In Ella's humble opinion, this wasn't her fault.

Okay, fine; it was.

It was entirely her fault.

She jogged down the stairs into the subway, trying to ignore the letter that kept slapping against her thigh. Stupid, bulky letter. If it was smaller, Ella could shove it in her backpack, but the University of Toronto insisted on printing things in elegant cardstock, as if they were issuing an invitation to take tea with the Queen.

God, Ella would kill for tea.

Or a lethal injection of arsenic. Either would do.

She sprinted for the last subway car, narrowly squeezing through the doors as they slammed shut behind her. The carriage was packed, and she was squished up against the wall, crammed between a group of giggling teenage girls and a man eating what smelled disconcertingly like a day-old pile of sweaty gym socks.

Gross.

She tried to shift surreptitiously away, lowering her head and also her expectations. It was official; she'd hit rock bottom. The day couldn't possibly get any worse.

Then Ella looked up, and she realized that she'd spoken too soon.

A blond boy beamed down at her from a toothpaste advertisement, his teeth white and gleaming. The words under him read, "Rory Walker uses Shine On strips on the road!" There was a squiggly outline behind Rory that Ella assumed was his guitar, but in reality bore a strong resemblance to a hula-hooping whale.

She sighed.

Typical. Now she was stuck staring up at her older brother's left nostril for the next 20 minutes.

Across from Ella, the group of giggling girls was staring up at the poster.

"He's so dreamy," the tallest one sighed. "Did you get tickets to the tour?"

"Obviously."

"Do you think he'll sign my laptop?" The tall girl smirked. "That way I can bring it to school. Nancy Peters will be so jealous!"

Ella narrowly resisted the urge to snort. If only they knew that the lead guitarist for The Patriots used to think the word "condom" was short for "condominium." Or that he had a deathly fear of clowns.

She could ruin Rory's life so easily.

But she wouldn't, obviously; she was a good younger sister. Most of the time, anyways.

Ella hopped off the subway at Bloor-Yonge, hurrying past rows of manicured brick buildings into the heart of Yorkville. Girls wrapped in Canada Goose coats hurried through the cold, carrying bags labelled with Gucci or Prada. It was only when she stepped into the glass elevator of the apartment building that she began to feel a rising sense of panic.

This was fine; Ella was fine. After all, Rory was deported from Japan last year after his band accidentally set a sacred temple on fire.

What harm could one little letter cause?

She stopped outside of her parents' apartment. Then she cautiously pushed open the door.

"Hello?"

Silence answered her, and she blew out a breath.

Oh, thank god. They were still out shopping.

Her phone rang, and the noise was so startling in the quiet that she jumped. Then Ella saw who was calling and she let out a groan. Cautiously, she answered the FaceTime call.

"Hi, Lou."

"Well?" Louise's impatient face filled her phone screen. "Have you told them about the letter yet?"

"They're not in."

"Bloody typical," Louise sighed, brushing her dark hair out of her eyes. "Let me guess. Rory told them he'd pay for a new couch?"

"It's a dining table. Twelve-seater, apparently."

Ella crossed to the fridge, taking out ingredients on auto-pilot. Miraculously, her father had already eaten through most of the cheese and meat that she dropped off last week, but there was some carrots and mushrooms left. And wine. She pursed her lips. Vegetable risotto, maybe?

"Seriously," Louise mused. "How much do you think Rory spends on their apartment? Thousands? Millions?"

"Too much." Ella propped the phone up against the wall. "But it's not like Mom and Dad ask for it. Their careers—"

"Died in the eighties?" Louise's voice was fond, though. "Never took off?"

"Weren't very lucrative." She chopped the onion into thin strips. "It's hard to be in the music industry, you know."

"Unless you're Rory."

"Well, he got lucky."

Louise snorted. "I'm sure he'd say it was raw talent."

Ella smiled. If it was anybody else, she would take offense, but Louise knew Rory almost as well she did; Louise's older brother, Max, had been best friends with him for years.

