Page 51 of The Summer You Were Mine

From the moment Ellie sat back in the ridiculously comfortable seat inside her very own elegant compartment in the first-class cabin on an ITA flight she knew that she was going to leave New York.

A sense of dread of being in the city again had crept in at the wedding and never found its way out.

So when she’d said goodbye to her parents at the airport as they boarded their flight back to Los Angeles, instead of walking down two gates to begin her sentencing to a middle seat in Delta economy class back to Newark, she decided on a last-minute upgrade.

She kept walking to the ITA counter and bought a ticket so expensive it made her eyes water.

Why not? The first sip of champagne after the flight attendant had shown her how to recline the plush seat made her forget the price entirely, but the second sip reminded her of where she was headed and it still didn’t feel good.

She called Nate at Magniv before boarding to tell him that she was both unable to secure Cris Conte as a guest and not willing to turn the show into a circus.

He said he appreciated her honesty and said a string of phrases like “due to budgetary considerations” and “possible future collaboration” and “had an amazing run” before letting her know that someone from HR would be contacting her to close out her paperwork.

Games Over would hopefully fade into people’s memory after a quick press release explaining that Ellie would be moving on to “other projects”—whatever that meant.

It wouldn’t take more than a couple of days before some new shiny story captured people’s attention.

That was the relatively easy part, but so many questions ran across her mind like a stock market ticker.

What was she going to do in New York now that she had no reason to be there?

Would the media be satisfied with her show collapsing or would they chase her around looking for more information?

How long could she afford her life if she actually got brave enough to pursue the clinical internship?

Would she cringe walking by the fishbowl or have to take a detour clear around Midtown?

And how did she feel about her mom living all alone now that her father was moving into an apartment near the USC aquatic center?

Instead of trying to stop the thoughts out of fear like she normally would, she let them fly around until they landed.

Every question began to have the same answer: go back to California.

There was a slight tug in the back of her mind that questioned the logic of moving closer to where Cris would be, but San Francisco was as close to LA as New York City was to Newport News, Virginia.

If two cities were far enough apart that people could speak in an entirely different accent and understand the mysteries of the term “yield” while driving, it was far enough.

When she called Peggy to ask her what she would think of her coming home, her mother burst into tears on the spot and asked her if she was sure.

“I’m sure, Mom,” she said, but the only thing she was sure of was that she needed someone to rent her apartment.

Within a few days, she was introduced to Omar’s cousin Vilmari, a journalist who’d just gotten a promotion at El Diario NY .

Vilmari had also just gotten divorced, a fact that she declared as though she’d won Beyoncé concert tickets.

Luckily, Vilmari didn’t have much furniture or many household items, which meant Ellie could leave some bigger items behind.

She boxed up most of her clothing and personal items, shipped it all to Los Angeles, and chucked the rest into the storage unit in the basement of her building.

She ordered one last coffee from her favorite coffee shop and walked one more loop of Central Park, where she silently bade farewell to all her favorite landmarks, trees, and statues.

It was tougher to say goodbye to Ben. They definitely lived separate lives in the city, communicating via FaceTime even though they were usually only blocks away from each other.

They were both busy with work and life, but there was also something awesome about being able to call each other up at the last minute and bring over a coffee or meet for a drink.

He thought it was wildly reckless to drive a rental car all the way back to California instead of flying and bought her an extra pepper spray, plus a keychain shaped like a cat that doubled as knuckle spikes.

“I don’t know if you are having your very own, like, Miss-Americana-on-the-road experience, but remember that Route 66 is a tourist trap and even Thelma and Louise had the sense to travel together. Can’t you just drive up and down the PCH a few times to get your rocks off when you get back home?”

“I’m not driving Route 66 and Thelma and Louise were criminals—very beautiful criminals, but still criminals. I really want to do this. I am going to take normal highways, stay in brightly lit hotels, and only get gas when it’s daylight and there are security cameras.”

