This Is What Happy Looks Like(32)
Author: Jennifer E. Smith

It was much simpler than that. It was that he’d been happy to eat stale tortilla chips at her house tonight. And that he’d sketched her an entire city when she’d asked. It was the way he joked around, and the look behind his eyes when they met hers. It was all the hundreds of e-mails he’d sent her, the words they’d traded back and forth like precious currency for so many months.

It was that he already seemed to know her better than almost anyone, and it had been just a single day since they’d finally met in person. And if that was the case, then imagine what a few more days might bring.

Mom was still looking at her, waiting for an answer, but Ellie didn’t bother. Instead, she spun around and headed for the door.

“Ellie,” Mom called, but she didn’t sound angry, just weary and confused. And it wouldn’t have mattered anyway, because Ellie was already picking up speed, hurrying out the door and down the driveway, where the back of Graham’s white shirt was still glowing in the surrounding darkness.

When he kissed her, it was like the answer to the question.

It was the only thing she needed to know.

“I’m sorry,” she’d whispered again, once they broke apart. He still had his hands on her shoulders, and he was gripping them like he wasn’t sure he wanted to let go.

“It’s okay,” Graham said, glancing over at the lit windows of the kitchen. “But I should probably…”

Ellie nodded, and he leaned down to kiss her once more. She imagined there were thousands of girls who wanted to kiss Graham Larkin, who had imagined this very moment, but standing here in the darkened driveway, it wasn’t like something out of a movie. It was better.

“Come find me tomorrow, okay?” he said, starting to walk away.

“Good luck with your scene,” she said, and when he smiled, her heart lurched.

Afterward, when she’d stepped back inside the house, edging into the kitchen with a sheepish look, it was to discover that Mom had already gone upstairs. And so the argument simply dangled there, unfinished until this morning, when they were now forced to deal with it over their typically peaceful pancake breakfast.

“Look,” Mom began, sliding a plate onto the table in front of Ellie, and then sitting down in the chair beside her. She leaned forward, and a strand of auburn hair slipped out of her ponytail. “Maybe it’s unfair of me to judge without knowing the whole story.”

Ellie reached for the bottle of syrup. “We’ve been e-mailing,” she said without looking up. “For months now.”

“How?” Mom asked. “I mean, how did you—”

“It was a mistake,” she explained. “A mistyped e-mail address. He was trying to write someone else, but it came to me instead, and we just started talking. I didn’t know it was him. Graham Larkin, I mean. I thought it was just some guy.”

“Well, that’s comforting,” Mom said. “I suppose we’ll save the lecture on Internet safety for another day…”

“Mom,” Ellie said with a groan.

She held up her hands. “I’m only saying that there are a lot of crazy people out there…”

“Mom,” Ellie said again. “That’s not the point.”

“Okay, okay. Then what’s the point?”

Ellie lifted her eyes. “The point is…” she said, then trailed off, taking a deep breath. “The point is that I’m glad I didn’t know who it was, you know? Otherwise I never would’ve gotten to know him. Not really. Not like I do now.”

Mom nodded. “And you like him.”

“I do,” Ellie said, her voice suddenly thick. “A lot.”

On the griddle, the second batch of pancakes began to burn, and Mom rose from the table, then stood there long after she’d flipped them, her back to Ellie, her head tipped to the window above the sink.

“I don’t know what to say,” she said eventually, turning around. “I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“He wouldn’t—”

“Ellie, come on,” she said, and something in her face stopped Ellie cold. All of a sudden, she realized they weren’t just talking about Graham. They were talking about her father too. “You know there are about a million ways this could go wrong,” she continued, her voice strained. “Not just because of who he is, and not just because he’s leaving soon.” She pressed her lips together, considering her words. “You saw the way he gets followed around.”

“You can’t tell me not to date someone because he gets his picture taken a lot,” Ellie said. “Do you even realize how crazy that sounds?”

“Everything about this is already crazy,” Mom said, sliding the last two pancakes off the stove and onto a plate before returning to the table. “Things like this,” she said, shaking her head. “They don’t end well.”

“You mean because it didn’t end well for you,” Ellie said with a frown. “This isn’t the same thing. He’s not some sleazy senator. I’m not some—”

“What?” Mom said, looking at her levelly. “Some cheap waitress?”

“I didn’t say that,” Ellie said, shaking her head. “You know I didn’t mean that.”

“Your father…” she began, then paused, looking far away. “It was complicated.”

“Right,” Ellie said. “But this is different. Graham is different.”

“That’s not the point,” Mom said, glancing down at her plate. Neither of them had touched their food, and the pancakes were growing cold on the table. “He’s someone in the public eye. And you don’t want to get dragged into it.”

“But what does it matter?” Ellie asked. “What happened with you and him—with my father—it’s not like it’s a secret. It’s already been out there. So I don’t understand why it’s such a big deal if people find out. I don’t get why we still have to hide.”

“We’re not hiding,” Mom said, stabbing a piece of pancake with her fork. “We’re just living our lives like normal people. That’s not the same thing.”

“But you don’t want my picture in the papers.”

“It’s not just that,” she said with a sigh. “It’s that I don’t want you under the microscope. Your picture would just be the start of that. You get that, right? All it takes is one photo of you and Graham Larkin for the photographers to start following you around. Then people start digging for information. And they think they have the right to share anything they might find. You were too little to remember the last time.” She shook her head, wincing a little. “It’s awful, what they do. There are no boundaries at all.”