Read An Excerpt From 'This Changes Everything' by Danielle McKechnie

An aspiring actor caught in the Hollywood rollercoaster is torn between following her dreams and choosing between two of her own leading men—her childhood sweetheart and the one who got away, or the fellow actor who understands just what she’s fighting for. A funny, sexy and heartfelt romance for readers of Yulin Kuang, Rebecca Serle and Emily Henry.

Intrigued? Read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from This Changes Everything by Danielle McKechnie, which releases on September 8th 2026.

Ellie McCain has always dreamed of a bigger life, so when she’s accepted into a prestigious acting school in New York City, she packs her bags—even if it means leaving her family, her friends, and Rory Campbell, the boy who held her heart for years, behind.

At first, life in New York is even better than she’d dreamed it would be—she loves her classes, she gets a position at a fancy production company, and she’s even falling in love with her classmate-turned-roommate-turned-best friend, Ben. But soon the shine starts to wear off: her boss has made it clear that the only role he’ll be casting her in is “Unpaid Intern #3”, and while she’s happy that Ben’s career is starting to take off, she’s struggling to stay afloat. And it doesn’t help that everyone around her seems to be passing her by—even her childhood sweetheart, Rory, is living out his dreams as a Professional Golfer. But when she runs into Rory for the first time in ten years, she starts to wonder what exactly it is she’s running from, where is she going, and who is running with her.

Told in alternating timelines of the past and present and moving between Vancouver, New York, and Los Angeles, This Changes Everything is the story of love—first love, one-that-got-away-love, and true love—and asks if maybe, just maybe, all of those loves can be one and the same.

PROLOGUE

Vancouver
20 years old

“Ellie, what did we do?” Rory’s head was on my shoulder. His face was buried in my collarbone. His loose dark curls plastered against my cheek, clinging to my skin in the same mindless, desperate hold that my limbs were clinging to him.

I stopped breathing, and my eyes flew open. I must have misheard him.

Rory’s hot breath steamed my neck. We were in the passenger seat of his musty, old black Jeep Cherokee, and it dawned on me that all my parents needed to do was look out my sister’s second-story bay window to find me and Rory Campbell, tangled up and naked, perfectly lit under the streetlight that loomed at the end of our driveway. The passenger seat was reclined all the way down, and I didn’t know how he wasn’t suffocating as he pushed his face even further into my neck. Our thrashing heartbeats bashed against each other in unison.

“What did you say?” I asked. He didn’t answer, so I repeated myself. “Rory, what did you say?” He didn’t move, but I felt his lips tremble against my skin, and I had to actively stop myself from filling his Jeep with vomit. Why wasn’t he talking to me?

“What’s going on?” Tears started materializing in my eyes. “Look at me,” I pleaded. I could hear my voice getting weaker the longer he hid his face.

When Rory eventually lifted his head, his pained expression burned through me. My eyes trailed over the faint freckles across the bridge of his nose and the tops of his cheeks. I called it his Summer Skin and had obsessed over his soft, subtle freckles, which multiplied under the summer sun, since we were twelve. In eight years, I could count on one hand how many times Rory Campbell and I had purposefully touched each other, and touching him so intimately now, with what we had just done, combined with that look on his face, felt like both a dream and a nightmare. He kept his eyes closed and lightly touched his nose to mine.

“Look at me. Please,” I begged.

He opened his sad, coffee-brown eyes, which I had memorized long ago, and then quickly squeezed them shut again as tears rolled down his cheeks. He kissed me softly. I assumed the kiss was to stop his bottom lip from quivering, but it didn’t work. When I heard him inhale a choppy breath, I asked more urgently, “What’s wrong?”

“This was a mistake.” He dropped his head as if he had lost all the muscles in his neck.

“What?” I blinked. There was no way he could possibly have said—

“This was a mistake,” he said again.

“What do you mean?” My heartbeat filled my head, clouding my hearing with its heavy thumping.

“We shouldn’t have done that . . .”

“You’re still inside me, Rory.” I swallowed, entirely unable to comprehend what was happening.