“Oh, good, so there will be video evidence of your abduction.”

“Ugh, you know you sound like Mom sometimes.”

“I can’t help it if half of me is small-town Pennsylvania. You’re lucky I didn’t send you off with a full plate of scrapple.”

“Or ham loaf. Don’t remind me. Speaking of the parents, I haven’t seen Dad hug you that hard since you fell off the swing set in the backyard and passed out when you were five.”

“He was appreciative is all.” Ben grinned. “He wanted to thank me for making the wedding beautiful.”

“I’m pretty sure I heard something along the lines of ‘I could not be more proud of the man you are’ right before ‘I love you,’ so I would say that’s a bit more than appreciative.”

“Maybe. I may have to come for a visit—I mean, now that you’re going to be there.”

“I’m sure he would love that.” She smiled and Ben glared at her before breaking into a laugh.

“I love you. You’re the greatest brother ever, but I’ve got like two more minutes until this parking spot expires.

” Ellie opened her arms to Ben, tears pricking her eyes.

He hugged her tight, told her he loved her more, then watched her walk around to the driver’s side of her rental car and get in.

“This changes nothing, you know,” he said, leaning into the open passenger window. “We will talk all the time like we always do. I will bother you with details about everything I am doing like I always do.” He stood on the sidewalk next to her car as she set a bag of snacks on the passenger seat.

“And everyone, I hope!” Ellie began rolling the window up. “Speaking of—have you called Leo yet?”

“What?” said Ben, looking mock-horrified. Ellie blew her brother a kiss, closed the window, and drove away.

She really wasn’t worried about the drive, only the silence.

A rela tive newbie to long road trips, she’d figured five days would be enough to make the trip if she could drive eight to ten hours per day, which meant she’d need to have at least fifty hours of audiobooks, podcasts, and catch-up phone calls to divert her thoughts from funneling into a vortex of career insecurity, ruminations about her parents’ relationship, culture shock, and a dose of good old-fashioned heartbreak.

That last concern was one she’d slammed directly into when her phone immediately connected to Bluetooth while she was trying to merge onto 495 from East 37th Street.

The phone began blaring the last song she’d played on Spotify, which had been downloaded while she and Cris were still lying in her bed in Chiavari, and had played on a loop after he left.

She’d let it sing her to sleep with the moon still visible from her window and the scent of jasmine from the street below.

She couldn’t risk trying to fumble with the phone in traffic and was forced to listen to three excruciating lines of the song.

As soon as she could, Ellie pressed “stop,” removed the download, and vowed not to play any music on the entire trip.

She ended up listening to three books and twelve episodes of the Ologies podcast and had daily check-ins with Ben and Greta.

Ben usually wanted visual confirmation that there were no murderers hiding in her back seat.

Ellie usually replied that their parents should have sued the babysitter who used to let them watch old episodes of The Twilight Zone when they were kids.

Greta tried to be light, regaling Ellie with stories of Matilde’s ballet lessons and Odetta’s penchant for sitting in the houseplants to pee, but Ellie could tell she was trying not to directly ask about Cris.

“I’m fine, you know,” she offered. She wanted Greta to know she didn’t have a problem talking about it because there was no “it.” “I’m actually grateful—not to him. But I am feeling good about what’s coming next.”

“That’s great, ciccia, ” Greta said as though one of her children was presenting her a drawing of a horse that looked like a gallbladder with legs.

She knew she’d prove it to Greta eventually, and the best way to do that was to keep repeating that she was fine.

So she did—to Greta, to Ben, to her parents when they called, to the interior of her car as she crossed another state line, to the kind police officer in Ohio who said he loved Games Over , to the fireball sun setting into the plains in Nebraska, to the Gore Range of mountains in Colorado.

I’m fine. I’m fine. I’m fine. In the end, she ended up making the trip in four days, but she’d never admit that it was because she couldn’t handle one more night in a quiet hotel room by herself.