After this, she lies in bed weeping with her lips pressed together, and finds herself submerged in a fantasy of her and Neil years in the future, spooning in bed in the dark, with her telling him in a low dignified voice about how miserable he’d made her when he rejected her, how alone she thought she’d be for the rest of her life, and he would take this seriously and say, I’m sorry, I couldn’t see what we had, the whole time I was really just scared because I knew how good it could be and how crushed I’d be if it didn’t work out, but it DID work out after all, and here we are and I’m sorry, I’m going to spend the rest of my life making it up to you, now he’d kiss the back of her neck, and she would turn to him super slowly with her eyes open in the dark and say that he never really liked her, and he’d say, You know that’s not true, Alison, you’re the best person I know, you’re the only person I’ve ever cared about, the funniest smartest person I’ve ever met, and your body is so fucking hot and TINY and sexy, I just know you’re going to be a huge success one day and I’ll be there to support you the whole time. I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry sorry sorry and then they would fuck. In this fantasy she is also the only woman on earth, so he would not be able to leave her even if he wanted to, and even if she was the worst, she was also the best.

The film reel ends there and she reenters her body back in bed, always already alone, ruined by how infantile and self-serving her fantasy was, moreover impossible, since she knew she would never get Neil to love her, or receive an apology from him, or ever hear any of those nice things from anyone because they were not, any of them, true.