With a sudden surge of energy, Rory tore himself off me and quickly shuffled over to the driver’s seat. He leaned down and pulled on his underwear, then his pants, then his black T-shirt over his head. I tried to do the same, but my fingers stopped working, my hands, my legs, my brain, everything.

Rory wiped his tears with the back of his hand and looked out the window, facing away from me. He looked down the dark street I grew up on.

“What did I do?” I asked, staring blankly at my sleepy house.

“Nothing. You did nothing. That was . . .” He ran both hands through his floppy hair. “You did nothing.”

“What’s happening right now?”

“Please. Ellie.” He sucked in a shallow gasp. “Stop.”

“Rory, what did I do? What is going on right now?” I must have asked one too many times, because he then slammed his hands into the steering wheel.

“You’re leaving!” Rory practically shouted at me, rocking me back in my seat with his unexpected burst of fury, lighting a fire under my ass to get my clothes on. “Tomorrow. You’re moving away tomorrow, and I feel like I’m dying!”

“It’s only two years.” I fumbled with my shirt. I couldn’t look at him.

“It’s not. You’ve wanted to leave for as long as I’ve known you. I knew it would happen, it’s finally happening, and you’re not coming back.”

“I’m coming back,” I insisted.

“No, you’re not!” Rory yelled. He closed his eyes, trying to control himself.

“It’s just school. This is my home. I will come back.”

“We both know that’s not true. I know you, Ellie. You’re leaving, and I’m going to be left with nothing.”

I could feel my body recoil even though I didn’t move a muscle.

Review: When No One Is Watching by Alyssa Cole

“I . . . I can’t do this,” he finished.

“But we’ve already done it . . .” My eyes were stinging. I swallowed the last of the air inside the Jeep, and my stomach fell to my feet. I could still feel him inside me. I could still feel his mouth, and tongue, and breath, and teeth all over me. I could still feel him digging into my skin and hair.

“So, what, then?” I choked. “Did you come here to finally fuck me, then send me on my way?”

“I can’t believe you just said that,” he answered quietly, sounding sickened, unable to meet my eyes. “Is that what you think?”

“How can I not?” I was in disbelief.

“I came tonight to say goodbye . . .”

A lost memory of Rory when we were fourteen surged through me. I had walked through the front door of the busy juniors’ lounge at Juniper Golf Club. He was sitting with his hands clamped behind his head, and he was leaning back comfortably. He had flipped his black hat backward, and his eyes widened, then darted away from mine the moment they connected. I watched his chest lift, and his breathing pick up. An empty seat sat next to him with his rain jacket hanging over the back, and I didn’t have to ask to know he was holding it for me. It was always for me.

The Jeep Cherokee was steaming up, so Rory turned on the engine and rolled down his window.

“I haven’t been able to think since you told me about New York. Whatever you and I have ever been, that’s when it all ended. It’s over, and it didn’t even start.” Rory could barely get the words out as he white-knuckled the steering wheel.

I stopped recognizing my own reality. I looked carefully at my house. Had my sister’s bedroom light been on this whole time?

“This is it, Rory. It’s us. We’re choosing each other. I choose you, and you choose me.”

“I can’t do this . . . I won’t. I’m not choosing this. I’m not choosing you.” He started hyperventilating, burying his face in his hands. “I can’t spend the rest of my life—” He inhaled sharply, having lost his words. “None of this is real, Ellie. You. Me. Us. None of it. We’ve never been anything real.” Rory heaved, and his voice sounded like it came straight out of his gut.

“Rory . . .”

“I can’t love you, Ellie! I’m not doing it!”

I sat back in my seat. Finally, totally, and entirely composed. I grabbed my shoes and opened the door. With my hands full, I stepped outside the Jeep. I looked up at my sister’s window, overlooking the driveway, and saw her blinds move.

“What was I thinking?” Rory said quietly to himself as I slammed the door.

I sobbed with my sister throughout the entire night. I finally stopped the next morning when the plane took off, the wheels were up, and I got the fuck out of Vancouver.