Max.

She pushed around her garlic dreamily. God, he was good looking. She hadn't seen him in ages, but even just thinking about his wild dark curls and green eyes was making her—

No.

She jerked herself out of her thoughts.

Bad idea.

And yet, she couldn't resist asking.

"How's Max?" Ella asked casually. "After..." She could feel her cheeks heating up, and she was suddenly fascinated by the garlic that she was sautéing. "You know."

Louise grinned. "After Max was caught on camera playing strip-poker with a bunch of models in Paris, you mean?"

"Lou!"

"What?" She shrugged. "I called Max to confirm. It's true." Her smile turned sly. "Why are you so interested?"

"I'm not."

"Liar."

Ella shoved the garlic around with a spoon, trying to ignore the fact that her face felt like it was on fire. She'd never actually voiced her little crush on Max to Louise, but her friend would have to be walking around with a blindfold over her eyes not to notice it.

Thank god Ella was able to deal with it now.

Growing up, Ella couldn't even get through dinner with Max; she would sit at their kitchen table — all frizzy blonde hair and braces and spots on her chin — and inevitably spill ketchup all over her top, or burn her hand on a hot plate.

She still cringed when she thought about it.

"I'm just happy Rory wasn't with Max in Paris," Ella said, deftly changing the subject. "Or if Rory was, he was smart enough not to get caught." She paused. "No offense."

Louise waved her off. "None taken."

Louise yawned, rubbing at her eyes. Her feet were stuffed into purple slippers, and Ella glanced at the clock, doing the mental gymnastics of calculating time change. It was past seven o'clock in Toronto, which meant that in London, England it was...

"Hang on." Ella frowned. "Shouldn't you be asleep?"

"I'm still going out tonight."

She gave her a dubious look. Louise went out a lot, admittedly, but rarely in purple slippers. "Aren't you going to change?"

"For the plane?" She grinned. "Nah."

It took a moment for Ella's brain to understand, and when it did, she almost dropped the knife into the risotto. "You're flying back tonight?"

"Tomorrow, technically. It was supposed to be a surprise, but seeing as I leave for the airport in a few hours—"

Ella's phone rang, and she held up a finger.

"Hang on," Ella said. "It's Soph." She couldn't keep the glee out of her voice. "She's going to kill you for not telling her that you're coming home, you know."

A moment later, Sophia's face popped up on the screen. She was wearing a gloopy green face mask and her dark, shiny hair was swept into a top knot that annoyingly didn't look ridiculous. Ella instantly hated her for it.

Even after eight years of friendship, she could never quite forgive Sophia for constantly looking like a Vogue advertisement.

"I've just heard the news," Sophia said breathlessly.

Ella's mind went blank. She could feel the letter staring up at her from the counter, and for a split second, she thought that — somehow — Sophia knew about it.

But then Louise groaned.

"You saw the tabloids, then?"

"All of them," Sophia said gleefully. "Do you know there's a naked one of Max in The Sunday Times? I bought three copies."

Louise pulled a face. "Gross, Soph."

"What?" Sophia shrugged, unabashed. "It's not my fault that your brother has a nice body." She took a sip of something green and sludgy. "You agree, right, Ella?"

At the thought of a shirtless Max, Ella could feel her face turning the color of a stop sign.

"Sure." She poured more white wine into the rice than was perhaps strictly necessary. "Max's body is... fine."

"Fine?"

"It's..." She floundered. "Well, it's—"

Fortunately, she was saved by the phone ringing again.

"It's Ophelia," Ella told the girls, unable to keep the relief out of her voice. "I'm adding her in."

She punched a series of buttons. A moment later, Ophelia's flushed face filled the screen. Her red hair was escaping from its frizzy braids, and she was eating a pot of blackberry yogurt. A stack of books filled the space behind her head.

"Oh, good," Ophelia said. "You're all here." She pointed at them with a spoon. "I have the juiciest bit of gossip for you."

