When Stars Fall

by Wendy Million

  “Ellie!” Her voice is delighted. “Finally. Finally.” Tanvi laughs. “I’ll pick up Jamal. But if Anna comes to my house again looking . . .”

  “Don’t let her in. Call Kyle. Hopefully I’ll be home by then.”

  Tanvi wishes me good luck with Ellie. When I hang up the phone, I’m lighter, more hopeful. I text Camila and Kyle the arrangements and then shove my phone into my pocket just as Ellie comes into the kitchen.

  “Is everything okay?”

  “Anna’s run out on Jamal. I had to find someone to watch him for a couple of days.” I scan Ellie from her ponytail to her smooth, tan legs.

  “Who took him?” She runs her hand along the counter.

  “Tanvi.” I grimace. “I hope Anna doesn’t go to her house this time before I get home.”

  “Anna still gets violent?” Ellie crosses her arms over her chest.

  “It’s gotten worse as she’s gotten older. She’s aggressive when she’s been using, when Jamal isn’t where she thinks he should be. If Kyle and I aren’t around, she’s not allowed in the main house until she dries out.”

  “Where does she go to dry out?”

  “I have a guest house on the property. It’s not much, but it’s enough for the few days she always needs to get back on the right track.”

  “How . . . I mean—?” Ellie’s expression is unreadable. She sighs. “I don’t want to be around that, Wyatt. How can you be around that and not relapse?”

  There have been many nights in my bathroom, staring at the drugs Anna brought home, contemplating how bad one hit or one oxy would be. So far, I’ve always flushed them or thrown them out or gotten someone to take them from me. But I understand Ellie’s concern. “I’m committed to being better,” I say. “I don’t want to lie to you. There have been days where it’s hard to stay clean. Exceptionally hard. But I don’t want that life. I’m not going back.”

  “And Anna?” She pinches the bridge of her nose. “You’re committed to helping her too? No matter what?”

  The direction of this conversation isn’t good, but I’ve let my sister down too many times in this life already. I won’t do it again. “I can’t turn my back on my sister, Ellie. Definitely can’t turn my back on Jamal.”

  “Right.” She reaches up and yanks her ponytail tighter. “I guess I need to consider that too.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Anna and I didn’t get along. I—I can’t put . . . I don’t want to be in a situation where someone might get hurt.”

  “There’s not a snowball’s chance in hell I’d let her hurt you, Ellie.”

  “You’re not always there! Has Anna hurt Tanvi? Hurt Kyle? Or you? Obviously you can’t control Anna. I’m not blaming you, but it’s not realistic to say she wouldn’t hurt someone else—me . . . or anyone.”

  When Anna is using heavily, she’s difficult to control, and she’s unpredictable. I’ve never asked Anna how she treated Jamal before he came to live with me, but I’ve done everything I can to maintain distance between them when she’s using. “You keep tossing up roadblocks, Ellie. If it’s not one thing, it’s another.”

  She throws up her hands. “These are real concerns. My safety,” she hesitates before continuing, “and the safety of anyone else in that house is compromised by Anna being there.”

  “You want me to kick my sister and her son out on the street? Turn my back on them? Come on, Ellie. Years ago, you would have been proud of me for helping her.” She won’t look at me. “Even if she wasn’t my sister, there’s a child involved. I have to help her. I have to.”

  Ellie starts to say something and then snaps her mouth shut. “It’s just another thing I have to consider. I mean, where do you see this going? You and me? What’s the five-year or ten-year plan?”

  “I want you. To live with you, marry you, start a family with you. Us. The way I always wish we’d ended up.”

  Tears pool in her eyes, and she shakes her head.

  “What?” I step closer. “That’s surprising?”

  “I’m not sure what to do. This is so impossibly complicated.”

  “Say yes, and we can work everything else out. Nothing here is so complicated we can’t fix it together.” I’m standing in front of her now. Look up, Ellie. Look up.

  She shakes her head again and refuses to meet my eyes. “I should take you back to the hotel.”

  “Ellie.”

  “I just need some space,” she blurts out.

  “I’m only here for another day. After tomorrow, you get all the space you ever wanted.”

