Molly:Slept 5 hours
Molly:Ate food
Molly:Put on sunscreen, so extra credit
Alyssa:5 hours is not enough sleep!
Alyssa:What food?
Molly:Froot loops
Alyssa:Doesn’t count. At least make TS!!
(She means The Salad.)
Molly:Stop worrying I’m fine
Alyssa:You’re not. CALL SETH
Not a day has gone by when she hasn’t demanded I call him, in all caps.
“You’ll feel better if you clear the air,” she tells me. “You guys loved each other too much to let it end like this.”
“Loved” is inaccurate phrasing. What I feel for Seth could never be in past tense.
And I know Alyssa is right. I owe him more than silence.
But I can’t bring myself to make the call. I’m too scared of what he’ll say.
“An open wound can’t heal,” Alyssa says, like she’s a doctor and not an accountant.
But I don’t want to heal. I don’t want to let go of this ache. My devastation is all I have left of Seth.
Thus, the script. It’s my way of keeping him with me. Immortalizing my love for the person I can’t stand to keep, or to lose.
I’m up to the break into Act III—the point in a rom-com when one of the lovers, despite having been thwarted in their desire for the other by various obstacles for the past seventy minutes, decides to try one last time.
The scene begins at a destination wedding in Bali. (It’s a movie, after all; I’ve taken some creative liberty with the set pieces.) Our lovers, Cole and Nina, run into each other during the toasts. Up until this point, despite some near misses, their old flame for each other hasn’t gotten a chance to ignite. They’ve been in other relationships, or in mourning for them, or angry ateach other, or denying their attraction. But now, finally, they are both single. And tonight, they can’t take their eyes off each other.
Cole asks her to dance to “Can’t Help Falling in Love.” (In my fantasies, our movie has the music budget for Elvis songs. Also, I can dance to them without falling over.)
It’s electric. Nina melts as Cole whispers the pivotal words in her ear:I’m carrying a torch for you.
They go home together. And this time, it’s right.
She’s softer now, ready to open her heart to him. He’s out of fucks, ready to go for broke and try to make her see she’s his soul mate.
They run away for a week to a beautiful house on the coast of Maine. (Which has cliffs, and is therefore a bit more cinematic than Lake Geneva, with all due apologies to Wisconsin.)
We flash to a montage of Cole and Nina falling in love: holding hands as they walk the bluffs above the ocean, looking for whales. Having lazy sex on a rainy day while Etta James’s “I Found a Love” plays in the background. Singing along with lullabies before bed.
Cole proposes.Love might not be perfect,he says to Nina.But I know this: we’re perfect for each other.You’re my soul mate.
I think you know what she says here. The line writes itself:
I don’t believe in soul mates.
She’s too scared.
