Chapter 38
SPRING AND SUMMER CAME AND WENT, AND RORY WAS STILL TRYING to sort out his US status by the time fall rolled around.
Just like when I was a teenager, I found myself looking for him everywhere I went, even though I knew he was somewhere else.
My eyes never landed anymore, unless they were landing on him. Until one day, when they landed on Ben.
It was a scorching-hot November, and Ken had thrown me into the fire.
I was working closely with him on a brand-new prestige, hour-long drama that had already been picked up for series.
There was something about how Ken was working with me that felt different.
He would sit at the edge of my desk and shoot the shit.
He would eat lunch with me and review the casting packages from various agencies.
He took my script notes seriously, and he had hired a new assistant named Cheyenne and was inviting her into meetings to take notes instead of me.
I was now seated at the table instead of standing in the back.
He said nothing about it, but Ken was starting to feel more like a mentor than a boss.
We had been searching for our leading man, holding general meetings with actors for months, when an agent named Rhonda Milk gave us her agency’s pitch package.
Ken tossed it on my desk, saying, “I’m meeting with one of the actors from Driven in five minutes, Ellie.
I’d like to know your thoughts. Cheyenne’s going to read with him. ”
I followed Ken into his office, and when Ben walked in, I almost fell over. We smiled at each other, my eyes bugging out of my head, shocked to see him, but we kept things professional.
“Ben Winters. Thanks for coming in.” Ken stretched out his hand to shake Ben’s.
I watched Ben work in awe, and when his audition finished, he asked me to walk him out.
“Holy crap,” I whispered as we moved through the echoey hallways. “I can’t believe I’m looking at you.”
“I know. You look good. Are you good?” Ben was still so devastatingly handsome, towering over my coworkers in the office. His eyes seemed even greener and darker, his hair was longer, waving along the top and sides of his head, and his beard was thicker.
I smiled. “I am. Are you?”
“I am.” His eyes darted back and forth between mine.
“It’s been a long time.” My attention fell to my feet.
“Yeah.” Ben held his lips together tightly and looked at his feet, too.
“How long are you in LA?” I opened Marie Street Productions’ heavy black front door to the building’s long hallway, where we passed multiple production offices, editing bays, Black Cross’s writers’ room, a kitchen, accounting, and legal, and guided Ben out the emergency exit to the private staircase that was used only by employees and celebrities.
“I don’t know, am I getting the job?” He smiled as we descended the outdoor metal stairway to the ground level and designated private parking.
“No-brainer, in my opinion, but sadly it’s not my call.”
“Maybe you can put in a good word.”
“I think I can probably swing that.”
“So, what’s been going on? How’s life?” Ben flicked my hand with his own, trying to gauge our comfort level.
Even before Ben and I were together, when we were just friends, our touch was how we showed each other how we felt.
With only half a second of contact, even after years apart, it all felt so familiar.
I flicked him back. “I’m still living with Zoe. We’re in Highland Park now, on the east side. And Rory and I are together.” I held my breath, waiting for Ben’s reaction.
“You are?” Ben said, sounding surprised. He exhaled through his nose as he crossed his arms. “He’s doing well for himself. It seems like I can’t watch any sports without seeing his face in some commercial. I mean, Rory Campbell.” Ben chuckled. “Get that guy off my TV.”
“Funny, he says the same thing about you.” I leveled my gaze at him.
“But you live with Zoe?”
“Yeah. He’s still in Vancouver. For now.”
“Got it.”
Long distance had been a path Ben and I tried and failed. I couldn’t survive LA while still clinging to New York. But with Rory, I had chosen the path I didn’t ultimately choose for Ben, and he didn’t ultimately choose for me.
“Well, from everything I remember, Rory’s a good guy. I’m happy for you.”
“Thank you, Ben. What about you?”
“Ah, I’m with someone pretty great. Her name is Emma.” Ben pulled out his phone to show me his lock screen. He had his arm around a woman who was drop-dead gorgeous. They were both wearing bathing suits on vacation and making playful faces for the camera.
“Well, it’s too bad she looks like that, but I’m assuming her personality shines,” I said sarcastically, and Ben laughed.
“Ellie!” A voice boomed from the other side of the parking lot, next to the building’s main visitor’s entrance. It was Craig Sinicki. “Hold up. I’ll come to you.”
“Give me a minute, Craig,” I called back, but he kept walking toward us. I rolled my eyes.
“Big fan?” Ben asked through a smartass smile.
