Page 67 of Can We Skip to the Good Part?
“Ella.”
“Yeah?”
A longer pause. Her stomach tightened. “Nothing. You’re right. Thank you.”
She nodded and watched her wounded friend head out on a comfy pant mission while she prepared a bowl of Hoopties with care.
The afternoon was a quiet one. Ella shelved her cover, knowing she could pick it back up again and work as late as she needed, the beauty of self-employment. They popped on Netflix, and she let Rachel have the remote. They navigated between trashy reality TV and vintage rom-coms. Once they finished one, Rachel navigated them to another. After the first hour of mostly silence, Rachel started to make occasional comments.
“I never get tired of that part,” she said when Kate Hudson finished singing “You’re So Vain” with Matthew McConaughey at the party.
“I love that Carly Simon let them tear that song apart for this film.”
“She should thank them. I didn’t even know the song until this scene.”
“Don’t tell my parents.”
A few more moments of silence. “How are they?” Rachel asked.
Ella thought about the question. The truth was, she didn’t exactly know. Her brother had joined them in Greece, but she wasn’t sure if they were all still together. She often reached out when she hadn’t heard from them, but this time, she decided to wait. “I’ll find out the next time they remember I’m out here.”
“They don’t forget about you. They just get caught up in their adventures.” She sighed. “Sometimes people just fall for their own bullshit. I do.” She turned back to the film, a heaviness still hanging off of her.
“Well,” Ella said, finally. “You’re not the only one with things to work on.”
Rachel leveled her with a pointed look. “Trust me. I know.”
“Touché.”
They watched the rest of the film in silence. Ella checked the clock, sometimes wondering what the Weepers were discussing in this parallel moment. Had Max explained away her absence? Had their friends believed her? It was likely that if she wanted to maintain her friendship with Rachel, which she did, she would need to keep her distance from Max. She hadn’t thoroughly examined the impact of that reality, but it likely meant stepping away from the Weepers altogether, a thought that made her chest ache. The club had been her first true home base since landing in Everly Springs.
After one last episode ofThe Traitors, Rachel powered down the TV and dropped off her empty popcorn bowl in the sink. “You didn’t have book club tonight?”
“I skipped it. I probably won’t be attending anymore.” She wanted Rachel to know that she took repairing their friendship seriously. If that meant sacrificing herself, so be it.
“Oh. Well, if you?—”
“It’s a bad idea. I’m going to keep my distance from Max. The whole thing was out of line and never should have happened.”
She nodded as she rinsed out her dish, but said nothing.
“I didn’t ask a lot of questions about work because I thought you needed some time away from the whole topic. But if you want to talk about what happened today or what your future plans might be, we can. As you know, I’ve been there.”
Rachel paused, placed her bowl in the dishwasher, and met Ella’s gaze with closed-off green eyes. “I don’t think so.”
“Okay. No problem. Well, the offer stands.”
“I think I just want some sleep.”
“Understandable.”
The wall was still up between them, and Ella couldn’t help but wonder if it would be permanent. The thought made heruneasy. She watched Rachel extinguish every light except the one above Ella’s head and leave the room without another word. That’s when Ella felt the hopelessness descend, the overt loneliness she had no one to blame for but herself. Without Max, the Weepers, or Rachel, she honestly had no one. Her other friends were acquaintances, and most of them were back in Tulsa. Her family would surface again someday with a bubbly update before flitting off into their bright and cheerful lives without her. And here she would be, Ella Baker—party of one. Forever and always.
EIGHTEEN
Pajamas and Pop-Ups
She wasn’t supposed to reach out. Max had promised herself that she’d take Amanda’s advice and give Ella the space to work through her turmoil with Rachel and take the lead on whatever happened between her and Max. The problem was that Max was not a passive person, but rather someone who preferred to take charge of her destiny, which led her to text Ella several days after the last book club meeting, the one without Ella.
