ago.” It was a weak joke, and I wasn’t even sure why I was trying to make him more comfortable. The apology was definitely owed.
“Yeah, but it took me a couple of years to grow up enough to figure out that I owed it to you. And I’m sorry, Ellie. So sorry. I was a young, dumb kid, and I had no idea that I was about to turn us into a meme. But I did know that rejection is brutal, especially a public one, and there were a million better ways I could have answered that question.”
“Name ten.” I’d definitely thought of a million other ways he could have handled it too.
“I’m sorry?”
“Give me ten different ways you could have said that.” I wanted to know if he’d really dwelled on it through the years as much as I had.
“Um, okay.” He was quiet for a moment. “I hadn’t gotten very much media training at that point. Now I know the art of deflection. I could have said, ‘I love my fans.’ Or smiled and been like, ‘Aw, what a sweetheart.’ I could have said, ‘It means a lot to me that she loves my music.’ Or, ‘It’s a good thing she doesn’t know what a dork I am.’ I could have—”
“Okay.” I held up my hand to stem the flow of words. “I believe you.” He really had thought about it.
“You sure? Because I’ve got over 999,000 more to go.” He kicked at a small piece of loose concrete as we passed it.
“I’m sure. You’ve thought about it. That’s what I wanted to know.”
“To be fair, it’s only every time I see it. Which is constantly.”
We walked past a few shops in silence. It was an okay silence. Not comfortable, exactly, but I didn’t feel an overwhelming need to break it.
“What are you thinking about?” he asked after a couple of minutes.
“About how differently the last twelve years would have gone if you had said any of those things instead.” He winced, but I wasn’t sorry. The cost had been real, and I didn’t have to make him feel better about it.
“Sounds like it was pretty savage.”
“Yeah.”
“Would you tell me about it?”
I wasn’t sure how to feel about that request. No, I didn’t want to talk about it. Once Chloe had put herself in charge of my makeover in college, I’d started living the life I wanted for myself. But after all the years of being angry with Miles before that, did I want to pass up the opportunity to let him see it through my eyes?
“I know I don’t have the right to ask,” he continued when I’d paused too long. “But I was so mad about it for so long that it took years before I calmed down enough to ask how it might have affected you.”
“Whoa, wait.” I stopped in front of a bright orange house with equally bright green trim and shutters. “What did you have to be mad about?”
He waved his hand like he was trying to erase his words. “It doesn’t matter. I was trying to say that I’d like to know what it was like for you so I can give you another apology, one specifically for the fallout.”
It did matter, and I would come back to it, but I decided to answer the question. “I don’t know if I can ever separate my high school experience from the Starstruck experience.”
“No kidding.” His lips gave a small twist, and I felt a pang of stupidity.
“Right. I guess yours was tied to it too.” I sighed. Might as well get this over with. “I was a freshman when all of that went down. Kind of awkward. Homely, overly emotional. I mean, that’s how I ended up viral the first time.”
“Overly emotional? You’re saying you didn’t only have meltdowns over me? Wow. Keeping my ego in check. Thanks, Ellie.”
I appreciated that he was trying to joke about it, but I wanted him to see the whole picture. “It definitely wasn’t just you. I cried at everything. Puppies. Tampon commercials. Saints wins. I was kind of doomed, honestly. Literally every single strong emotion I felt popped out through my eyes.”
I’d been glad at first when the video went viral. It made the chance of Miles noticing me way better. I’d walked around in a lovestruck haze, not caring that at least half the kids at school who’d seen the video were jerks about it and made repulsive crying faces at me in the hall.