Page 36 of When Stars Fall

“I watched that film of yours. Was quite good.” I use my best British in response.

“Ten years.” She puts a hand on my unshaven face.

“Weird, isn’t it?” Some things don’t change. Ellie is as beautiful to me at thirty-four as she was during the three years we dated.

“You’ve been everywhere and nowhere.” She gives me one last glance before slipping off the edge of the pool.

Everywhere and nowhere.

I don’t plan on being nowhere anymore.

Chapter Fifteen

Ellie

Present Day

We eat at a food truck that sells locally caught fish on a bun. Sitting on top of a picnic table on the side of the road, we have an ocean view. Being with him is normal and surreal. Ten years stretch between us, but each year is a snippet of time, not a sequence of days. Those years should matter, make it hard for us to connect, to understand, to feel close, but they’ve fallen away as though they didn’t happen. Without Haven as evidence of their passing, I might believe we could pick up where we left off without missing a beat. Every time I glance at him, my heart aches or races, sometimes both. I can’t get my bearings.

“What are you doing after this week?” I take a bite of my sandwich.

He dusts off his hands, having eaten his much faster than me. “I have a couple things to check on and take care of in LA, then I start a promotional tour forSixty Seconds to Live.” His elbows rest on his knees, and he plays with his sandwich wrapper, bouncing it between his hands.

The promo material forSixty Seconds to Live,his race-car movie, has been everywhere. Like many of the movies he does, it’s a big, splashy production with a hefty budget. I check my watch, conscious of school ending soon.

“What do you have at three?”

“I’m picking up Haven from school.” I hope I sound like a wonderful aunt and not a concerned mother.

“Nikki seems like she’s doing a good job with her. Haven has a great sense of humor.”

Before I can talk myself out of it, I say, “She’s been asking about you. Did you want to stay and have dinner with us?”

“Yeah. I’d love that.” Wyatt’s eyebrows go up and then a slow smile is in bloom. He flexes his hand around the empty wrapper. “You taking her to Nikki after dinner?”

“No.” The truth. Now what? “She’ll stay at mine tonight.”

He nods. “Being a single parent can’t be easy.”

My lies of omission are as bad as confirming his ideas, but I can’t bring myself to lie outright. Single parenting is hard, and Nikki does bear the brunt of that when I’m on a movie set.

“Where’s the father?”

“Not in the picture.” A normal question to ask, but my stomach rolls.

“That’s too bad.” Wyatt juggles the wrapper from one hand to the other. “I can’t imagine having a kid and not wanting to be involved.”

When we were together, kids were an abstract thing for me and us—something for someday. The day I peed on that stick and saw the positive test result, I had a mini–panic attack. In shock, I booked myself on a flight home to have my mother confirm I was pregnant. A long chat with Nikki and my parents about my options ensued. Remembering those days causes a spike of anxiety. I was so lost and unsure. When the lines on the stick appeared, my heart understood I wouldn’t be able to keep Wyatt and the baby. At that time, the two didn’t go together.

“You think you’d be a good dad?” His relationship with his mother and father was fraught with animosity. In the three years we were together, I never met them, but I heard a lot, nothing good, from him and Anna.

“I’d sure as hell try, Ellie. My parents were such a disaster that I don’t have good role models. But Isaac’s parents were great. What happened to Isaac wasn’t from a lack of love and care.”

“Did you ever tell Tanvi what Isaac told us?” I keep my voice low in case anyone around us is trying to listen in.

“No. What would be the point? She can’t change the past. It was too late. I felt guilty for a long time.”

“About what happened to him as a kid or about his relationship with his father?” I try to make eye contact. After Isaac died, we were both so raw, in so much pain, and we never talked about Isaac’s revelations. We carried the weight, and soldiering on undid both of us in different ways.

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