  “God, Wyatt. I never wanted any space. I didn’t. I wanted you to come for me. I wanted you to get help. I wanted the house and the kids and the life. I wanted all of it.” She closes her eyes and presses her hands to her face. Tears spill unchecked, but she still won’t look at me.

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper, drawing her close and wrapping my arms around her. “I’m so damned sorry.”

  “And then you show up here with no plan, no idea how we’ll work. You don’t tell me about Anna and Jamal. It makes me wonder what else you’re keeping from me.” She draws back and her dark eyes are accusing. “What else aren’t you telling me?”

  “Why do you think there’s something else?” Now I’m the one avoiding eye contact.

  “Probably because I wasn’t told about the first thing you were hiding.” She laughs, but it holds no humor. “We’re not doing this anymore. I can’t. It’s exhausting. I need a break.” She doesn’t wait for my answer. Snatching her keys off the island, she goes through the door and to the garage.

  I follow her, head spinning. Something isn’t adding up. Younger Ellie would have been pissed at me, but not like this. Nothing like this. She opens her car door, and I grab her arm. “What aren’t you telling me, Ellie? Something is holding you back. I don’t think it’s the drugs, the fame—not even Anna. It’s something else. I can’t figure out what it is.”

  She swallows. Over her shoulder, she says, “That doesn’t seem like enough to you? All of those are a problem. Every single one. Combined, they seem like a sign to me.” Shrugging off my hand, she slides into the car and starts it without another word.

  Reluctantly, I go to the passenger side and duck in. The drive to my hotel is silent. I stare out into the darkness, sure I’m missing something. I replay conversation after conversation, but I can’t crack the mystery.

  “What time tomorrow?” I ask when I can’t take the silence anymore. I’m going to need a new stress ball at this rate. Possibly a whole case. She doesn’t respond. That’s fine. I’ll wait her out. When we pull up to the hotel entrance, I don’t get out of the car. “Time?” I repeat.

  “We’re done, Wyatt.” Her jaw tightens.

  “We’re not done, Ellie.”

  She turns her body toward me, anger written across her face. “You don’t get to decide that.”

  “You’re right. I don’t. But you know what I’ve figured out over the last couple of days? You still have feelings for me. Whatever they are, they’re there. When we make eye contact, when we brush against each other, when we’re in the same room—we’re alive. So if it makes you feel better, you can tell me we’re done. We both realize that’s not true.” I climb out of the car and slam the door.

  I storm up to my room, taking the stairs two and three at a time. Once I’m there, I grab the first bottle out of the minibar. I snap the top off and pour it down the drain. I toss the empty bottle into the garbage can and grab the next one.

  Ellie’s not getting rid of me. I’m getting my last day with her even if I have to go to her house and stand at the gates until she lets me in. Last time, I wasn’t persistent enough. This time, I’m not walking away.

  There’s something going on that I don’t understand. And I’m gonna crack that too. I twist the cap off the bottle in my hand and stare at myself in the mirror.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Ellie

  Pr
esent Day

  I curl up in my bed, and I wish Haven was home. Nights like these, when I can’t sleep, I crawl into bed with her. Something about the steady rhythm of her breathing always lulls me to sleep. Nothing is working tonight.

  Frustrated, I climb out of bed and pad to the kitchen for a drink of water. My normal phone is charged on the counter, and I turn it on. There’s nothing else to do this late at night, so I might as well see what’s going on in the world.

  My mind flicks to my ex-boyfriend’s earlier text on my private phone. I didn’t even look at his message before I turned it off. We haven’t spoken in months. Whatever he has to say can wait for another day. Not right now.

  Out of habit, I’ve navigated to Wyatt’s Twitter feed. An hour ago, he tweeted: Listening to Alicia Keys’ “If I Ain’t Got You” on repeat. Thinking, wishing, wondering. Wyatt’s alone in his hotel room, just as lost as me.

  I was so close to telling him earlier. So close. He’s not using anymore. I’m almost positive. Anna, though. She and her son are complications I didn’t see coming. If she’s worse than she used to be, putting Haven in that household is wrong. Irresponsible. Her behavior is exactly what I’ve been trying to avoid for the last nine years. Haven could have her father’s addictive personality. Living with, being around someone who is an active user is extremely risky.

