the screen, but when I read his words the first time, they seemed nonsensical.
Whitney,
Work has taken me to London.
Don’t worry, I haven’t dropped the ball as your mentor. My grandfather will advise you much better than I ever could. Take advantage of everything he’s willing to teach you.
Best,
Derek
I read it again, eyes focused on the first sentence.
Derek was going to London. London, England? For how long? He didn’t say.
He hadn’t addressed my proposal of dinner. No raincheck or promises to make it up to me when he returned. Worse, he hadn’t even suggested we stay in communication while he was gone. No mention of a continued friendship. No clues hinting that he might have felt the same way I did.
I hadn’t even known London was on the horizon for him. That was the first blow. I hadn’t known because he never told me. It was an irrefutable sign that I’d spun our encounters into something more meaningful than they had been. He hadn’t even thought to say goodbye to me in person.
I felt…crushed.
My feelings for Derek were not platonic. They never had been. I had souvenirs of him littered across my life. His name was my computer password. His lent paperbacks were stacked up beside my bed. His emails were carefully categorized in their own folder in my inbox. If they’d been letters, the sheets of paper would have been threadbare and disintegrating.
Looking back, I wonder if Derek ever realized how much his friendship meant to me that fall. How long it took me to get over him. How much I beat myself up over my feelings for a man I never should have fallen for in the first place. I don’t know how a soul finds its mate, why it seemed like mine had latched onto someone who was the least logical choice. All I know is it’s been eight years and I’m still not over my silly crush on Derek Knightley.
But hopefully, I will be soon.
Chapter Four
Whitney
It’s the morning after my dinner with Cal—the morning after I spotted Derek getting off the elevator—and curiosity has me rereading my old emails to him. It’s worse than I remember. My eagerness bleeds off the screen. So! Many! Exclamation! Marks! There are too many exaggerated attempts at sounding more intelligent than I was. I must have consulted a thesaurus each time I typed up a reply. Words like laborious and esoteric were stuffed into sentences with a heavy hand. The result is a sad, obvious attempt at looking wise beyond my years. There’s no way he thought of me as anything more than a silly teenage girl.
“Oh no. What happened?”
Carrie’s voice startles me and I glance up to see the reflection of my friend in the wall-to-wall mirror in front of my makeup chair. She’s at the door, holding up Princess Elena’s dress, a sweet gesture she didn’t have to make. Normally, a runner brings it over from the Costuming Department—their warehouse is a few minutes away by golf cart, longer by foot—but she brought it herself, and I have a feeling I know why.
“Nothing happened,” I say, locking my phone and tossing it down into my purse. Looking at those emails was a bad idea.
“Your face was telling a different story.”
I hum and lean forward, returning to the task at hand. My shift will start soon, which means I need to finish getting ready. During training, a professional taught me how to glam myself up to mimic our characters to a T. Some of the other In Character employees in the park have makeup much more difficult to apply than mine. I know a girl who plays a pink-skinned fairy. Before every shift, she has to cover her face and arms in paint. I don’t envy her.
As the original princess in the Knightley storybook, Elena is simpler and more understated. Bronzer and blush enhance my features, mascara and warm eyeshadow ensuring I look more done up than on a normal day. My lips are coated in a dark coral pink shade, just a hairsbreadth away from nude.
My hair is curled and long, half of it wrapped up behind my head with a twinkling diamond and emerald tiara.
“Sure nothing is bothering you? Is it your parents?”
“Parents? What are those?”
She laughs and shakes her head.
I reassure her. “No, really. Everything is good. Promise.”
Carrie steps forward and unzips the garment bag.
The pale green costume is an updated version of the timeless dress half the little girls in the country own, and as a