Happy Again Read Free Page A

Graham, who was traveling back to L.A. for the holidays. But when she sat down to e-mail him, she found she couldn’t.
    Google had just helpfully alerted her about an award he’d been nominated for and a big role in an action movie he’d won over two other popular young actors. Compared to those things, this seemed minor.
    With all his success, it was harder to share her own failure.
    And so she didn’t.
    Instead, she waited another week and then sent him an e-mail wishing him a merry Christmas.
    By the time he wrote back, it was January, and his e-mail said only this: Hi, stranger. Sorry it’s taken me so long. Things have been crazy. How are you?
    It could have been written to an old friend from fourth grade, or a girl he’d once met at a party, or even his dentist.
    It could have been written to anyone.
    Ellie didn’t even bother to reply.
    It seemed to her that there was nothing more to be said.

Seven
    As they walked toward the theater, Ellie’s heart was so loud in her ears that she could hardly hear the excited murmurs of her friends.
    “Do you think he’ll be there?”
    “Is it supposed to be good?”
    “Is he still dating Olivia Brooks?”
    “Was he ever?”
    Beyond the crowd, they could see a row of black town cars pulled to the curb on one side of the street, and on the other, a wall of photographers and reporters and screaming fans. A long red carpet had been rolled out over the sidewalk in front of the theater, and the crowds were pressed up against the metal barricades that surrounded it, straining to get a better look.
    Ellie trailed blindly after the other girls, feeling numb and weak-kneed and a little bit dizzy. She was still shocked to have stumbled across this of all movie premieres. She’d known the film was coming out soon; back home, everyone was giddy about it. Last summer, they’d spent a month shooting at various locations around town: the harbor and the beach, the main street and the shops, even the one shady-looking bar in the middle of all those postcard-perfect storefronts. And because of this, the movie seemed to belong as much to the town of Henley as it did to anyone else.
    There was supposed to be a special screening on the village green at some point, in the same spot where she and Graham had watched the fireworks that Fourth of July, the explosions overhead not nearly bright enough to make them look away from each other.
    “Everyone’s been asking if you’ll come back for it,” her mom had said the last time they talked. “But I told them you’re a very busy and important college student now, and you don’t have time to be jetting in for small-town celebrations anymore—”
    “Mom.”
    Her mother’s voice had softened. “I just thought you should know.”
    “Thanks,” Ellie said, thinking that it was pretty much the last film she’d ever want to see. She’d gone to the final Top Hat movie when it came out last fall, and it had been hard enough watching him on the big screen without having her hometown as the backdrop.
    “Well, if you change your mind—”
    “Honestly, I’d rather sing karaoke in front of everyone I know,” she said. “I’d rather go swing dancing. I’d rather get punched in the face.”
    Her mom laughed. “You know, El,” she said, “you really shouldn’t bottle up your feelings like that…”
    Ellie had laughed too, but she was serious. In the wake of the filming, even after the whole circus had packed up and left town, she’d become a minor celebrity of sorts, at least in Henley. She’d hated everything about it: the unwanted attention and curious questions, the pointing and whispering and undisguised stares, all of which had forced her to spend the remainder of the summer darting nervously around the town where she’d lived most of her life.
    Quinn, of course, had loved it. “This is your moment,” she kept saying, reveling in all the reflected glory. “You might only get fifteen minutes, so enjoy it.”
    “I don’t want