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I wish you’d let me be there for you. Open up to me. Tell me what’s bothering you. I know there’s so much more beneath the surface. So much you’re keeping from me. From everyone. Even from A.J.
Your smile is gone. Your laugh.
The few times I get to see you . . . you look so unhappy now.
But you’re not alone. You have me. You have all of us. I hope you know that.
I should tell you this in person. But for now, I’m sending you this note and a photo of me . . . the one my mom snapped of me that day of A.J.’s party . . . in the field wearing my hat. It’s a sunny-happyish photo. So, I thought maybe you’d want it?
Stay safe.
Love,
Ella
CHAPTER THREE
ELLA
SPRING 2007 - TUSCALOOSA, ALABAMA
I was partially tempted to bolt and cut away from the party since Rory was MIA with some hot guy she’d met. I weighed my options: head back to the dorm and work on some of my design sketches, do homework for my actual major, which was education, or stay and get hit on by a frat boy.
“Well, well, well. Who are you?”
Great. This will make my options easier. Leaving was now at the top of my list with this guy blocking my path. He wasn’t from the frat throwing the party, that much was obvious.
“Which frat brother do you know?” I decided to entrap the guy. Why not have a little fun first before I bailed?
“Um.” California Ken, with his long blond hair pulled into a ponytail and his surfer-boy good looks, smiled. “Jack Henley.”
“Yeah? And where’s Jack from?”
“Ummm—”
“Mmhm.” I knew guys like this. The kind that attempted to crash a frat party he didn’t have an invite for to pick up women. “Let me save you the trouble. You don’t know Jack.” It was corny. But too good not to say.
I may have been a freshman at Bama, had far too much tequila already after failing my exam earlier, but I didn’t lose my A game in separating the wheat from the chaff, and this guy was not my style. Not even close.
He wasn’t well . . . Jesse, so.
I started to turn, but the hand circling my upper arm had me halting in place, and I had to resist the urge to rear my leg back like a pissed-off mustang.
When I slowly pivoted to give Ken a bit of my Southern mouth, I nearly stumbled at the sight in the distance.
JESSE?!
Was that really him talking to California Ken’s counterpart, Barbie, across the lawn? He had on a backward black ball cap, a white tee beneath a plaid shirt, and faded denim jeans.
His eyes cut my way, and he waved off Barbie.
“It’s just a party,” Cali-Ken said.
Right. You’re still here.
“Cut me some slack,” he went on.
“Huh?” I whispered, my eyes pinned on Jesse instead as he dodged a guy doing a handstand near the keg while beer funneled into his mouth with some type of tube. I’d forgotten California Ken’s hand was still around my bicep. Forgotten absolutely everything with my Army Ranger heading my way.
