“The point is that I shouldn’t have to consider it,” I say. “I shouldn’t have to wonder if Will would’ve made my favorite food on earth either way, or if he just made it because Lucy wrote him to. I don’t want to just accept the incredible guy. I want to make my own choices. Can we stop talking about this? You’re making my head hurt.”
“I’m making my own head hurt,” Ava mutters. “But just look at it this way. We don’t know where any of this starts or ends. We don’t know for sure if it’s even happening. We just know Lucy said it is. So maybe Will is perfect for you no matter what! Maybe Lucy’s just made it so he behaves more like a dream boy and less like the rest of all these idiots?” She nods over her shoulder to the other side of the kitchen where Navid is arm-wrestling one of his friends on the countertop. Several half-empty beer cans clatter to the floor from their struggle.
I consider this just as Will comes back from the living room and grabs another beer from the fridge. The sight of him makes me smile. But then I hear something else that sends a shiver down my shoulders.
“Sorry I’m late,” someone says in a crackly voice, and I turn to find Elliot in the doorway, looking right at me.
“You almost missed the party,” I tell Elliot. I’m being cautious, for my own sake and because I am very aware of the fact that over my right shoulder, Will is watching us intently from another part of the terrace. We’re leaning on the railing and staring down at the pool.
“I know, I’m really sorry. I can explain,” Elliot says.
“It’s fine,” I say. “It’s not like we had set plans.” And I’m sure he can explain. But it’ll probably be something stupid. Like Lenny, the bassist in his and Sam’s band, had people over for beers and he lost track of time. Or he decided to surf too far north in Malibu and got stuck in traffic coming back. It’s always the same with him. No responsibility, no problem. Not that I should even care. It’s not like he promised me he was coming. It’s not like it would matter if he had.
But Elliot is frowning. “No, it’s not fine,” he says. “It was actually super frustrating. First I got pulled over when I wasn’t even speeding.”
“Sure,” I say with a smile.
“I wasn’t, Annabelle,” Elliot says more intensely, and my smile disappears. He really is being serious.
“Okay.” I nod. “Sorry.”
Elliot continues, leaning out over his clasped hands. I’ve never seen him be so serious. “Then, after I dealt with that, my car broke down. Which was spectacular luck, since my dad keeps those cars in perfect working condition. So I decided to leave it parked on Lincoln, because I was running so late. But when I got out, my phone was just gone. Not in my back pocket, not under a seat—nowhere. It must’ve fallen out when I got pulled over. So I decided to walk, but I kept getting turned around.”
Out in the pool someone does a massive belly flop off the diving board, and the whole party erupts in cheers. I turn my face toward Elliot. This is actually impossible to comprehend. “How do you get turned around in Santa Monica?” I ask. “We’ve lived here our whole lives, and half of the streets are numbered.”
“Thank you for reminding me of that.” Elliot makes a face. Then he shakes his head. “I don’t know what happened. I can’t even believe I made it here. But I made it.”
I glance back down at my beer, and when I look up again, I find Elliot looking down, too, but his head is really close to mine. Then he meets my eyes, and my knees feel kind of wobbly.
“If it was so hard to get here, why’d you keep trying?” I eventually ask.
“I think you know why,” he says, looking back down.
I swallow. “Because of me?” I ask quietly.
“Would it be okay if it was because of you?” he asks back, just as quiet.
With the tiniest nod, I tell him yes.
I’m still not sure if I believe him, because this story is absurd. But he got here. He still made it. For me, he says. And now that I think about it, I wonder if there is more to his story than I realized.
Elliot’s phone rings, and we look at each other.
“So your phone was in your pocket the whole time?” I ask, and start cracking up.
Elliot pulls his phone out of his back pocket, and stares at it like it might bite him. “No, it wasn’t,” he says slowly.
“Well, apparently it was,” I say with a shrug.
“No, it wasn’t,” Elliot says again, firmly. Then he takes the call. “Dad, yeah. I’m so sorry. I swear, I’ve been treating her like a queen. She’s on Lincoln at Wilshire. Can you have Curtis pick her up? Or I can do it in the morning. I know.” He runs a hand through his hair. “It was crazy. I promise I was taking good care of her! It was like some unseen force took over the car’s engine.”
This gives me a small chill. When Elliot hangs up, I study him closely.
“You really did go through all that tonight?” I ask, and my heart begins to speed up. “The cop, the engine trouble, the phone . . .”
“Yeah.” Elliot looks around. “Weren’t you here for that story?”
“And you didn’t just go home,” I say, pushing.
“No, AB,” he says, clearly frustrated. “I just told you.”
I close my eyes for a moment, trying to get my thoughts straight. It was different before, when it was just about me, about my life. When she was getting in my head. But there’s no other explanation for what happened to Elliot tonight. It was her. Lucy Keating. She’s not just controlling me; she’s controlling everything. Elliot having so much trouble tonight. Elliot getting hit on the head with a drumstick at Paper Girl show.
Then the realization hits: Lucy Keating doesn’t want Elliot to be close to me.
“I could kill her,” I mutter.
“Kill who?” Elliot asks.
“I need a minute,” I say, my world spinning, and I carefully make my way out of the room, and up the stairs. I need to think, and there’s only one place to do it.
Ten minutes later I’m seated on the toilet seat in Will’s immaculately clean, nice-smelling bathroom, my head leaning forward in my hands. So that’s it. It’s really true. Lucy Keating isn’t insane. She is actually writing my life. She didn’t just write Will to be perfect. She’s writing Elliot to stay away from me.
And now, more than ever, I understand that I don’t want Elliot to stay away from me at all.
I think about what Lucy Keating said, about only writing Happy Endings now. As though this was some great gift she was bestowing on all of us. Her readers, her characters. But the fact that in order to do so, she’s getting in the way of other possibilities? She is so much more messed up than I ever realized. And I’m not sure there’s anything I can do to stop her.
“Okay, Annabelle, think,” I say to myself. “You don’t get flustered. This isn’t you. What do you do whenever a problem arises?”
Suddenly, there’s a soft knock at the door.
“Go away, Will,” I say.
“It’s not Will.” Elliot’s voice is muffled on the other side of the door, and I sit up straighter, not sure of what to say.
“Are you okay?” he asks. “Annabelle, will you just talk to me?”