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Chapter 19
Ivy and Nick walked into their twelfth-grade English classroom. It was decorated for filming.
“Wow, this is our old classroom. The posters. The board. The homework looks so familiar.” Nick jumped into a seat. “I think I sat here.” Then he tried another chair. “No, it was here.” He started looking under the desk.
“What are you looking for?” Ivy wondered.
“I scratched our names into a desk.”
“You did? You vandal, you.”
“I used to scratch our names into all the desks. Here. The library. The church office.”
“Never knew you were such a bad boy.”
Nick looked around some more. He picked up a plastic piece of coal that was sitting on the desk. “I like the way you put that coal into the script. You were so mad at me,” he said.
“I’m still mad at you.”
***
In their senior year, in this classroom, they had taken AP Literature together. Mrs. Gilbert, their very British English teacher, announced that they could do a holiday gift exchange, and Ivy was thrilled. When they had drawn names out of Mrs. Gilbert’s elf hat, Ivy had pulled her friend Lauren’s name. Nick had told Ivy he’d drawn Joey’s name. They had gone shopping at the mall together, and Ivy had helped Nick to choose a CD for Joey. They settled on the new Black Keys album. On the day of the Secret Santa reveal, the class had gathered, giddy with excitement. Ivy had handed Lauren her gift and smiled as Lauren gushed over the new Taylor Swift CD. Other gifts were exchanged. An iTunes card. A box of candy. Hat and mittens. Lauren had stepped forward and given Joey a Starbucks gift card. Ivy had been confused. Wasn’t Nick the secret Santa for Joey? The gifts had continued to be handed out. It had finally been Ivy’s turn. She had waited with anticipation for her Secret Santa to reveal themself. Ivy had been surprised when Nick got up and walked over to her and said, “Merry Christmas. Ho ho ho.” He had tricked her.
She had smiled to herself, thinkingclassic Nick. He had given her a small, wrapped gift. When she’d seen the size of the present, she’d thought it might be jewelry. Her heart had pounded with excitement. She’d hoped for a gold heart or a pearl necklace, but a simple bracelet would have been nice too. Everyone had watched as she opened it. When she’d seen what was inside the box, her face had fallen, and her smile had turned into a frown. It was coal!
***
Ivy winced at the memory.
Nick noticed that she was pouting. “Are you pouting? Come on, that was ten years ago.”
“It just wasn’t very nice, giving your girlfriend coal.”
“I did it because you went out for ice cream with Joe Buff.”
“That wasn’t a date. I was just doing it to make you jealous.”
“Well, it worked.” Now it was Ivy’s turn to laugh. Nick continued, “I kind of gave you a nice present later that night. Do you remember what that was?”
“It was a pretty gold bracelet we saw in the mall. I remember you were too embarrassed to give it to me at school.”
“And that’s why I gave you the coal.” Nick picked up the coal and pocketed it.
“Hey. You shouldn’t touch that. I think this is a hot set.”
“I have no idea what that means.”
“It’s when the set is dressed, all the props are in place and ready for filming.” Ivy was starting to sweat. Was it because the room was hot, or was Nick making her nervous?
“I thought it was because it was warm in here.” It was close to ninety degrees inside, and the air conditioner was too loud to be on during filming. Ivy and Nick were both feeling the heat.
“Want to see the production office?”
“Sure.”
But the moment that they arrived at the production office, Ivy regretted it because printed on a giant whiteboard was proof of Nick’s fictional demise. It seemed to scream out at them. Or at least it did to Ivy. On the board was a list of scenes that were left to be filmed. Number thirteen wasRick’s death.
Ivy stepped in front of the board, trying to hide it. She was having such a nice time with Nick and didn’t want him to remember how she’d killed him off in the script. But her feet were hurting. The Gucci sandal straps were digging into her heels, and she really needed to sit down. She couldn’t bear the pain anymore and finally took a seat. She noticed that Nick was no longer looking at the board anyway. She breathed a sigh of relief, but she shouldn’t have because he was engrossed in the storyboards, the rudimentary drawings that showed the various camera shots for each scene. Nick was seeing the storyboard for the scene markedRICK DIES.
