That was what the psychiatrist called them.

She said it was like having a mental circuit breaker, triggered when Charlie’s emotions threaten to overwhelm her. In times of grief or stress or fear, a switch flips in Charlie’s brain, replacing reality with something more cinematic and easier to handle.

Charlie knows the one she just experienced was caused by a mix of guilt, sadness, and missing Maddy. One of those emotions would have been enough to handle on her own. She might have even been able to deal with a combination of two of them. But put all three together and—click!—the switch in her brain was flipped and the movie in her mind began.

“You said you hear and see things that might not be there,” Josh says. “Are we talking people?”

“Yes,” Charlie says. “Sometimes people.”

“So you could see something—or someone—that doesn’t really exist?” Josh says, fascinated. “Or have an entire conversation that’s not real?”

“I could. Someone talks to me, I talk to them, and no one else can hear it because it’s all in my head.”

“And this just happens without warning?”

“Yep.”

“You can’t control it?”

“Not really.”

“Doesn’t that worry you a little bit?”

“It worries me a lot,” Charlie says, not daring to say anything more.

The movies in her mind never used to worry her. If anything, she was thankful for them. They made things easier. A balm that soothed the sting of prickly emotions. Besides, they never lasted very long, and they certainly never hurt anyone.

Until one of them did.

Now she’ll never forgive herself.

Now she just wants them to go away.

“What kind of movies are we talking about?” Josh says.

“Anything, really. I’ve seen musicals and dramas and scary movies.”

“And what about a minute ago? What kind of movie was going through your head then?”

Charlie rewinds her mind to that image of her in the side mirror. Wearing Maddy’s red coat and matching lipstick that’s definitely not there in real life, Charlie looked dramatic. But she was no femme fatale. That was always Maddy’s role.

And Josh was the handsome but wary man behind the wheel, possibly with a past. The two of them could have been anyone. Lovers on the lam. Siblings only recently reunited. Strangers in the dark who, for reasons unknown even to them, had set out across the country without a plan.

Which, in a way, is the truth.

“Film noir,” Charlie says. “Not a classic, though. Something the studios churned out on a weekly basis. A solid B movie.”

“That,” Josh says, “is oddly specific.”

Charlie responds with an embarrassed shrug. “I can’t help it. It’s how I’m wired.”

“What if this, right here and right now, were a movie?” Josh says. “Who would play me?”

“You mean, what actor?”

“Yeah.”

“Living or dead?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

Charlie leans back and raises her hands, fingers straight and thumbs extended, like a director framing a shot. She takes a moment to study Josh. Not just his face, which is undeniably handsome, but also his physical features. He’s formidable. A heavy, slightly hulking presence that, combined with his good looks, brings to mind only one person.

“Marlon Brando,” she says.

Josh cringes. “Ouch.”

“Young Marlon Brando,” Charlie’s quick to add. “Streetcar Brando. You know, back when he was hot.”

“Oh, so you think I’m hot?” Josh says, puffing out his chest a little bit, pleased.

Charlie blushes. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Too late,” Josh says. “Now that you’ve said it, you can’t take it back. I like being that Brando. He’s kind of fat and crazy now, though, right?”

“Something for you to look forward to.”

“Very funny,” Josh says. “And here I was about to be nice and say who I think should play you in this imaginary movie of yours.”

“Who?”

“Audrey Hepburn.”

Charlie continues to blush. She’s heard this before, but it was from Maddy, who once told her, “You could look like Audrey, if you wanted to. You’ve got that wide-eyed, fragile, deer-tiptoeing-into-a-meadow thing going on that guys love.”

“Deer don’t tiptoe” is what she told Maddy then. What she tells Josh now is, “I’m surprised you know who that is.”

“Give me some credit,” he says. “I’m not a total lunkhead. Oh, and the proper response would have been to thank me.”

“Thank you,” Charlie says, feeling another wave of heat on her cheeks.

“I’m about to ask you a personal question,” Josh warns.

“More personal than me admitting I see movies in my mind?”

