text: Logline: A woman struggles with a car accident that killed a young woman, she can finally put it behind her but first has to meet the young woman's mother. \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ Savannah Appleton was stressed out, her daughter, Beth, was sick, her son, Jackson, was not doing what she told him to do, and her husband, Jack, broke the dishwasher. He was unable to repair it himself, and as a result, the kitchen was flooded. She's had better days. "You know, I told you to find someone to fix that, but you just had to fix it yourself," said Savannah. "Yeah, it looks worse than it really is, it just looks like a lot of water because it’s spread all over the place. Unless you block it from going to the living room, it's going to make the carpet wet," Jack says. Savannah begins placing paper towels on the border between the kitchen and the living room, soaking right through the carpet. "Great, now we're going to have to replace the carpets after this, this is completely insane," Savannah says. The dog starts barking outside, "The dog is still outside! Jackson!" Savannah shouts. "What?" Jackson yells from his bedroom over the sound of his video game. "Ten minutes ago, I asked you to take the dog in, he's going to get off the leash again," Savannah says. "I'm going to get to that in a sec," Jackson says. Meanwhile, the situation with Jack and the dishwasher has gone from bad to worse; now, water is pouring out of the sink as well. "I can't do this anymore, I have to meet our tax advisor at three," Savannah says, giving up the paper towel remedy, and letting the water right through to the carpet. Jack puts his hands up in a rage, "There you go, just let the water into the rug, that's a great job," Jack says sarcastically. Savannah starts walking to the door, as Beth comes out of her bedroom, "What is going on here?" Beth says that she takes two steps towards the kitchen, smelled the dirty water, and proceeded to vomit on the floor, mixing the dirty water with her vomit. "You really couldn't make it to the bathroom, I'm out of here, I'm going to be sick," Savannah says in desperation. Savannah begins leaving the house; she sees their dog running away with a leash still attached to its collar. She offered up a little chase, but the dog got away, and she gave up on that, too. "Not my problem," Savannah says, having given up entirely on this day. While driving along a wooded rural road, Savannah starts to cry, frustrated by all the bad things that are going on today, her children, her husband and that stupid dishwasher, and that damn dog. She's in a trance, driven this commute a thousand times in her life. The road is about to narrow, and she slows down a little, tears streaming down her face making it hard to see, out of the blue, a car heading in the opposite direction has to swerve and hit a tree. Savannah gets out of the car quickly, runs over to the other car, the driver, a woman in her twenties, hit her head pretty hard on the steering wheel, and she was bleeding. Savannah took her phone out and called 911. "Hey, can you hear me, my God," Savannah says to herself. She taps the girl's shoulder through the shattered driver's side window; her head falls awkwardly. Savannah knows that this girl has broken her neck; she's dead. Savannah's gasping for air; she's in a panic attack. What did she do? Her foolish crying killed this girl. The paramedics came, it doesn't look good, the young girl wasn't breathing. Savannah feels guilty and accompanies the ambulance to the emergency room where the girl is pronounced dead. She's in shock; she sees the girl's mother running into the emergency room, weeping, hearing the news, nurses have to catch her or else she'd collapse. Savannah can't bear it any longer and left the hospital. She's a mess when she comes home. She steps into a house that's an inch deep in water, bits of vomit still visible through the floodwaters and a dog leash that hasn't returned yet. She doesn't care, Savannah lies on the couch, and just looks ahead, she's inconsolable. "What's wrong?" Jack asks. Savannah is not responsive. Eventually, she tells them about the crash, and they're trying to comfort her, but she can't stop crying. Later that night, they watch the news, the car crash is the lead story, at the end of the story they say, "Sadly, the 24-year-old, Alexandra Morgan, died of injuries sustained by the crash, a young life cut short." They show an image of this beautiful girl laughing, and Savannah can't take it, she goes to the bedroom and cries herself to sleep. Savannah attends the funeral anonymously, visiting from afar. She didn't want to see the girl's mother, so she left the funeral when it was halfway through. A month passes by; Savannah refuses to drive a car, sees a therapist twice a week, and is haunted by the belief that she is responsible for the death of Alexandra. Her family does all they can to try to help her get through this accident; Savannah just sinks further into depression. During the middle of the night, Jack wakes up and finds that Savannah is gone. He gets up to find her and locates her in her car, with the engine running in the garage. Savannah is trying to kill herself. Jack sits in the passenger seat and turns the engine off and consoles her. "We'll call your therapist in the morning," Jack says as Savannah nods her head. She starts to take part in therapy three days a week and begins to feel better. Savannah is finally able to get out of her depression. When she's ready, her therapist suggests that she put the accident behind her, go and visit Alexandra's mother, and offer her condolences. Savannah goes to meet with Alexandra's mother. She rings the doorbell, and Mary, the mother, responds. She invites her in, and they have tea, Savannah keeps it together, "I just want to say how profoundly sorry I am, I was at all the memorials, she was a great girl with a lot of friends," Savannah says. "Thank you; I appreciate you saying that it's been a tough couple of months," Mary says. Savannah gets a glimpse of the family photo on the fireplace, that's enough to set her off, she starts weeping, shaking her head, Mary takes control of the situation and holds her close. "Now, let's put it in the past," Mary says. "It's all my fault, this beautiful girl, taken so unexpectedly, I can't sleep nights, I don't want to live any longer," Savannah says. "Now, stop that right now, that doesn't do anyone any good. Alexandra was a beautiful young girl, but she was troubled," Mary says, Savannah stops and pulls away. "What do you mean by that?" Savannah asks. "We kept this out of the press, but Alexandra had attempted suicide once before the accident; in truth, it was just a few days before the accident," Mary says. "You don't think?" Savannah asks. Mary shakes her head and starts to weep. Alexandra stares at her phone, staring at a text, it's a week old now, but the pain is fresh. "I think we should see other people." from her former boyfriend, Aaron. Alexandra throws her phone and it hits the wall, leaving a dent. Mary pops her head in the room, "Is everything alright?" Mary asks. "Please leave me alone, nothing in life will ever work out," Alexandra says. "You need to stop this talk, what did the doctor say, concentrate on getting better, concentrate on the future," Mary replied. "I'm done with all this nonsense," Alexandra says as she gets up. "Give me the keys to my car!" Alexandra screamed. "No, you know what the doctor said, you just need to stay at home and get better," Mary says. "I'm a prisoner in this house, I need to get out, I'm going nuts!" Alexandra says as she storms out of the room, followed by Mary. Alexandra goes to the dining room where she takes the tea kettle from on top of the fireplace and empties it on the dining room table. Rummaging through a bunch of keys, she eventually finds the keys to her car. "No, no, if you're going anywhere, I'm going to drive you," Mary says as she pulls her back into the house and tries to take the keys. Alexandra pushes her mom away. "Sorry, Mom," she says as she turns out the front door. Mary opens the door again, " I love..." Mary attempts to say, but Alexandra has already taken off. Alexandra drives down the wooded and rural road; the radio is on, it's distracting, so she turns it off. Tears are running down her face; Alexandra closes her eyes. There is a narrow part of the road coming up. Her car is in the middle, but Alexandra's eyes are closed and she can't see the turn, her car begins to drift, misses Savannah's car entirely, and hit the tree.