Page 118 of This Changes Everything

“Come in,” Ken called out from behind his desk.

The office was filled with memorabilia of Ken’s career, but that wasn’t what struck me. He was the only boss I’d had who displayed pictures of his family. He had birth announcements of his kids framed on the wall, but photos of him with multiple presidents loosely scattered on the bookshelf that framed his desk.

I looked out his enormous window and could see the Hollywood Hills. I knew that lost inside those mountains was Mulholland Drive, where I used to park and look down at where I was standing now. It was there that I would think about every mistake I had ever made.

The sky was blue, as always. Houses were scattered along the rolling hills. The view seared into my soul and pushed through who I was now all the way to who I had been when I was fourteen. I had memorized it. Every hill. Every house. Every side street. Every freeway. Every palm tree. None of it lived outside anymore. It all lived inside me. And I knew I was saying goodbye. Not just to Los Angeles. To my life. To this version of myself. To the dreams that made me who I was. But life evolves, and dreams change, and it was time for me to be okay with that. It was time for me to finally learn how to let go.

I shifted my gaze back to Ken. “Craig Sinicki assaulted me.” It felt impossible to say, mainly because a part of me was still trying to justify what had happened. I still had a hard time believing myself. I tempered every impulse to tell myself that maybe I had led him on. I took a deep breath and forced myself to keep going. “I’ve known Ben Winters for years. He was trying to protect me. Please check the camera by the stairwell, under the emergency exit.”

Ken stood up from his desk. “Ellie, are you okay?” I nodded, and Ken grabbed his office phone to call his assistant. “Cheyenne, can you get the tapes from our security cameras. I want to see yesterday’s footage.” He hung up, and I could hear Cheyenne start walking down the hall. “Craig’s been fired.”

“He has?” I gasped. But that’s not possible was my immediate thought.

“I was very confused by what happened, so I did some investigating. I called Mary in our IT department. About four hours later, I got a call about some emails that he had written to you, and some recent ones to Cheyenne.”

I closed my eyes, and tears streamed down my face. Intensely confusing feelings of relief mixed with guilt swept through my body like a raging river.

“Ken, I don’t want to quit. That’s not who I am. I love working for this company, but more than that, I love working for you and learning from you.” I pushed my tears away from my face with my palms and composed myself. “But I also don’t want to be in Los Angeles anymore.” I couldn’t believe I was saying that sentence out loud.

“Ellie, after I got the phone call, I went into your computer, too. I hope that’s okay.” Ken opened the top drawer of his desk and pulled out three scripts that I had written. “I did some reading last night.”

I looked down at my scripts, shell-shocked. He’d had them printed and bound, and they were already marked up with notes in red ink.

“This is who you are.” He pressed down on the scripts. “I think you should keep writing because I think you could be good at it, and I want you to keep producing because I know you’re good at it. So I’d like to talk to you about what that might entail if you choose to stay at Marie Street.”

I looked back out to the Hollywood Hills and repeated something someone once said to me a long time ago. “I don’t belong in the sun.”

“Nobody likes this kind of sun in November. You don’t want to quit, so I’m willing to make this work. If you don’t want to be in LA anymore, work remotely and come down for essentials only.” Ken nodded. “I don’t want you to quit, either.”

“Thank you, Ken.” I wiped the tears from my face, then hugged him.

By the time I got back home after an entire day sitting on boulders at the side of the Pacific Coast Highway and looking out at the ocean, Rory had already left. I’d called him while he was playing golf with Ben to tell him about my conversation with Ken, how Craig got fired, and that I was keeping my job. He wanted so much to be there for me when I got home, but our timing wasn’t going to work. When did it ever? I didn’t tell him, however, that I had decided to leave LA and was about to give him the life that he wanted . . . that both of us wanted.

Ben was at the house in Highland Park, waiting for me when I got back, warming my heart with the same ease he had ten years earlier when we got pizza that first night in New York. I looked at Ben and told him it was time for me to go home.

“I know.” Ben folded his arms around me. “You’re a bird.”

The next morning, Zoë drove me to the airport. We went under the Airport Tunnel on Sepulveda Boulevard. I watched the yellow lights blur around the car. And as I felt them burn into my soul, I closed my eyes, cried, and said goodbye.

Chapter 42

VANCOUVER 30 years old

I WAS STANDING IN FRONT OF RORY’S PENTHOUSE DOOR IN YALETOWN with my two suitcases by my side. It was pouring outside, and I could hear him moving around in his home, entirely unaware that I was at his door. I grabbed my phone from my pocket and called him.

“Hey, baby,” Rory answered. “No FaceTime?”

“Not right now,” I whispered as I pressed my hand into the wooden door.

“You’re so quiet.” Rory matched my whisper, and I could hear the smile in his voice.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Just making some tacos before I head out. I’m meeting Cameron and Blair at my mom’s in about an hour. What does your day look like?” I could hear Rory rattling away with pots and pans.

“Um, I don’t know yet.” I tapped the door gently with my finger. “Ken gave me a couple of days off.”

“Oh, that’s good. When I get back, let’s just do absolutely nothing. Oh! And is there any chance you can pick up The Sandwich from Roma for me today? I get in after nine tonight and have been craving it for like two weeks.”