  Isaac spiraled and hit bottom, never to emerge again. Wyatt spent years telling me his problem wasn’t a problem at all. Anna’s decline makes her one more person who’s lost themselves to drugs. If Haven goes down their path, I’ll scrutinize this moment and my wrong decision forever. My choice might be the difference between a healthy life for her or picking up the pieces if she becomes an addict. Once Wyatt knows she’s his, there’s no backtracking.

  My brain isn’t going to quiet.I pick up my phone and dial Nikki’s number. When Nikki answers, I don’t waste any time. She sounds wide awake anyway. “Can I come over?”

  “Are you listening to Alicia Keys on repeat too?”

  “I’m not the only one Twitter-stalking Wyatt?” My voice is light, but my insides are heavy. I dig my nail under a piece of paint on the counter. One of Haven’s art projects left a little behind. Life is rarely neat and tidy.

  “You didn’t tell him?”

  “He told me some things, and now the situation seems more complicated. Maybe dangerous.”

  Once she agrees to let me crash at hers, I throw a change of clothes into a bag and hustle out of the house to my car. When I arrive at Nikki’s, the door is unlocked.

  I drop my bag in the entryway, round the couch, and collapse next to her. It’s three in the morning, but Nikki looks like she never went to bed.

  “Did Matt get ahold of you?” Nikki scrolls through Wyatt’s Twitter feed.

  Pictures, articles, and other reminders of the past fly by. He certainly stirred up a shitstorm with that interview. He’s also retweeting the nonsense. Stoking the fire. And he says he’d have no problem quitting.

  “Earth to Ellie.” Nikki waves her hand in front of my face.

  “What?” I blink at her.

  “Matt. He called me to get in touch with you. He said you weren’t answering your phone. I tried to call you. No answer.”

  My phone is off because Wyatt and I were talking earlier, and I didn’t want any distractions. I rummage around in my purse until I find my second phone and wait for the home screen to load. At the flood of notifications, my heart starts to race. I have a lot of voice mails. Holding up a finger to Nikki, I take a seat at her kitchen table so I can concentrate.

  “Ellie—it’s Matt. I had a phone call from one of those shitty tabloids snooping into your life. I think, well . . . I think Wyatt has created a problem. Call me.”

  I delete the message. Tabloids cold call people acquainted with me. They offer a lot of money to entice someone to say something, anything they can spin into a story. Of course they’re going to contact Matt and anyone else who might talk now that Wyatt has made a spectacle of my life. The next message starts to play.

  “Ellie—it’s Calshae. There are reporters at the hotel. I—I . . . things are blowing up.” There’s a long pause. “The one at the concierge desk asked about Haven. We’re locking things down here, but I thought you’d want to know.”

  My heart booms in my chest. Sweat breaks out under my armpits. Nikki is staring at me, but I can’t look at her. Why did I turn off my phone? How do I stop this? I delete her message and start the next one, pressing a hand over my heart. I’m about to have a heart attack at thirty-four.

  “Ellie—it’s Vincent. I’m fielding calls left and right about Wyatt, about Haven, about you. There are fires, and I’m putting them out. We’re bleeding money. I’ve reminded people about NDAs. But I’ve got to warn you, I’m not sure I can contain the truth. I’m trying. One of the reporters from TMZ said they had a birth certificate naming Wyatt as the father. Please call me back and tell me you weren’t that dumb nine years ago. Call me. Anytime. Whenever you get this, okay?” No point in deleting his message. The word dumb bangs around my skull. Yes, Vincent, I was that dumb. But my mother made sure her birth certificate was sealed. Very few people could have leaked this. I close my eyes and drop my head onto the table.

  Nikki gets up and comes over to give my back a rub. “What’s up?” she asks softly.

  “I’m screwed. I’m so, so screwed. Matt tried to contact me because reporters called him. Reporters were at Wyatt’s hotel tonight. Calshae tried to get in touch with me. Vincent, my manager, left a message. TMZ has Haven’s birth certificate.”

