Page 37 of This Changes Everything

“Come on.” Rory pulled on my hand to take me away from the ballroom. We went up to the hotel’s roof, where there were already about thirty people from the prom hanging out. He gave me his jacket, and we lay out on the prickly roof. We looked up at the sky, and he finally asked about Matt.

“So, how long have you been with your boyfriend?” Rory stretched his arm back and bent his elbow, creating a pillow for himself.

“Almost a year,” I answered carefully.

“Oh, wow . . . Is he going to LA with you?”

“Ha!” My laugh slipped out involuntarily. Rory turned his head to see what was so funny. “Sorry. That was a strange reaction. I’m going to UBC. I’ll figure it out from there.”

Rory turned his head back toward the sky, his mouth downturned. He nodded slightly. “Have you applied for any schools down there? UCLA? Or have you auditioned for anything?”

“No,” I sighed.

“Not yet.”

I smiled, keeping my eyes locked on a cloud that was shape-shifting overhead. I had been working as a host at a restaurant, and I was getting ready to attend the University of British Columbia, because that’s where my sister had gone. My last audition was five months ago. Whenever someone asked about my acting, I tried to swallow my feelings of ridiculousness wrapped in a healthy dose of anxiety.

After a moment of silence, Rory said, “You’re a bird, Cains. You’ll fly away eventually.”

“You know ostriches don’t fly, right?” I turned my head toward Rory, recalling the accidental insult he’d thrown at me a long time ago.

Rory’s laugh was so loud that his body twisted. He propped himself up on his elbows, and his eyes ignited. “You know you called me a sheep, right?” He smiled.

I pressed my hand over my eyes, horrified.

“That haunts me.” Rory laughed again. “I can’t even tell you how many people I’ve asked if they thought I was a sheep.”

“Oh my god.” I laughed. “Okay, yeah. Fine. That’s worse.” I crossed my arms, closing myself off, and took a deep breath. Here we go. “Rory, I owe you an apology. I feel like I’ve been careless with you over the years . . . I didn’t know what to do with all the feelings I had. And I had a lot of feelings.” My laugh was heavy and weighed down with guilt. “They were big. I was messy, and I’m sorry.”

Rory’s smile slipped into sadness. “Where did you go?” His dark-brown eyes knocked me out.

“What do you mean?” My heart sank, and my throat closed.

“You left, and you never came back.”

“You never called, Rory. It wasn’t just me,” I said defensively.

“I know.” Rory nodded and looked out at Vancouver’s skyline. We were surrounded by glass buildings and the dim lights that penetrated their windows. “I freaked out when you walked away from me the day after we kissed. I asked you out, and you couldn’t even look at me. I don’t know what happened, but you didn’t want to talk to me or be around me. You just left.”

I took a deep breath. And then another.

Four. Three. Two . . .

“Something happened with Caleb Davis’s dad that day that I didn’t really understand. I still don’t think I understand it,” I admitted. The sky pushed down on me. “But after that, I didn’t know how to be there.” I let out a sharp, unexpected gasp. I hadn’t thought about Albert Davis in over a year. Why was I gasping? “I tried to go back, but I didn’t know how, you know?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know what you’re trying to say. What happened with Caleb’s dad?” Rory’s face twisted with concern.

Four. Three. Two . . .

“I don’t even know how to say it without feeling . . . ridiculous. But before that day, I was walking around Juniper with rose-colored glasses on, thinking everything was one way. When the glasses came off, I found out I had been walking around looking like an idiot the whole time. And everyone knew but me.”

“Ellie, what happened?” Rory asked again, nervously.

Three. Two. One . . .

“He just . . . He . . .” Our eyes connected. “He liked me, Rory . . . And he tried to give me presents. He had this sweatband that he . . . tried to make me wear? He watched me, and he said things to me, and . . . He liked me, and he wanted me to know it.”

Rory looked away from me, and distress clouded his face. He ran his fingers through his hair, and his eyes searched for the nonexistent horizon. “I wish I’d known that.”