Sophia arched an eyebrow at her cousin. "Is the news that Max made international headlines for a strip tease? Because that's old news, by now."

"Oh, dear," Ophelia said, looking appalled. "Are you okay, Louise?"

Her voice was mild, but then again, that was typical Ophelia, Ella thought; Sophia said that Ophelia must have been born in a library, because she never raised her voice. The two were cousins, although most people would never guess it: Sophia had inherited her father's Asian heritage, whereas Ophelia was all red curls and freckles.

"I'm okay," Louise said, waving her off. "Mildly scarred from seeing my brother naked, but other than that, good. What's the gossip?"

Ophelia brightened. "So you all remember Sarah June from school, yeah?"

Ella tuned out slightly as Ophelia launched into a story that involved Sarah June, a stolen traffic cone, and being handcuffed by a cute police officer. The Parmesan grater was shaking in her hand. She glanced nervously at the clock, half-wishing that her parents would burst through the door so that she could just get this over with.

But alas.

"Ella?" Ophelia asked gently.

Ella blinked. It took her a moment to realize that Ophelia was clearly waiting for her to respond to a question.

"Huh?"

Opheliatook a sip of tea. "Are you going to get a branch from the tree before they knock it down? The one outside Lovewood Academy?"

"They're knocking it down?"

Ella stopped stirring. To her alarm, she could feel tears pricking at her eyes, and she immediately felt stupid. It was only an oak tree.

But it wasn't.

It was the tree that she and Louise ate lunch together under for the first time, back when they were eleven and fresh at Lovewood Academy. It was the tree that Ella sat in while scribbling music lyrics on Sunday afternoons, and the tree where she taught herself violin.

Hell, Ella had even carved her and Max's initials into the tree when she was twelve (thankfully Louise or Max never found them).

She loved that tree.

"When?" Ella asked.

"Tonight," Ophelia told her. "They've probably already done it, actually. Oh, Elle, I'm sorry. I thought you knew."

She set down the spoon.

"It's fine." Ella managed a smile. "It's just a tree." And then, to change the subject: "Also, Louise is coming home tomorrow."

Immediately, the phone call exploded into mayhem.

"You're what?" Sophia demanded.

"Oh my god!" Ophelia did a little dance. "We have to throw a party!"

Louise's eyes lit up. "A party?"

"With gingerbread martinis," Sophia agreed, seizing on the idea. "We can make it Christmas themed; I know someone that can cater."

"And mulled wine," Ophelia added dreamily. "So much mulled wine."

They were halfway through sorting out the details when Ella heard keys jingle in the lock. She switched off the risotto, her mouth suddenly dry. She could tell that Louise heard the noise too, because she looked at her solemnly, as if Ella was a soldier departing for battle.

"That's my parents," Ella said. "I should go."

Louise nodded. "Good luck."

"Luck?" Sophia looked baffled. "Why does she need luck?"

"Fill them in," Ella told Louise glumly. "You have my permission."

She hung up the call. A moment later, her mother swept into the room, stripping off her sodden hat and gloves. "Ella!" She kissed her cheek. "What a surprise."

"It smells good," her father said cheerfully, setting a collection of bright parcels on the side table. "Is that risotto?"

Oh, god. He was looking at Ella so warmly that she wanted to sink into the floor and die. She was going to have to tell them now, or she would chicken out. Slowly, she picked up the letter from the counter, extending it gingerly toward them like a bomb that might explode.

"Here."

Her mother frowned. "Did you win an award, honey?"

"Not quite." She took a shaky breath. "Actually, Mom, I've failed out of university. And I'm not planning on going back."

***

Hello lovely readers,

Fancy a sneak peek of what happens next? Wattpad has put together a fabulous video that teases the romance, drama and angst yet to come (also, can we talk about the song in this video? It's exactly the sort of music The Patriots would play!)

Not pictured: a radio interview gone wrong, Max getting punched in the face, and a paparazzi photo that changes everything.

Stay tuned for the dramaaaaa!

Affectionately,

J.K.