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Chapter Thirty-One
Ella set up the last of the kid-sized easels in the empty space she’d cleared in the front of her shop and stood back to survey her handiwork. She nodded. It was satisfying, seeing all of the easels lined up in orderly rows. It made her feel in control, and like one thing at least was organized and squared away. Not a feeling she was super familiar with lately, and she relished it.
The bell above the front door jingled, and she turned toward it, her “how may I help you” smile fixed firmly in place. The middle grade after school art class she taught didn’t start for another 20 minutes, so she figured that it must be a customer.
She was wrong. Well, if her assumption that Mila wasn’t there to buy a high-priced piece of art was correct, then she was wrong, at any rate.
Mila’s fingers fidgeted and her eyes darted around the store, never meeting Ella’s gaze. Ella’s brows drew together. This was very out of character behavior for the normally confident girl. She decided to tread carefully. “Hey, Mila. You’re early. That’s a nice surprise.”
A smile of acknowledgement flitted across Mila’s lips so quickly that Ella wondered if she’d actually seen it or if she’d only imagined it. After shooting a furtive glance out the storefront’s glass windows at the street, she plopped herself down on one of the stools that Ella had set out in front of the easels for class.
“Yeah. I came early on purpose. I wanted to talk to you.” Her speech was choppy and fast, as if she thought that she had to spit the words out as quickly as possible if she wanted to get them out at all. And maybe that was true.
Ella sat down on the next stool over from the one Mila had chosen. She laid her hand lightly on the girl’s shoulder and said, “That’s great. I’m so glad you came by. What would you like to talk about?”
Ella made sure to keep her voice pleasantly neutral, as if this were the most normal thing in the world. As if she had junior high kids dropping into her shop every day wanting to talk about life.
Mila sighed. “So, you’re like, my brother’s girlfriend. Right?”
Ella’s gut clenched, and not only because the question took her by complete surprise. It was also the shock of hearing it put that way, and how good it sounded to her ears. Donovan’s girlfriend. It was all she’d ever wanted to be.
“We’re friends,” she said, carefully modulating her tone so that nothing could be read into it.
Mila looked at her and rolled her eyes. Ella had to smirk. Yeah, if there was one thing that kids were good at, it was seeing right through bullshit. This kid was apparently no exception to that rule. Ella slumped her shoulders and abandoned the act. “I don’t know, Mila. It’s complicated. I think you’d have to ask him.”
Mila nodded, looking out at the street and gnawing on her thumbnail for a moment. Finally, she said, “I was hoping you’d just say yes.”
“Well, that’s nice to hear. Why were you hoping that?”
“I figured, you know. If he had a girlfriend here, maybe he would just stay. Because you can’t, like, live across the country from your girlfriend, or whatever.”
Ella’s heart squeezed as she watched the girl’s face while she delivered that speech. It was so carefully crafted to hide any hint of emotion that might be going on underneath, but the emotion was so strong that it just couldn’t help but leak out the edges. And, somehow, her attempts to hide it made it even more poignant.
Ella decided to be honest with her. Mila had taken a big chance, coming here to the store and being vulnerable. She at least deserved honesty. “I get that. Believe me, if anybody can relate to the idea of wishing Donovan would stay, it’s me. But I think that caring about someone means wanting them to have their best life. For him, maybe that best life means that he has to be far away from us. It would be selfish of us to try to make him stay—but that doesn’t make it wrong to miss him, or wish things were different.”
Mila nodded, and as she listened, two small tears slipped from the corners of her eyes. She wiped them away quickly and Ella didn’t comment. They sat there in silence for a moment, each lost in their own thoughts, until finally Mila said, “Sometimes not being selfish sucks.”
Ella laughed, both at the unexpected bluntness and the raw truth contained in the statement. “Oh my God, you got that right, kid,” she said dryly. “Holy hell, have you got that right.”
