Tuesday, April 28, 2015

Treatment

Treatment

            Allie reaches her hand up over the top of the rock. She pulls herself over smiling as she turns around to see the city below her. The camera starts out on her hand and then her body coming over the rock, then when she turns around it cuts to the front of her. Then we see Daniel and Ellison Ray almost to the top of the rock. Danny pulls up first followed by Elli. They all stand looking off into the distance, no one speaking. It cuts to them in sitting in a circle talking, the time is definitely later because they’ve been up there for a while they are laughing and pushing each other around just joking. There is dialogue of them reminiscing from when they went to school together. Quick bit of dialogue in the background of music.
            The light starts to fade and they decide to leave, and we see them start their decent down the cliff that they had free handed up to. Danny is driving an old pickup truck with no back seat just three seats in the front. Elli is in the middle with her head on Danny shoulder. The camera is looking at them but they become unfocused and the camera focuses on the sunset though the back window of the truck.
            They eat at a restaurant and head home. The next day they start their first day at a university. They have a lot of fun often going back to the rock they climbed that one Sunday when they first moved to this new place. They are always together, they study together, they eat together and they even make common friends, but none as good of a friend as they are to each other. We see them playing games and watching movies. They are truly happy and loving life. Every Sunday they go to church together and every night we see them individually doing Bible studies before going to bed. Danny and Elli are beginning to fall for each other, but the other one doesn’t know. Allie is really excited that her two friends who have both been confiding in her might end up dating.
            It’s the end of October when Danny asks if the two girls want to have a movie marathon on Saturday. Allie politely declines trying to get Elli and Danny alone together. Saturday morning Elli leaves begging Allie one more time to come. After she says no for the final time Elli leaves.  Allie sings and dances and begins doing homework while watching TV alone. She gets bored and decides to go climbing on her own. We see her leave a note next to the clock in the kitchen, by the window. We see the clock move forward and the room start to get dark. We hear laughter and shuffling as Danny and Elli come back. Danny yells asking Allie if she wants to go get pizza. The camera is still focused on the note. It gets picked up and then dropped as we hear a door slam shut and a truck start.  It’s dark when we see Danny leaned over a lump we can’t identify. We can’t hear anything but we see Danny yell at Elli who pulls out her phone and starts pacing.  Through this we hear laughter and the screen is starts showing children playing. Allie died.
            When Allie dies, it is really hard on Elli, they were best friends and now she is gone. She feels really guilty because she is the one that taught Allie how to climb. At the funeral Elli sits next to Allies parents. After the funeral her parents give Elli a hug and tell her it’s not her fault what happened, it was no one’s fault, Allie knew better, she simply made a mistake. Allie felt a little better but not really. That night Danny and Elli drove home that night mostly because being home without Allie just didn’t feel right. Danny came over and they laid on the couch together Elli crying and Danny trying to comfort her. He held her until she fell asleep and then carried her to bed and went back to the couch and started crying. Holding a blanket he’d grabbed from Allie’s room. He laid back down covered in her blanket and fell asleep not wanting to go back to his dorm room with a roommate he hardly talked to. The next morning he woke up and realized it was Sunday. He went into Elli’s room to wake her so she could get ready for Sunday school. She rolled over and said she’d go next Sunday. He sat down on her bed and gave her a hug and said he’s be over as soon as the service ended. He went home and showered and put on his suit. He went to church. Everyone was telling him how sorry were they were and asking about Elli and how she was holding up.
            Climbing had always been an escape for Ellie but right now she knew she could never climb again. Every time she would reach for a place to put her hand she would remember that Allie had not found one. Elli only knew how to deal with things by climbing, that’s how she solved everything. And now that climbing was the probably she felt so much pain inside. She slowly stopped hanging out with Danny and she never made it to church the next Sunday. She went to a party Friday night with someone she barely knew from her history class. She didn’t drink this time but she wanted to. The party helped draw her thoughts away from the battle within her. The next time she went to a party though she drank, she drank a lot. The people at the party didn’t know where she lived so they called Danny to come get her. He stayed with her all night and asked her to stop partying and to come to church on Sunday. She said no and asked him to leave so she could catch up on homework. Over the next month or so, we see dust gather on her Bible until she finally moves it off her desk and puts it in her closet. Christmas comes and she heads back home and Danny goes back to Ohio with his family. We can see that she is really unhappy at home just sitting around. On Christmas Eve while her family is at church she sits in her room staring at a picture of her and Elli. After a few minutes she grabs the picture and throws it on the ground shattering it.  The screen goes to black and the next thing we see is people coming back to their apartments and dorm rooms because Christmas break has ended and a new semester is about to start.
            It’s late Sunday night when Elli gets home. Danny has been back all day. He keeps driving past her apartment seeing if she is home yet. When he finally see’s that she is home. He doesn’t even knock, he just walks in the front door. “Ellison Ray” he yells walking straight to her room.
            “Danny” she is in shock because they haven’t spoken in months. He doesn’t say anything, he just walks up to her and kisses her. The camera circles them and ends on Danny.
            “Ellison Ray, I love you. I’ve been in love with you since fourth grade and I cannot live without you. We’ve been living without Allie and that’s not fun, I can’t lose you too. Please stop going to parties, stop hanging out with people who are not going to help you. Come with me tomorrow climbing.” She starts crying as she walks to her closet and pulls the Bible out. She wipes the dust off and asks if they can read it together. They sit down and do a study and pray together. She tells him how sorry she is and that she loves him too.
            The final scene is Danny and Elli’s wedding. It is on top of a cliff. Sitting next to Allie’s family is a picture frame containing Allie’s picture. The camera stays on the picture for some time as the pastor is conducting the wedding. As they say I do the camera cuts to them kissing. The next shot is the camera looking down on them as the wedding ends. The camera fly’s over them and down the large cliff. The cliff starts to fade away and the screen is replaced with a group of kids playing on a playground. Young Danny says he’ll never get married. Young Allie says of course you will. You and Elli will get married. Young Elli and Young Danny look at each other and they kids start laughing.  There is a replay of the group as they reunited and as they say goodbye, the funeral and a basic replay of their lives. Amazing Grace starts to play and turns into credits.    

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