FADE IN:

EXT. 2013

JAMES MARSDEN arrives at the home of recently deceased GERALD MCRANEY and starts fixing STUFF. His high school sweetheart, MICHELLE MONAGHAN, drives up.

MICHELLE MONAGHAN

Oh. Uh... you're here too.

JAMES MARSDEN

Yup.

MICHELLE MONAGHAN

Our mutual former grandfather figure Gerald McRaney must have left you something in his will as well.

JAMES MARSDEN

I guess.

MICHELLE MONAGHAN

You got your head stuck in a car crusher and just decided to live with it.

JAMES MARSDEN

Yeah, well--what? That didn't happen.

MICHELLE MONAGHAN

Are you sure? Because I remember your high school face very well, and it had twice as much jaw as your face now.

JAMES MARSDEN

Oh, yeah. That's just bad casting.

MICHELLE MONAGHAN

I see. Well, you look sweaty. I mean, good. I mean, sweaty in a good way. Much better than my husband, who looks like what happens after Anthony Weiner has sex with a secretary bird. In fact, my memory of your sweaty body has been solely responsible for every orgasm I've had in the 20 years since we last spoke. All those nights I sit out on the porch gazing at the stars and wondering if you're gazing at the same stars? Let me tell ya, I go inside after that, lock myself in the utility room, sit on top of the dryer, break out the Hitachi, and REALLY see some stars. Thankfully our dryer is about 30 years old and rattles a lot, so my husband can't hear a thing. Which is good because I'm pretty sure my screams would make every dog in a five-mile radius start howling otherwise. Plus having the washer right there makes it easy for me to deal with my soaking-wet... Wow, I am saying a LOT of things. So, lawyer's office? Let's go.

They visit estate lawyer CLARKE PETERS.

CLARKE PETERS

Mr. McRaney left very careful instructions to be carried out upon his death. The two of you are going to spend just enough time together in the next few days to fall in love all over again, and if you don't, his ghost will haunt the fuck out of you both in full Major Dad costume, mustache and all.

MICHELLE MONAGHAN

But it's been two decades. Does he think we're the sort of people who never change with time? Wouldn't he expect us to find ourselves completely incompatible after such a long separation?

CLARKE PETERS

(reading from will)

It seems he expected that question and left a response: "Hahaha gasp choke hahaha."

JAMES MARSDEN

Oh, Gerald, that lovable old scamp.

EXT. 1992

YOUNG DEFINITELY NOT JAMES MARSDEN meets YOUNG MICHELLE MONAGHAN.

YOUNG MICHELLE MONAGHAN

You're cute and good at fixing stuff. Flirt with me.

YOUNG DEFINITELY NOT JAMES MARSDEN

Huh?

YOUNG MICHELLE MONAGHAN

No, no, no. That's not flirting. Try that again while staring at my tits.

YOUNG DEFINITELY NOT JAMES MARSDEN

(stares at her tits)

Huh.

YOUNG MICHELLE MONAGHAN

Better. Now ask me out.

YOUNG DEFINITELY NOT JAMES MARSDEN

Why don't you ask me out?

YOUNG MICHELLE MONAGHAN

You're the guy. That's your job.

YOUNG DEFINITELY NOT JAMES MARSDEN

Maybe it would be, if I wanted to go out with you. How are you so sure that I do?

YOUNG MICHELLE MONAGHAN

Don't be an idiot. You WILL take advantage of this prime opportunity to spend time with a pretty girl who very obviously wants you to claim her maidenhead. And if you don't, I'll make you live to regret it.

She leaves. YOUNG DEFINITELY NOT JAMES returns home to the set of DELIVERANCE, where his father, SEAN BRIDGERS, awaits.

SEAN BRIDGERS

Done with that book-larnin', son? We gots cards to play, meth to cook, ill-tempered dogs to chain up, and guns to shoot for no reason. Get on in 'ere.