  That last sentence reverberates in my mind. The worst outcome.

  “Oh, shit,” Nikki breathes. “Mom sealed that.”

  “Unsealed now.” Bile rises into my throat. “Why did I put Wyatt’s name on it? Why? How could I be so stupid?”

  “Because you didn’t want to hide the truth from Haven.” Nikki’s expression is pained.

  “But I haven’t told him yet. If this breaks, he’ll—what will he do?”

  My phone pings. I check the incoming message, and I suck in a sharp breath.

  “What?” Nikki peers over my shoulder.

  “Wyatt.” The blood leaves my head in a rush. Black spots appear at the edges of my vision. I’m going to faint. A heart attack might not be so bad.

  “What’s it say?”

  “Call me, now.” I stare at Nikki. My body is weightless, but the hot and cold flashes won’t stop coming.

  “If your people were calling you . . .”

  “Someone might have called him or one of his reps for comment. That’s where you’re going, right?” I can’t sit here. I rise, but I’m dizzy. The room swirls, and I grip the back of the kitchen chair.

  “You can’t tell him via text message. And you can’t tell him over the phone. If the first question he’s going to ask is if it’s true, you need to be there.”

  “He’s going to be so angry with me.”

  “Maybe. Maybe. He might be reasonable. You said he’s different, right?”

  “Yeah. And I didn’t tell him.”

  “Why didn’t you tell him tonight?”

  “I was going to. I was so close. Then his addiction person called and said Anna had disappeared.”

  “His sister?”

  “Yeah. His sister and her son live with Wyatt. I had no idea. I think—well, you know how I feel about Anna. Wyatt was hiding her from me. She’s still an addict, unstable, sometimes violent. I—I can’t put Haven in that environment. I left him because I didn’t want her in that environment.”

  “Wyatt won’t turn his back on his sister and her son.”

  “I can’t blame him for that.”

  My phone pings again. Another text from Wyatt. He knows. The phone rings, shrill in the silence of the room. It’s him.

  “Go,” Nikki says. “Just go. See him in person.”

  “Don’t take her to school today, okay? It’ll be a circus.”r />
  “We’ll stay around the house. Do you want us to go to yours instead? We can wake her and take her now.”

  I shake my head, and I grab my bag off the floor. At the moment, I have no idea where I’ll be. Protecting Haven from the fallout is the most important aspect of all this.

  “Stay here,” I say. “They’ll have to work to find your house. Go to Mom and Dad’s if you have to, okay? At least the gates and security there will keep them away, and I can handle the chaos at mine.” I open the front door. “If it gets intense or scary, call me. I’ll have Freddie or Jerome come here—both, if needed.”

  Nikki nods, and worry overflows between us.

  I get to the hotel in record time, but as I drive up to the spacious entrance, I realize I’ve dropped the ball in a big way. There are reporters everywhere. I slip into a side lot and drive around to the rear of the building. No one seems to be hovering around here yet. Reluctantly, I dial Calshae’s number. She answers on the fourth ring. “Sorry to wake you,” I say. “I’m at the back of the hotel. The front is flooded with reporters.”

  “Oh, Ellie,” she breathes. “I’m so sorry. You haven’t told him yet? He didn’t know?”

  “No, he didn’t.” My voice is thick with tears, and I close my eyes. When I found out I was pregnant, Calshae was adamant I tell Wyatt. Like my sister, she didn’t understand all the ins and outs of the life Wyatt and I led in LA. She thought love would be enough for Wyatt to overcome his addictions. I’m not sure what she thinks now or whether anything’s changed in the years that have passed in between. We stopped talking.

  She whistles. “We disagreed about whether he should know, but I never wanted the truth to come out like this. Never. Never said a word this week.”

  “I know. The time he spent with you didn’t bother me. I—I should have told him already, probably.” She’s moving around, doing something on her end. The back door swings open and she’s standing at the entrance, peering out into the darkness, looking for me. “I see you,” I say. In a rush, I exit my vehicle and squeeze into the hallway. “Didn’t realize you’d be here.”