“Not that personal,” Josh says. “I’m just curious if you have a boyfriend.”

Charlie goes still, unsure how to react. Josh is clearly flirting with her, probably because he thinks she was flirting with him, even though it wasn’t intentional. She isn’t flirtatious, despite being taught by the best. Marilyn Monroe. Lana Turner. Lauren Bacall. She knows that to whistle, you just put your lips together and blow. What eludes her is why anyone would want to try.

Her problem, according to Maddy, was that she spent too much time obsessing over men in the movies to know how to act around them in the real world. Charlie knows there’s some truth there. She had no problem getting weak in the knees at the sight of a young Paul Newman but froze when meeting someone a fraction that handsome in real life.

Despite the undeniable chemistry they shared upon meeting, her official first date with Robbie was awkward at best. Charlie felt so much pressure to be anything but her weird, usual self because she thought that was what Robbie wanted. So she tried to compliment him—“I, um, like the pattern of that shirt,” she said of the simple, striped oxford he had been wearing—and attempted small talk. She gave up after fifteen minutes. “I think I’m going to go?” she said, phrasing it like a question, seeking his permission to put them both out of their misery.

Robbie surprised her by saying, “Please stay. Listen, I’m bad at this, too.”

In that moment, Charlie realized, despite his good looks, Robbie was just as awkward as she was. He rambled on about equations the same way Charlie did movies. He was quick to smile and even quicker to blush. And his movements were often hesitant, as if he seemed not entirely at ease in his skin. All turned out to be good attributes for a boyfriend to have. Robbie was easygoing in every way. He agreed to whatever movie she wanted to see, never pressured her for sex, and when they did start having it, he always told her it was great, even when she knew it sometimes wasn’t.

If anything bothered Charlie, it was the fact that, deep down, she knew Robbie was out of her league. Dorkiness aside, he was still a golden boy. Handsome. Athletic. Smart. His father was an engineer and his mother a doctor. Both were still alive, which was more than Charlie could say. She felt inferior in every regard. An ugly duckling who would never turn into a swan.

Her insecurity was easier to deal with when Maddy was alive. She’d always made Charlie feel, if not normal, then at least like a fellow outcast. It provided balance. Robbie’s normalcy on one side, Maddy’s Auntie Mame–like eccentricity on the other, and Charlie firmly in the middle. Without Maddy, things no longer worked. And no matter how hard Robbie tried to ease her grief, guilt, and self-hatred, Charlie knew it was only a matter of time before he’d realize she wasn’t worthy of such attention.

When she decided to leave school, Charlie told herself she would be doing Robbie a favor. Deep down, though, she knows she’s also hastening the inevitable: breaking Robbie’s heart before he gets a chance to shatter hers.

“Yes and no,” Charlie says, finally giving the vaguest of answers to Josh’s question. “I mean, yes, I do. Technically. But I also don’t know what the future holds. Or if the two of us even have a future.”

“I’ve been there myself,” Josh says.

“And you?”

“Single as can be.”

“It’s hard meeting people,” Charlie says.

“I’ve found that not to be true,” Josh says. “Meeting people is easy. Keeping them around is the hard part.”

Through the windshield, the snowfall outside looks even bigger and faster in the Grand Am’s headlights. Like stars flying by at warp speed.

“Punch it, Chewie,” Charlie says.

Josh brings the windshield wipers up another notch. “I get that reference.”

“It’s nice to know that you have, indeed, seen at least one movie.”

“I’ve seen plenty of movies.”

“Define ‘plenty.’?”

“More than you think.” Josh straightens in the driver’s seat and pats the steering wheel. “Hit me with another quote. Bet I can name the movie it’s from.”

Charlie decides to go easy on him at first, tossing out an appropriately accented “I’ll be back.”

“Terminator,” Josh says. “And quit giving me the obvious ones. I’m not as movie illiterate as you think.”

“Fine.” She pauses, thinking. “?‘You’re gonna need a bigger boat.’?”

“That would be Jaws,” Josh says, adding a smug “I’ve seen that movie twice.”