Happy Again (This is What Happy Looks Like #1.5)(9)

When the title appeared in bold letters across the screen, everyone in the theater clapped again, and then the camera moved through the center of town, landing on a boy making his way through the gray dawn, his head bent and his back to the camera, and all at once, Ellie was struck by a thousand memories of last summer, of seeing this very boy in these very places:

Watching him walk into the ice-cream shop on that first day.

Talking to him near the gazebo while the cast and crew waited for him to return to the set.

Stepping off the bus with him over by the post office.

Staring at each other across the lawn on the Fourth of July as the fireworks went off overhead.

And then, just like that, he was there.

Not in her memory and not on the screen—though he was both of those places, too—but a few feet away, a shadowy figure squinting at her from the aisle.

“Ellie?” he whispered, and she sat up a little in her seat, her heart hammering.

Behind them, a few people made shushing noises, and of the other three girls, only Kara—who was closest to the aisle—was looking up at the boy hovering at the end of the row.

“Ellie,” Graham whispered again, leaning over a little bit. The middle-aged couple nearest him—whose gazes were fixed on the screen, where another version of Graham was climbing into a boat—turned in his direction too.

It only took a second for them to recognize him, and their surprise seemed to travel down the row.

“Oh my god,” Sprague said, clapping a hand over her mouth, and then she leaned across Lauren to jab Ellie, who had sunk down low in her seat.

“Can we talk?” Graham asked from the aisle, and the other three girls whipped their heads back and forth between them as Ellie hesitated. She’d forgotten what it felt like to be with Graham in public, the way the attention settled over her like snow, blanketing everything, freezing her in place.

After a moment, Lauren grabbed her arm and gave it a little shake. “Go,” she said through gritted teeth, her face a picture of astonishment, and then she swung her legs to the side to leave room for Ellie to pass, which she did, awkwardly scooting by her friends, trying to ignore the curious stares of the people in the row behind her.

As she neared the aisle, moving past the confused couple, Graham stepped back to let her out. But she still couldn’t bring herself to look at him directly. He nodded at the back of the theater, where a faint light shone through from the lobby, and together, they walked toward it, hurrying up the aisle as the music swelled behind them: a sure sign that the girl had finally appeared on-screen and the love story was about to begin.

Eleven

In the quiet of the lobby, they stood staring at each other for a moment.

“You’re here,” Graham said finally.

“I am,” Ellie said.

He frowned, his expression hard to read. He was the same, but he wasn’t. His eyes seemed bluer than ever, and his hair was a little bit shorter, but not by much. The shape of his mouth, the way he slouched a little, the scar above his left eyebrow: all of it was as it had been last summer. But still, there was something different about him, something hardened, a wariness he carried like a weight, and she was once again uncomfortably aware of just how much their lives had diverged over the past year.

Here was Graham in his designer suit, the pants so tight she wondered how he’d managed to sit down in the theater. His hair was combed to the side in a way she’d never seen before, and he had a little handkerchief folded in his pocket the way men often did in old-fashioned movies.

He looked like someone from the pages of a magazine.

Which, of course, he was.

“How did you…?”

“It wasn’t planned,” Ellie said quickly. “I’m just down with some friends for the weekend, and we were walking past, and—I didn’t know it was your film, and I never expected to see—it was just that Harry spotted me in the crowd, and then he—”

Graham held up a hand. “It’s okay,” he said with a hint of his usual smile. “I was just surprised when he told me. I had to see for myself.”

“See what?”

“You,” he said, his eyes going soft. “You’re the last person I expected to run into tonight.”

“Honestly, I didn’t really count on seeing you, either.”

He tilted his head to one side. “So how are you?”

Across the lobby, two women in black dresses were leaning against the counter of the concession stand, pretending to look at their phones, though Ellie could tell they were really watching Graham. Behind him, a huge security guard with a thick neck and a shock of red hair had a finger on his earpiece, and he was speaking softly, his eyes trained on them. From the theater, a roar of laughter went up, muffled by the doors.

“I’m fine,” Ellie told him, sounding brusquer than she’d intended. Above them, a chandelier the size of a small car was hanging from the ceiling, and in the corner, a few assistants were setting up a table full of lavish-looking gift bags, sneaking glances at the handsome movie star standing with one hand in his pocket, talking to a girl in a blue T-shirt and jeans with a hole in the knee.

“I’m sure you have to get back,” she said after a moment. “I know it’s a big night for you.”

He looked stung by this. “It’s fine. It just started.”