“I can’t stand this guy,” I whispered.
“Who is he?” Ben whispered, mirroring me as he always had.
“He’s the showrunner for Black Cross. He created it.”
Ben nodded and looked at Craig as he made his way across the parking lot. “I stopped watching that stupid show after season one. Don’t tell Craig how dumb and stilted I think his dialogue is.”
I laughed, and Ben looked back at me, his face softening.
“I should go.” He brushed my hair behind my ear, still quietly caring.
“I hope this isn’t inappropriate, but I’ve talked to Rory about it, so he knows, and I feel like I can say it to you because it’s you.
” I took a moment to compose myself. “One day we’re all going to be gone, and none of it will have mattered.
But I want you to know that I am who I am, because you were who you are. And I loved you.”
I watched tears build in Ben’s forest-green eyes,
Deep breath, Ellie.
“You’re the one that got away. And I don’t mean that romantically because my love for you went beyond that.
I mean our friendship. When someone settles in your bones, they never leave you.
And every time my bones creak and ache, I wonder if it’s because you’re not in my life anymore.
You were my best friend, Ben. And you and New York .
. . I’ll miss it for the rest of my life.
” A few stray tears fell to my cheeks. I bit my lip, worried I had gone too far with my honesty.
Ben let out a sigh and wrapped his arms around me for a hug. He kissed the top of my head. “I miss you, too, Ellie.”
I smiled and pressed my face into Ben’s chest, a place I had lived and loved in a past life. “Was that weird?” I asked nervously.
“Yup.” Ben let out a small laugh. “But I wouldn’t have expected anything less.”
“Okay.” I felt lighter. I hadn’t realized that Ben’s absence from my life carried so much weight.
When I stepped out of his hug, I noticed that Craig had slowed his pace and was looking at us like he was trying to put together a puzzle. “I should see what this idiot wants now,” I whispered, barely audibly, as Craig closed the distance between us.
Ben chuckled softly. “I travel to LA a lot these days. Next time Rory’s in town, see where I’m at. We should all grab a drink or something.”
“I’d love that.”
“Okay. I should go.” Ben reached into his pockets, searching for something. “Actually, I think I left my sunglasses inside. It’s good to see you, Ellie.” Ben gave me one last smile before he jogged up the private staircase and ducked back into the building.
I turned to Craig. “What’s up?”
“Where’s your boyfriend?”
“Right now? New York.” I smirked to myself at the irony of Rory in New York and Ben in Los Angeles. “Why?”
“So, what was that with Ben Winters?” Craig walked around me in a way that forced me to move behind the stairs.
“He’s an old friend.”
“Seemed like more to me. You fucking around on Rory Campbell? That’s pretty hot.”
“What?” I sneered. “No. I’ve got to go. I need to run to a meeting,” I lied.
I tried to walk out from behind the stairs, but Craig leaned forward and kissed me.
I was stunned—frozen solid for a full two seconds as his mouth moved over mine.
When I lifted my arms between us to push him away, he took my hand and pushed it down his pants, then closed his hand over mine, over his dick, locking me in place.
He quickly unsnapped his top button with his other hand to free himself, then groaned. “You like that? Fuck . . .”
Everything went blurry, then got prickly.
It all happened so fast that I looked down and had no idea how my hand had gotten down his pants.
It felt as if my head were crashing on top of my body like a boulder crushing a paper bag.
I was caving in on myself. I lost my voice.
I lost my words. I lost my thoughts. I lost everything.
And then everything inside me went black and rigid.
I gripped Craig’s dick, beneath his hand, and throttled the shit out of it.
He let go of my hand and started yelling at me, I think—I couldn’t be sure—but I screamed, too, right in his fucking face.
I dropped his dick, and he darted up the private staircase, through the emergency exit door, and into the building. Again, so fast.
I don’t know how I got upstairs, but I did. It felt like I was floating. I walked down the long hallway, past legal, accounting, a kitchen, Black Cross’s writers’ room, editing bays, and multiple production offices, then pushed myself through Marie Street’s heavy black front door.
“What the hell is going on out here?” Ken emerged from his office, confused. “Did I hear screaming?”
I didn’t fight. There was no flight. I didn’t even freeze. I didn’t fall to the ground, but my body still played dead, like a possum in front of a predator. I’d had panic attacks before, but I didn’t know what this was. This wasn’t anything. I’d turned into nothing.
“Ellie?” I think it was Ben talking. I wasn’t looking at him. I was looking through him. “What happened?”