YOUNG DEFINITELY NOT JAMES MARSDEN

But--

SEAN BRIDGERS

I DONE TOLD YOU THAT I'M A CHILD-ABUSIN' REDNECK, SO SIT YOUR PUNK ASS DOWN ON THIS STACK A' CASE LOTS OF COUGH SYRUP AND LISTEN.

Instead, YOUNG DEFINITELY NOT JAMES MARSDEN packs all his STUFF and wanders through the set of THE HUNGER GAMES until he reaches GERALD's house.

GERALD MCRANEY

Hell you doin' here, boy?

YOUNG DEFINITELY NOT JAMES MARSDEN

My pa's Sean Bridgers.

GERALD MCRANEY

No further explanation needed. You can stay here as long as you need.

YOUNG DEFINITELY NOT JAMES MARSDEN

And you're sure I didn't come in here to rob you? Or that I didn't come in here to give you a sob story about how much I hate my mean meth cook father, prompting you to invite me to stay, and THEN rob you?

GERALD MCRANEY

I'm sure. If you actually were as bad as the rest of your family, you'd smell like cough syrup.

But YOUNG DEFINITELY NOT JAMES's feeling of security lasts only ONE BLISSFUL, FLEETING MOMENT before someone shows up to yell at him for his BETRAYAL.

YOUNG MICHELLE MONAGHAN

Um, HELLO? Did I not give you very clear and direct orders to go on a date with me? You think I cut holes in the backs of every top I own for just anyone's attention? Oh, wait, let me guess: You think I'm a high-maintenance bitch who's going to slowly but surely drain your life essence until you're just a hollow, decaying husk of a man, so you're sparing yourself the aggravation and not dating me.

YOUNG DEFINITELY NOT JAMES MARSDEN

If I didn't have the self-preservation instincts of a goldfish, that might be true. But it's really because I'm poor and have a crazy family and think YOU should avoid dating ME for the sake of YOUR life essence, to say nothing of your actual life.

YOUNG MICHELLE MONAGHAN

Oh.

They make out.

INT. 2013

JAMES and MICHELLE pack up GERALD's house.

JAMES MARSDEN

So, about that birdlike husband of yours. Is there anything else wrong with him that might clinch my expectation that we're going to fuck later?

MICHELLE MONAGHAN

Where do I begin? He has a white-collar job, he treats me and our son like crap, and he's been an alcoholic ever since the harrowing loss of our two-year-old daughter to childhood cancer.

JAMES MARSDEN

(throws box down in frustration)

Really, Sparks? Using a dead toddler as the catalyst for this entire stupid kissy-kiss fantasy? HAVE YOU NO SHAME?!

MICHELLE MONAGHAN

He doesn't. Let it go. What about you?

JAMES MARSDEN

Other than getting into a line of work I don't really like much, I haven't moved on with my life at all. Probably because you weren't here to force me to move on with my life. Although there was this one time I was in a big oil rig explosion.

MICHELLE MONAGHAN

Jesus, really?

JAMES MARSDEN

Yeah, but it doesn't matter. I could have been blown off a cell phone tower in a windstorm, and nothing in this story would have changed. In fact, there could have been no catastrophic mishap at all, and nothing in this story would have changed. The point is, I've squandered every bit of potential I had since we were together, and apparently so have you.

MICHELLE MONAGHAN

But at least now we can suck together.

They make out.

EXT. 1992

YOUNG MICHELLE brings YOUNG DEFINITELY NOT JAMES to by my count the ninth ACTUAL PLANTATION HOUSE to appear in a SPARKS MOVIE, where he meets her father, JON TENNEY.

JON TENNEY

Son, let me speak to you plainly. If reality and Nicholas Sparks weren't two ships passing in the night, I wouldn't worry what my little gal was doing with you. She'd go to college, get spit-roasted by two crew team members at her first sorority mixer, and dump you over the phone before Thanksgiving. Let's be real here, if she wanted to rebel against her rich Southern family that badly, you'd be black. But in the world he wants so badly to exist, the relationship a person has at their most hormonal and least emotionally mature is the one that really counts. I don't like it, and I can think of only one way to end it.

