Her phone was ringing in her pocket. Ella couldn’t ignore it, even though now seemed like an awful time to take a phone call. Aunt Genevieve was sitting next to her, bawling again, and Henry was trying to navigate driving in LA, which wasn’t all that easy for natives, let alone visitors. Ella wanted to just sit there and be quiet, but when she saw it was Bart calling, she had to take the call.
“Hello,” she said, her voice soft and serious.
“Ella?”
“Yes?”
“Hi. Uh… I have something to tell you.”
She cleared her throat. “Now isn’t really a good time. I, uh, just got some really bad news.”
“About… Tim?” Bart asked, and she could tell he didn’t want to be the one to tell her.
Not wanting to let her aunt know that the person she was talking to already knew what had happened, and not wanting for her to think Ella was willing to tell anyone what was going on, she said, “Yes… I can call you back later.”
“So you do know what happened?”
