Chapter 31
I’d left Rory and Juniper Golf Club feeling exactly the same as I had when I left them at sixteen. Empty.
My focus blurred, and the restaurant’s walls and ceiling pressed against my body. My blinking was heavy and strained, as if blinking wasn’t ever meant to be a reflex.
I didn’t tell him to fuck off. I didn’t scream or slap him.
I didn’t storm off or go to HR, because there was no HR at the company, or any production company I worked for.
I thanked my boss for his generosity. I thanked him for sponsoring my visa and for the opportunity he had afforded me to build my résumé and learn from him.
I asked him to be a reference. And then I quit my job.
I closed my eyes. I didn’t know my next step.
With the job went my visa, and the life I had built and fought for.
I needed to immediately find a new job that would sponsor me, or I would be sent back to Canada, proving that everything I had said about myself was wrong.
That nothing I believed about myself was true.
None of it was real. Everything I gave up .
. . everything I left behind . . . none of it was worth it.
As I stepped back into my car, my phone rang.
It was Ben.
“Hello?” My nerves darted up my spine. Ben and I hadn’t talked much since we’d broken up six months earlier.
It was too difficult. The distance and the air between us felt tangible, like we were separated by quicksand, and when we finally stopped struggling to grab hold of one another, we could actually breathe again.
“Hey,” Ben said quietly.
“What are you doing? It’s . . .” I looked at my phone to see the time. “It’s two in the morning for you.”
“I wanted to talk to you.”
“Are you okay?” I didn’t know where to look, so I fixed my stare through the windshield on the stream of red and orange rear car lights streaking the freeway beneath Mulholland’s overhang.
“I’m okay . . . I got a movie. Kind of a big one.”
My pulse picked up. “What? Really?”
“Yeah. It hasn’t been announced, and I had to sign an NDA, but I’m going to Atlanta for four months,” he said as if he didn’t know how to feel about it.
“Wow, Ben. Wow.”
“Yeah,” he whispered with uncertainty. “There was no one else I wanted to tell.”
The silence between us had substance. I could taste it.
“How’s LA?” he eventually asked.
“Not great.” I couldn’t be honest with Rory, but I could be with Ben. Ben already knew the answer.
“No? What’s going on?”
“Just a bad day at work.” I felt myself splinter.
“Dan?”
“Yeah.” I knew it would take only one more knock against my broken glass for me to shatter completely, but I somehow managed to keep myself together. I pulled the phone away from my face for a brief moment and covered the microphone, trying not to get caught catching my breath. He caught me anyway.
“Don’t let them break you, Ellie. That’s not who you are.”
I nodded and tugged on my lips, trying to stop them from trembling. “Show ’em I’m not someone they can fuck with, right?” I looked up at my stained car ceiling, trying to keep my tears in place.
“That’s right. You’re Ellie Fucking McCain. You took ninety-fourth place in the Women’s Long Drive when you were fourteen, goddamn it.”
I wanted to laugh, remembering the first time Ben tried to pump me up, back when we were just friends. A sob slipped out instead.
“Why didn’t we get married? Why didn’t we do that?” He let his words linger, then softly said, “I wanted to marry you, Ellie.”
I pressed my hand over my mouth and nose.
I couldn’t breathe. My focus blurred through my tears.
I looked out at the Los Angeles skyline, and I saw my life split in two.
I saw everything I was running toward, and everything I’d left behind.
I saw everything I wanted, and everything I hated.
I saw all my dreams, and everyone I’d sacrificed for them.
I closed my eyes, dropped my hand, and whispered, “I wanted that, too.”
His inhale was jagged. “Come back . . .”
“I want to.” Silent tears poured down my face. “Come to me.”
I knew he wouldn’t leave New York, and he knew I wouldn’t go back.
I didn’t know what in my life or my career I was still fighting for in Los Angeles, but I knew I wasn’t done fighting.
Zoe had been right. Within a year, I had found more opportunities and built a more extensive network in LA than I could ever have imagined in New York.
And Ben’s career was thriving there. He’d been right, and he was turning into exactly who I’d always known he would be.
He couldn’t chance messing that up. His life was too big.
He was too close. The only thing I had in New York was him. And the only thing he had in LA was me.
“I want to.” His voice was quiet.
My heart cracked open. Ben knew me better than anybody.
He was a dreamer, like me. He still knew what made me tick, because it made him tick, too.
We were the same. I couldn’t go back to New York, and Ben couldn’t come to LA, because we couldn’t let our dreams break us.
That’s not who we were. It’s what we loved about each other.
It was also the reason we couldn’t be together.
When I opened my eyes again, they landed on my golf ball sitting in the cup holder. I didn’t want to admit that I thought about Rory, but I did.
I always did.