YOUNG DEFINITELY NOT JAMES MARSDEN

Strangle me in my sleep, toss me into the river, and blame my dad?

JON TENNEY

...Okay, two ways, but this one's faster. Have 80 thousand dollars.

YOUNG DEFINITELY NOT JAMES MARSDEN

(sputters)

HOW much?!

JON TENNEY

My garage is full of six-figure cars that never get driven. I'm not going to worry about responsible spending now.

Undeterred, YOUNG DEFINITELY NOT JAMES plans a double prom date with his COUSIN, which promptly goes to hell when SEAN shows up to beat up GERALD and YOUNG DEFINITELY NOT JAMES accidentally shoots his COUSIN while trying to kill SEAN.

YOUNG DEFINITELY NOT JAMES MARSDEN

So Sean is the only person in town who DOESN'T have the survival instinct of a goldfish? Shitty.

He gets EIGHT YEARS for an ACCIDENTAL SHOOTING despite being a MINOR with no RECORD.

YOUNG MICHELLE MONAGHAN

I promise I'll love you as long as it takes for you to get out.

YOUNG DEFINITELY NOT JAMES MARSDEN

No, you won't.

YOUNG MICHELLE MONAGHAN

Well, okay, I might marry and have children with another guy before then, but I'll still love you.

YOUNG DEFINITELY NOT JAMES MARSDEN

I don't believe you.

YOUNG MICHELLE MONAGHAN

All right, fine. I'll marry, have children, let my life get progressively worse, show no evidence that I've done anything to make it better, and cheat on my husband with you when I'm at my absolute lowest and one of those kids has already died. But I'll love you the whole time in between.

YOUNG DEFINITELY NOT JAMES MARSDEN

Okay, I'll take that.

EXT. 2013

MICHELLE reflects on that moment.

MICHELLE MONAGHAN

You know, James, if you'd just let me visit you in jail, everything would have turned out a lot better for me. It's really all your fault.

JAMES MARSDEN

Sure is.

They fuck.

JAMES MARSDEN

And now you're going to go back to your dissatisfying life, even though your grown son is going to college and doesn't think much of his father anyway. Is that my fault too?

MICHELLE MONAGHAN

Yes, because apparently you have some kind of Jedi mind control that turns all of your predictions into directives.

JAMES MARSDEN

I love you too much not to accept that.

MICHELLE returns home to her husband, SEBASTIAN ARCELUS.

SEBASTIAN ARCELUS

(drinks golf bag full of wine)

Enough about your dead friend. Let's talk about my money.

MICHELLE MONAGHAN

I haven't said anything about my dead friend.

SEBASTIAN ARCELUS

(hits golf ball with club made of wine corks)

So now you won't.

MICHELLE MONAGHAN

You know what? Fuck the directive. I'm divorcing your ass, I'm finishing the degree I didn't finish when you knocked me up, and I'm going to ride James's dick all day and night to stay motivated. How do you like THAT, you son of a bitch?

SEBASTIAN ARCELUS

(fashions golf tee out of wineglass stem)

You say something?

MICHELLE MONAGHAN

BUH-BYE.

HOSPITAL

Not so fast, lady. Your son was just in a car accident.

MICHELLE MONAGHAN

Well, we've already had the dead cancer kid, so the dead car accident kid was just a matter of time.

HOSPITAL

No, he's not dead yet. But he will be unless he gets a new organ.

MICHELLE MONAGHAN

Heart, right?

HOSPITAL

Damn straight. No romance ever ended with an intestinal transplant.

Luckily, at that exact moment, SEAN murders JAMES, who finds a way from beyond the GRAVE to ensure that his HEART goes to MICHELLE's son.

MICHELLE MONAGHAN

Okay, that solves that. But, goddamn, how am I supposed to stay motivated to fix my life now?

HOSPITAL

Have you thought about setting an example for your son, who before the crash was also drifting along with no plan and willing to let Sebastian make all his decisions?

MICHELLE MONAGHAN

Hmmm. No, I have a better idea.

She locks herself in the UTILITY ROOM and sits on top of the DRYER.

END