained-glass windows. The flowers behind them burst out of their vases in rainbow brightness, contrasting perfectly with the black-clad mourners who fanned themselves in the July heat. When they gathered graveside, the sky was piercingly blue. There was a light breeze, too, on which traveled the sound of a gospel choir. It was all so beautiful, in a way that made Charlie sad but also comforted. She knew that as hard as this was, she was going to get through it.

After the funeral, she asked Nana Norma if she knew the name of the hymn the choir had been singing as her parents’ coffins were lowered into the ground.

“What hymn?” Nana Norma had asked. “And what choir?”

That was the moment Charlie knew the reality of her parents’ funeral was far different from the one she had experienced. She understood then that her brain had embellished it, turning it into a mental movie. Images on film churning through reels, telling someone else’s sad tale, which was how she was able to endure it.

“Have you ever thought about making movies?” Josh says, bringing her back to the moment. “Since you love them so much.”

“Not really.”

Charlie had considered it only briefly, back when she was trying to decide which schools she should apply to. She suspected there was more gratification in creating something as opposed to taking it apart. But she also feared that knowing the nitty-gritty of making films would ruin the magic of watching them, and since there was already so little magic in her life, she didn’t want to risk it. That’s especially true now that Maddy’s gone.

Gone.

Such an awful word. So absolutely blunt in its finality that Charlie gets sad just thinking it.

Maddy is gone.

Never to return.

And Charlie herself is to blame.

Grief suddenly washes over her, as it’s done so many times in the past two months. With it is a sense of guilt so heavy Charlie feels pinned to the passenger seat. Both emotions overwhelm her to the point where she only barely hears Josh say, “Why not? Seems like a sweet gig.”

“Lots of gigs are sweet,” Charlie says. “Doesn’t mean I want any of them.”

She looks to her right, checking her reflection in the side mirror outside the window. The dashboard lights illuminate her from below, casting a cool glow on her coat collar, revealing how it matches her shade of lipstick. Not that she can see those matching reds. The night and the moonlight make everything appear monochrome. Not black and white. Nothing that stark. A thousand shades of gray.

“Charlie?”

INT. GRAND AM—NIGHT

Charlie huffs out a breath, blinks her eyes, checks herself in the side mirror, and sees that everything’s in color, because of course it would be. It’s the real world. But for the briefest of moments, Charlie wasn’t living in it. She was somewhere else.

“What just happened there?” Josh says. “You started to answer my question then just stopped.”

“I did?”

“Yeah. You completely zoned out.”

“Sorry,” Charlie says. “I do that sometimes.”

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