When Stars Fall by Wendy Million
Chapter Five
Wyatt
Present Day
The door opens in a whoosh, and blondish-brown strands fly around, obscuring Ellie’s expression. I’m ten years late, but I’m here. That’s what matters.
She pushes her hair out of her face, and her brown eyes shoot daggers at me. Not the response I was hoping for, but expecting her to jump into my arms was likely too high of a bar.
“You saw The Jackson Billows Show?”
“You’re a jackass. What the hell was that?” Her expression morphs from angry to sad in a heartbeat. “To let him talk about Isaac . . .”
“If Isaac was here, he’d wonder what took me so long.” Discussing him isn’t the first thing I expected her to call me out on, but it’s high on the list.
“I stopped wondering that almost ten years ago. I hope you have your return flight booked for tomorrow morning.”
“Excellent. I can spend the night here.” I step toward the threshold.
“That is not what I meant, and you know it.”
“Ellie.” I use the tone designed to weaken her knees.
“Don’t you dare. Don’t you dare. You lost the right to say my name like that when you let me walk out of our house.”
“I’m here to repair that mistake.” I set my hand on the doorframe and lean closer.
She inches backward and doesn’t open the door any wider. “Doing this so publicly seems like the way to make it right? I have a life now. One that has nothing to do with you. Nothing.” Tension radiates off her.
I expected her reaction, sort of. Part of me had hoped a Herculean effort would have her falling back into my arms. Eight of our years apart are a blur of drugs and alcohol. Time has moved differently for her.
“You can’t snap your fingers and expect me to come running.” Her temple rests on the thick wooden door.
Her posture makes the breath in my throat catch. She looks like the girl I fell in love with, the one I followed around like a lost puppy. Until she up and left; then I was just lost.
“I’m clean now. Let’s talk. If you have such a great life without me, it can’t hurt to let me in.”
Indecision floats across her face, and she steps away from the entrance. She leads me from the side door through the galley kitchen and into a large open room with high ceilings and exposed wooden beams. Everything is decorated in creams and grays. She wasn’t such a fan of neutral shades when we lived together. Off to the right is a bar. Does she keep it stocked?
“Nice place.” Suddenly, I’m not sure what to say. My plan worked, and I’m here, with her. Now I need to plead my case. Maybe I should have made a list or come up with concessions.
Ellie gestures to one of the couches, her posture stiff. I perch on the armrest, and she sits opposite me. Something buzzes, and I pat my pocket. I frown when I dig out my phone, but it’s turned off. The buzzing isn’t me.
She holds up her device, and her home screen streams with new messages. The stock exchange and her notifications are twins.
“Oh,” I say. “That’s . . .” How do I respond? I’m not sorry. The attention is what I wanted. She used to hate the madness, the insanity of people’s curiosity, but I needed it for her to open the door.
“Yeah.” She sets her phone facedown on the coffee table between us. It buzzes nonstop, and the glass amplifies the sound. She’s put it there on purpose.
Watching her in person is surreal. I spent years devouring any image of her I could get my hands on: magazines, movies, interviews, commercials—the few things she endorsed, I bought. Any other woman who entered my life was always second best and ended up walking out on me. I let them all go. Ellie’s the only one I’ve ever chased. I should have gone after her harder back then.
She stares at me, and I remember I’m supposed to be talking. I’m about to say something, anything, when an unfamiliar ringtone pierces the quiet of the living room.
Ellie crosses to the box on the wall and hits a button. “Yes, Freddie?”
“Calshae Simmons is here to see you.”
Ellie bites her lip and glances at me.
“Calshae? You two still good friends?” Whenever we came to the island, Calshae, along with Ellie’s younger sister, Nikki, were always part of the crew.
“Let her in,” Ellie says.
An old, familiar pang niggles at my brain. I’m itching. The desire to take something to dull the edge of seeing Ellie again is strong. Mentally, I list the drugs I could swallow, snort, or inject to smooth out this conversation. I clutch my phone in my pocket. I’ll have to make a call when I leave here to ensure I don’t screw this up before I get started.
Ellie disappears to the side door, and when she comes back into the living room, a short, curvy Black woman trails behind her. Sometimes when I see people I haven’t been around for a while, the years lie on my shoulders like bricks. A reminder of the blurred span after Ellie left. Calshae isn’t a party girl anymore. Of course, she was never as wild as me or even Ellie.
“It’s been a while,” I say to her with a grin.
“Ten years,” Calshae says. “What brings you to Bermuda?”
“About time I got my shit together. Go after the people who matter.”
Ellie’s jaw tightens. “Calshae and I have a girls’ night planned. I can’t break my plans just because you showed up at my door unexpectedly.”
Her claim and their postures don’t go together. There’s a tension and a wariness between the two of them that didn’t exist when we were younger.
“A girls’ night at almost midnight?” I check my watch.
“Wyatt was on his way out when you got here.” Ellie turns to Calshae.
“Was I?” I give a sly smile. “We haven’t even had a chance to catch up.”
“There won’t be any catching up. What time is your flight tomorrow?” Ellie cocks her head.
“I cleared my schedule for a week or so. It’s such a beautiful island.” I ignore Calshae and assess Ellie’s reaction. She swallows hard.
That’s right, Ellie. You might push me out of your house tonight, but I’ll be coming back for more.
“Don’t let us hold you up from your vacation.” Ellie shoves her hands into the pockets of her shorts. “Coming to my house was a mistake.”
