Page 59 of Nothing Like the Movies

“My next class is at Kaplan,” I said, curious to know what she was up to, “if you want to walk with me.”

“Okay,” she said, nodding and adjusting her backpack, but I could tell that her mind was going a million miles an hour. We didn’t talk as we walked through the crowded hallway, but once we stepped outside, she cleared her throat and repeated, “Okay.”

I glanced over at her (well, down and over because she seemed shorter all of a sudden) as we walked on top of the red bricks of the courtyard, and something about the moment slapped me with a homesickness so strong, I nearly stumbled.

How was the strength of my want still so overpowering?

I mean, the setting was messing with me for sure. The tall treeslining the sidewalk, the stone buildings, the immaculate fall vibes as students walked to class in the warm afternoon sun; this was everything we’d experienced the first time around.

Those Polaroid days of our first week at UCLA.

I’d piggybacked her down this very path when her shoes gave her blisters, and she joked that we were like Jess and Rory at Yale, if Jess had wanted to go to Yale and Yale was hot and had leaves that only turned marginally yellow.

She’d assigned “In Between” to what she called our “WesLiz montage.”

Knock it off.

“Thank you for letting me talk to you,” she said politely, looking like she was about to launch into a prepared presentation. “I promise to stay under five minutes.”

“See that you do,” I said, looking away from her and at the space in front of us as we walked, the damn lyrics ribboning around the campus trees.

He hates it when she’s crying, he hates when she’s away

Even at their worst, they know they’ll still be okay…

“Of course,” she said, going even harder on the manners. “So here’s the thing. I know Lilith has reached out to you about doing another interview, and I totally understand why you declined.”

“You do,” I said calmly, more as a statement than a question as I struggled to digest what she’d just said. Was she seriously here to try to talk me into doing Lilith’s interview?Thatwas what brought her to my side of campus? To convince me I should tell my stor y of “overcoming adversity” so the athletic department could get more clicks?

“I mean, I totally get wanting to keep your personal life private,” she said. “But she really just wants to talk about how you came to be at UCLA—and on the baseball team—again. That’s not really so private, is it?”

I kept walking, knowing she was probably right, but still feeling apprehensive as hell.

Because not only did Inotwant to revisit that time in my life, but there was also a lot of stuff that went down in my family that I really didn’t want to share with the public.

In the past, when faced with awkward silence, Liz tended to ramble.

Apparently my lack of response triggered that reaction in her, because she launched into a babbling sales pitch, going on and on about how nice it would be for me to be able to share what’d happened with the world.

When we got to Kaplan and stopped walking, she finished with, “It’s an incredible story, the way it all transpired, and I think it’d be really cool for you to share it.”

“What’s incredible about it, exactly?” I asked.

“What?” She looked surprised by that question, her eyebrows crinkling.

“I’m just wondering what you know about my ‘inspirational story,’?” I said as I realized I had no idea what she knew about my return. “And why you think it’s inspiring at all.”

She pressed her lips together and looked at me, her eyebrows scrunched as the breeze lifted the tips of her copper hair.God, I love those freckles.She sighed, pushed at her hair, and admitted, “To behonest, I don’t know anything. But if Lilith thinks it’s a good story, then it’s a good story.”

So she’d never been curious enough about me to look.Noted.

“Who the hell is Lilith, anyway?” I asked, unable to hide the irritation. “I don’t think I’ve even met her, yet she always seems to be in my inbox.”

“She’s my boss. I’m her intern.”

“Oh, well that clears it up.” I could tell by the way Liz raised her chin that she didn’t feel like elaborating, so I said, “Well, I appreciate you crossing campus to do her dirty work, but please tell her ‘no, thank you.’?”

“?‘No, thank you,’?” she repeated slowly, obviously surprised I didn’t cave. She cleared her throat and said, “So, no, then? You won’t consider it at all?”

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