Young Adulting - Christina Benjamin Page 0,57

things on a good note.

“Did you have a good birthday?” I asked her as we paused just outside her front door.

“Actually, I really did. Definitely one I won’t forget.” She laughed softly. “Thanks for coming by, Henry. It was really thoughtful of you.”

“Of course.” I held out the pink gift bag that I’d been guarding all night. “You can open this now.”

Izzy’s eyes widened with excitement as she shook the bag. “What is it?”

“Open it and see,” I said, hiding my anxiety with a practiced grin.

I watched Izzy dig through the white tissue paper and fish out the small notecard inside the bag. My cheeks heated as she read it out loud.

“Dear Izzy, every great Hollywood screenwriter has something in common, so on your nineteenth birthday I bequeath a secret rite of passage upon you. Follow this map and carve your name in history as you take in the view and remember how far you’ve come. This is only the beginning for you. Don’t ever doubt you belong here. Happy Birthday, Izzy. May all your dreams come true.”

When she looked up at me her eyes were misty. It took everything in me not to just pull her into my arms right then and there and kiss her like I’d been wanting to all night. But this wasn’t about me. It was about Izzy, and seeing the joy in her eyes was enough right now.

“Is this a scavenger hunt?” she asked, examining the map I’d drawn on the notecard.

“Of sorts.”

“How did you know I love scavenger hunts?”

I stuffed my hands in my pockets, rocking back on my heels. “You must’ve mentioned it.”

She did, but to Leo, not me…in one of our long-winded correspondences where we’d gotten off track and somehow ended up talking about our shared love of escape rooms, which she said spawned from her love of the scavenger hunts her parents planned for her as a kid.

“Can we go?”

“Now?” I asked, hoping the shock in my voice didn’t make her change her mind.

“Yeah, unless…”

“I don’t have plans,” I blurted out, not caring that I’d just come across as a desperate fool.

If she’d noticed, she mercifully didn’t call me on it. Instead, she grinned brightly and said, “Let me just grab a jacket.”

A few minutes later we were cruising with the top down toward my favorite place in the world. Izzy was lip syncing the words to the song playing as she let her hand ride the wind outside the passenger door.

My heart squeezed, and I wished I could freeze this moment in time. Everything felt perfect. Driving up Mulholland Drive, the girl of my dreams beside me with a smile on her face.

What more could I want?

But just then, Izzy turned to me, her blonde hair lashing across her beautiful face in the wind. She laughed and it was like sunlight itself poured straight out of her directly into my soul.

More, I realized. I wanted so much more. And I wanted it with her.

I promised myself I wouldn’t tell her. Not today. Not on her birthday.

But this stupid secret was the only thing stopping me from kissing her and telling her exactly how crazy I was about her. And when she looked at me like that, her smile pure joy, her shimmering eyes made of truth serum, I was afraid everything would just come spilling out of me.

I gripped the wheel tighter as we took the turn into Griffith Park. Maybe bringing her here tonight was a bad idea. The bench at the top of the trail had always been my spot. It was where I allowed myself to be vulnerable and that wasn’t what I wanted to be right now.

With Izzy, I was afraid even a steel fortress wouldn’t protect my heart if the truth drove her away. But it was too late now.

She pointed to the trail map we passed as we parked. It matched the map I’d drawn in the card. “I know where we’re going!” She practically squealed with delight. “This is the best birthday gift ever!”

Well, I couldn’t be mad about that.

“I swear you’re a mind reader, Henry. I’ve been wanting to visit the Hollywood sign since I got here.”

That was another thing I knew courtesy of Leo. My insides twisted as I realized my perfect gift was perfect, but it should’ve been from Leo.

Why had I ever invented a fake identity? All of this could’ve been avoided if I’d just been honest from the beginning. Shaking my head, I pushed away my self-loathing