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Astrid had probably helped her a hundred times.
    The door continued to jingle and more people walked inside, and Ella walked back towards the espresso machine because Jake was going to need a lot of help.
    Even though the place was packed, she’d never felt more alone.
    • • •
    Ben and Sydney picked her up at six. They were headed to Johnny’s. It was really called Jumping Johnny’s, but the only people who ever called it that were the ones who didn’t live in Falling Rock or who were very, very new. Astrid had corrected her when they were younger.
    A line of cars sputtered in front of them. Sydney was sprawled across the backseat, leaning against the window, her hair pulled into short pigtails. Ben leaned one arm on the window, cute as ever. Ella sat in the front, hands folded in her lap, waiting for their turn. There was a hole in the back where Astrid would have sat. Right behind her. Ella tried not to look in the side view mirror, but she couldn’t help it. She glanced over and emptiness met her, and she knew that this wasn’t a dream. This was real.
    “What do you girls want?” Ben turned in his seat, looking from her to Sydney. A twangy country act crooned on the radio and Ella turned it down. It was making her nervous.
    “The usual,” Sydney said. Large fries. Diet Coke.
    Ben looked at her, like,
your turn
, but she couldn’t seem to think. She couldn’t get that damn empty seat out of her mind. She looked away from Ben and back to the side mirror, and for a second, for an infinitesimal second, she wanted to so bad that it was like she could see Astrid right there, and she couldn’t help it, she drew her breath in, and the vision was gone.
    “Hello, love,” Ben said, waving his hand in front of her. “You okay?”
    Ella closed her eyes. Opened them again. Stole a quick glance in the side view. Nothing.
    “Ellllla,” Ben said.
    “Sorry,” she said. “I got distracted. I’m not hungry.”
    He looked at her all sad and parent-like. “Come on, Ella,” he said. “Just get a little something.”
    The cars pulled forward, and Ella scanned her eyes across the menu without really reading it. “Just get me a vanilla shake,” she said.
    “That’s my girl.” And he rolled down the window, rattling off their orders, getting the super extra value special for himself.
    Ben paid for their food, shoved a few greasy bags onto her lap, and they pulled away. They never went inside — anyone who really knew the place knew that if you headed out of the parking lot and just to the left, you’d hit a winding dirt road and a half-mile drive that led to one of the most beautiful lookout points in town. On summer nights with greasy fries and thick milkshakes, it never got old. At least it hadn’t until now.
    There were a few cars parked when they got there, and Ben backed up to the ledge. It always made Ella nervous when he did this, like they could just roll right over and everything would turn into crushed metal and smushed bodies. She couldn’t believe that Astrid was actually dead.
    Ben turned off the car, and they got out, opened the hatch in the back, and crawled inside. They fit easier now that it was just the three of them, side by side, Ella in the middle. She passed out the items. She wished that there was a strawberry shake and a thing of chicken tenders with honey mustard in there, too, but there wasn’t.
    Sydney immediately started chomping and Ben ravaged his cheeseburger but Ella just sipped slowly. The sky was nice. Not gray. And the sun was just going down and splashing everything with pink and purple hues. Ella could see the valley below and the mountains behind, covered in mist, even though the sky was clear. There was a crescent moon, a really pretty one. Damn, it was beautiful out. The world could be so good sometimes. How could Astrid leave it?
    Ben and Sydney still had yet to breach the subject of her first day back at work. It was like they were trying to protect her or something.