Page 27 of The Summer You Were Mine

She kept replaying their conversations in her head, trying to see if she’d missed a crucial detail that led to this disaster.

But all she heard was Cris telling her he couldn’t wait to see her.

He’d wanted to take her to his favorite place to eat, a diner of all places, and she’d teased him about eating somewhere that didn’t make his beloved focaccia.

Finally, she’d decided to walk down Emerson Street in Palo Alto to clear her head.

The streets had been quiet on the chilly November evening, but the lights inside the Palo Alto Creamery were warm and bright.

Her heart sank. This was the place—it had to be.

As she walked by, everyone inside looked happy, tucking into their banana splits and french fries.

She wandered inside, thinking maybe she would get some hot chocolate to go, but she found herself taking a seat at the counter.

The plastic-coated menu had just been wiped down and still smelled like sanitizer as she read down the lists of omelets and French toast, reubens and tuna melts.

She hadn’t eaten since breakfast back in LA, and though a real dinner was still unappealing, the twirling pies in a glass case on the side of the counter had caught her attention.

She ordered and waited, feeling nervous and more alone than ever.

The moment the waitress slid a gigantic slice of blueberry pie with vanilla ice cream in front of her, a sad song she knew all too well came on the speakers.

She’d paused with her fork in her hand and closed her eyes for a moment, feeling the stinging heat rise up her face to meet the lilting voice.

It was a song they had listened to together and the lyrics about getting swallowed in the sea were torture.

At that moment she was grateful she’d chosen to sit at the counter, because at least when she cried into the swirls of melting vanilla, only the waitress in her red-and-white uniform would be able to see.

She hadn’t looked at a pie, much less eaten a slice, since then.

“I’m sorry about that,” Cris said now, walking back over to the bench.

He stood facing her, looking like he was too antsy to sit.

“But, I want to explain one thing to you. I didn’t know how to do anything beyond following the black line in front of me as fast as I could that year.

They were going to drop me from the team.

I would have been a cautionary tale. ‘Poor Cristiano’ and all that.

I admit that my way of handling it was wrong.

I threw you into the pile of people who were expecting something from me. ”

“I didn’t expect anything from you. I only wanted you to acknowledge me when I was standing next to you—maybe look at me like you did that summer,” Ellie said, feeling a lump in her throat.

She did not want to cry. People always thought she was sad when she cried, but it was frustration that made the tears come.

He was already looking at her like she was a chipped teacup.

“But I wasn’t the one you needed.” She put her face down, remembering the most humiliating part of all.

One month after the trip, while Ellie had been perched on a barstool in her family’s kitchen wearing reindeer pajamas, Cinzia was talking to her mother on speakerphone about their Christmas plans and mentioned inviting Cris’s new girlfriend for dinner.

Ellie had still been hoping he would call her, that he would take back what he wrote in his response, and make plans to see her again.

She remembered how it hurt before she even had time to comprehend what she’d just heard.

She remembered telling her parents that she’d felt sick from too much eggnog and had spent Christmas day in bed, curled up and weeping.

She remembered never wanting to feel that way ever, ever again.

“Maggie. That’s when I first started seeing Maggie.” He shook his head. Ellie squeezed her eyes shut. “You won’t believe me, but she wasn’t more important than you. She was, I don’t know, easier.”

“Oh, well, that certainly makes it better.” Ellie remembered Cinzia saying that Cris was absolutely smitten with a barista he’d met when she made his drink incorrectly at his favorite coffee shop.

At least if he had decided to date another athlete, she would figure that he needed someone like him.

But this hurt worse. He’d chosen a regular girl—like her, but not her .

“I don’t mean it like that. You know, did you ever stop to think that maybe you were afraid, too?”

“Writing that email was the right thing to do.”

“Yeah, yeah, the right thing for me and for you. I got it. But damn it, Ellie, why didn’t you tell me how you really felt?”

“You’re kidding me, right?” She squinted at him. “Would you have done that if you were me?”

“I should have,” he said, his eyes locking onto hers.

She swallowed, trying to release the tension in her voice.

It was time to get back to the present, to be practical—to be factual .

“Cris, none of this is going to change the past, and it doesn’t help with our future.

It’s not going to fix your reputation or get my show back, so I believe we have to make a choice here.

We either move ahead without trying to like each other or drop this whole plan and figure out our own career problems.”

“Both of those options leave us as almost strangers.”

“I don’t see an alternative,” she said. The finality of her words was a head rush. Ellie stepped toward the railing and focused on the boats, trying to ignore the heat of him behind her. It had to be said, even if it crushed whatever they’d started. He was quiet. Maybe he understood, too.

“Wait a minute,” his voice said behind her. “I need to ask you one thing.” Cris placed a hand on the railing in front of her.

“Okay.” She blinked.

“Why do I make you so uncomfortable?” He leaned so close she could smell the bergamot soap Graziella placed in every bathroom of the house.

Her eyes burned. How was she supposed to answer that?

She wanted to tell him that almost everyone made her uncomfortable, he was just the crown jewel of discomfort.

She wanted to tell him that she couldn’t bear to think that there was yet another situation she had misread, like she had done so many times with other people.

She wanted to tell him that she was afraid of being seen, really being seen, because it would mean she had to tell him about her diagnosis and all of her failures.

But there was no way she was going there. Not today.

“No one is defined by their diagnosis,” the psychiatrist who diagnosed her had said.

Not everyone would try to—or would want to try to—comprehend.

“Autism is an aspect of who you are, like any other characteristic. You get to decide how or even if you want to share it.” It was a tidy decree, allowing Ellie to decide “if and when” without worrying about “why.” She still had doubts, she still had questions, but the worst one of all was wondering what would be different if she’d been diagnosed earlier.

And now she didn’t want to think about the question that had begun to scorch a tiny hole in some outer ring in her psyche: Would things with Cris have been different?

“I’m uncomfortable because I do not have time to wonder about this. I spend so much of my time wondering. I cannot live in the past. I do not believe in regret.”

“Okay, then, no more wondering. Ellie, I did have feelings for you then. Through a combination of grief, fear, and general stupidity, I messed up. I know it doesn’t matter now, and maybe you won’t believe me, but I never forgot about you.

Not for one second. I thought about you way more than even I could believe.

It was infuriating. I can’t change what happened, but I also can’t let you walk around thinking that some part of me doesn’t break a little bit more every time I look at you, because it does. ”

A breeze blew a lock of his wild hair down in front of his sunglasses, and he pulled them off. His eyes fixed on her. It was almost too much. This time she let herself feel the transfer of energy that usually made her look away and held his gaze anyway.

“I don’t care about our project or whatever it is that we are trying to do.

I just need you to know,” he said, reaching for her hand.

“I am sorry.” He pulled her hand to his chest, pressing the back of it to the spot over his heart.

His warm skin felt like it would burn through her hand.

Even with the sun in her eyes, she could see that this was a man who was trying.

“Okay.” She stared at their clasped hands.

“I understand. Thank you for telling me that,” she said, too stunned to stop sounding like an automatic email reply.

She squeezed her eyes shut for a second, reach ing deep inside.

“I’m sorry, too. I could have attempted to talk to you before sending that email. ”

Cris nodded. “Do you think we can turn this around?”

“I think we can try. That’s all I can say right now.”

“I’ll take it,” he said.

Some part of her was still trying to keep him at a distance, but even she knew there was only so long you could hold on to hurt before it held on to you.

She sat back down on the bench, not ready to leave yet.

Cris turned to her but didn’t take a step forward until she slid her bag off the space next to her and set it down between her feet.

He sat next to her in the spot she’d cleared—not too close and not too far, just the perfect distance away.