Old Wyatt would draw a line on the floor and dig in his heels. Ellie’s tight posture seems to anticipate my reaction. But I’m here to show her I’m not the guy she walked out on. I can be reasonable.
“I won’t keep you, but I’ll see you tomorrow,” I say. “Give us a chance to get reacquainted.”
She hesitates and swivels to Calshae. “Can you give us a moment?”
Calshae’s gaze ping-pongs between me and Ellie. “Sure, yeah. No problem. I’ll go out on the balcony.”
As soon as the glass door clicks closed, Ellie grabs my arm and drags me into the kitchen.
“Stop,” she says, pointing a finger at me before getting a glass of water from the fridge.
“What?” I stare at her, wide-eyed.
“All of it. Just stop. This isn’t a game. My life is not a publicity stunt. All of this—the visit, the interview, the rest of the press . . . Is this for your race-car film? Is it so bad the production company got desperate?” She sets her drink on the island and glares along the length of the counter. “Are you using me? Our history?”
“No,” I say. “My visit has nothing to do with any movie. I’m here for you. I’ve wanted to see you for ten years.”
“Guess what? I was here the whole time.” Ellie thrusts her hands wide in exasperation.
“You seriously don’t think I tried? You don’t think I made phone calls, asked friends and acquaintances, phoned your manager, contacted former acting partners? I did all of that. All of it. Hell, I even flew here once. But the islanders acted like I was a disease. No one would tell me where you lived. I went to your parents’ place but they wouldn’t let me past the gates. I even booked one of those See Famous Houses tours, but as soon as they recognized me, they canceled the whole damned thing.”
Ellie stares at her glass but remains silent.
“I tried,” I say.
“For how long? It’s been ten years. You tried that hard the whole time?”
“The first year, maybe two, I was angry at you.” Before Ellie left, I was already spiraling out of control, but once she was gone, any brakes I’d applied to my behavior were cut. Rage and grief fueled my addiction. “Once I calmed down, I came looking.”
I splay my hands on the island, shoulders up, mirroring her posture. Many, many days I was too out of it on drugs or alcohol to do much of anything. The acting jobs I took required a careful coordination of uppers and downers for me to pull off, and a lot of days, I didn’t function at all. Neither of us needs a reminder of who I once was. The court appearances and the questions around insuring me on a film set aren’t happening anymore.
She gathers her hair into a ponytail and lets it fall in a wave behind her back. “You were still using when you came. You must have still been using.”
“I was, but I’m not anymore. Spend time with me over the next week while I’m here. I promise you, I’m not the man I was.” She needs to believe me. I’m going to show her, but I need her to trust me.
“Ten years ago, I asked you to go to rehab, to choose me over your addiction. You couldn’t do that. Your reliance on pills and alcohol, your grief over Isaac and his father, were tearing you apart right in front of me. I wanted to choose you then, but I needed you to get help. I can’t choose you now. I’d be a fool to throw away the life I’ve built to relive old memories.”
The reminders of how foggy I let my life get after Isaac’s father, Kabir, died of a heart attack and then Isaac died make me feel like shit. I might have made a lot of poor choices, but I never stopped loving her. “We could make new memories.”
“I moved on.” Ellie sighs. “That first year after I left you, I thought you might come. Get better on your own. I hoped you would. Maybe today will be the day, I used to think. But every day, I woke up, and you never appeared.”
I can’t argue with her. She still knows me better than anyone. If I was determined to find her, I’d have left no stone unturned. Two years of intense therapy has led me back to her. This time, I pushed until someone caved. But the person who gave in is also the reason I’m sure I have a chance.
“I’m here. Maybe that doesn’t count for much right now, but I came to show you things are different; I’m different,” I say. “What are you doing tomorrow?”
“No. I won’t blow up my life for you.” She wags her finger and takes a drink of her water.
“I’m here for a week.” Frustration seeps into my voice. “You kept me away for ten years. Should I have tried harder? Yeah, I should have. Did you make it damn hard for me to get to you? Yeah, you did. You canceled appearances, didn’t come to awards shows, stayed away from LA. It felt like the moment you caught a whiff of me in the general vicinity, you ran. So if you’re stringing me up for not coming, at least give me a chance now that I’m here.”
Her eyes soften. She bites her lip and tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. Her stance relaxes, and she nods once. “Tomorrow. Only until three in the afternoon.” She stares at me, searching. “Who knows you’re here? Will there be a flood of paps outside my door tomorrow?”
To her, the press scrutiny is invasive, frustrating. I love the attention—I like to be wanted. “Only my team. I didn’t purposely lead anyone here. You have my word.”
“I guess we’ll find out whether that means anything anymore.” She turns from the island and opens the side door. “What time are you coming?”
“Ten? You’ll be jet-lagged, right?”
“Uh, yeah.” Surprise flashes in her eyes. “Freddie will call you a cab.”
“No limo service?” We spent a lot of time in the back seat of one. The memories are there with every glance. On my lap. Underneath me. Laughing over a shared joke. Leaving a funeral.
“Not the kind you’re seeking, not in Bermuda,” she says. “It’s weird, but I don’t miss any of that.”
Her words slice into my heart. She meant them to. Can’t blame her. There were a lot of mistakes, all of them mine. “Guess we’ll see about that too.” Before I leave, I loop my arm around her waist and whisper in her ear, “Tomorrow.”
Goose bumps form on her arms, and they’re not from the cold.
