Page 34 of So Not My Thing
“Um, okay.” He was quiet for a moment. “I hadn’t gotten very much media training at that point. Now I know the art of deflection. I could have said, ‘I love my fans.’ Or smiled and been like, ‘Aw, what a sweetheart.’ I could have said, ‘It means a lot to me that she loves my music.’ Or, ‘It’s a good thing she doesn’t know what a dork I am.’ I could have—”
“Okay.” I held up my hand to stem the flow of words. “I believe you.” He really had thought about it.
“You sure? Because I’ve got over 999,000 more to go.” He kicked at a small piece of loose concrete as we passed it.
“I’m sure. You’ve thought about it. That’s what I wanted to know.”
“To be fair, it’s only every time I see it. Which is constantly.”
We walked past a few shops in silence. It was an okay silence. Not comfortable, exactly, but I didn’t feel an overwhelming need to break it.
“What are you thinking about?” he asked after a couple of minutes.
“About how differently the last twelve years would have gone if you had said any of those things instead.” He winced, but I wasn’t sorry. The cost had been real, and I didn’t have to make him feel better about it.
“Sounds like it was pretty savage.”
“Yeah.”
“Would you tell me about it?”
I wasn’t sure how to feel about that request. No, I didn’t want to talk about it. Once Chloe had put herself in charge of my makeover in college, I’d started living the life I wanted for myself. But after all the years of being angry with Miles before that, did I want to pass up the opportunity to let him see it through my eyes?
“I know I don’t have the right to ask,” he continued when I’d paused too long. “But I was so mad about it for so long that it took years before I calmed down enough to ask how it might have affected you.”
“Whoa, wait.” I stopped in front of a bright orange house with equally bright green trim and shutters. “What didyouhave to be mad about?”
He waved his hand like he was trying to erase his words. “It doesn’t matter. I was trying to say that I’d like to know what it was like for you so I can give you another apology, one specifically for the fallout.”
Itdidmatter, and I would come back to it, but I decided to answer the question. “I don’t know if I can ever separate my high school experience from theStarstruckexperience.”
“No kidding.” His lips gave a small twist, and I felt a pang of stupidity.
“Right. I guess yours was tied to it too.” I sighed. Might as well get this over with. “I was a freshman when all of that went down. Kind of awkward. Homely, overly emotional. I mean, that’s how I ended up viral the first time.”
“Overly emotional? You’re saying you didn’t only have meltdowns over me? Wow. Keeping my ego in check. Thanks, Ellie.”
I appreciated that he was trying to joke about it, but I wanted him to see the whole picture. “It definitely wasn’t just you. I cried at everything. Puppies. Tampon commercials. Saints wins. I was kind of doomed, honestly. Literally every single strong emotion I felt popped out through my eyes.”
I’d been glad at first when the video went viral. It made the chance of Miles noticing me way better. I’d walked around in a lovestruck haze, not caring that at least half the kids at school who’d seen the video were jerks about it and made repulsive crying faces at me in the hall.
But after Miles did theLaurashow, even the nice kids kept their distance. I’d been alone in my misery, trying to process the hurt. The betrayal. The shame.
“Sounds like you were a sensitive kid,” he said. “And I don’t mean that as an insult.”
“Yeah.” I stared at the small park we were passing without seeing it, trying to find the words to explain the experience without getting lost in the memories. “I didn’t have coping skills yet. Even when people were nice to me, I wasn’t sure if they were laughing at me behind my back. I dropped out of a lot of stuff.” I’d stayed in show choir after my teacher went over my head to my parents, but I’d stayed safely in the chorus, turning him down when he’d offered me the senior solo.I know your voice hasn’t dried up, Gabi. That was what he’d said when he’d tried to talk me into it.
But it had.
“Talking to you about this is weird,” I said. “I always thought if I had a chance to meet you in person, I’d run you over with my car or something.”
“Want to go get it?”
“Not anymore.” I started us down the road again, angling toward the river. “You’ve ruined that by being sort of decent.”
He went quiet, and I let him think. I did too, about something my grandmother had told me when I graduated from college.Nothing keeps us down, Elle. Nothing but ourselves.
“How are we even here, having this conversation?” I asked with a slight smile. “I went so far out of my way to be invisible when you came to Crescent Properties that first day.”
