by Hughes, Maya
The girl who had been writing him filthy, flirty notes last semester starting with one after a drunken winter break bout of insanity—and had continued for months.
The girl he’d never have a real crush on, if he saw what she looked like.
The girl who was standing in front of him in her too-warm kitchen in some too-warm clothes getting way too warm with each passing second.
“What about her?” I sure hoped he liked my Minnie Mouse impersonation.
“Have you thought up anything else on how we can find her once the semester starts?”
“Maybe she doesn’t want to be found.”
His eyes went wide and he shook his head with a steely look of determination. “That’s not an option. The things we talked about…”
He wanted to find the woman who’d described doing all kinds of confident, sexy things to him. Things I wanted to do to him, but here I was, covered up like I was staving off frostbite. “The sex stuff?”
The corners of his mouth turned down. “Not just that.”
The notes had started off as an exercise in expressing my sexuality in a safe environment just like Dr. Schuller recommended. Who am I kidding? They started because I was a drunk coward. There was no way I could walk up to Berk and say the things I had anonymously written, but over the months, things had changed and we had started sharing more of ourselves in the letters beyond what we wanted to do to each other’s bodies—not that there wasn’t a heaping helping of that as well.
“She was—is someone I need to meet in person.”
I opened my mouth to throw out nine hundred reasons why that was a terrible idea. Then the front door creaked open as someone knocked.
“Told you you needed to lock it.” Berk stepped up like he was ready to throw down in case someone from the street had actually decided to show up and cause trouble. We’d only had one drunk party-goer wander into the house, and that had been fairly anti-climactic. We’d woken up to find them passed out on our living room floor. Okay, it was three times, but who’s counting?
“Julia?” The soft and sweet voice drifted in from the entryway.
Yeah, I’d much rather face down some post-apocalyptic motorcycle-riding cannibals right now than answer the door. An attack was incoming, but only my feelings were in danger.
“Stand down.” I dropped my hand onto his shoulder. “It’s my sister.” Giving him a barely-there smile, I walked out of the room. I was hoping that maybe after all these years I’d misremembered her voice and it wasn’t her, but there were a handful of people in the world who called me Julia.
I rounded the kitchen doorway and was nearly blinded by her brightness.
The pale pink blazer with sleeves pushed up just below her elbows.
The pristine white t-shirt—that probably cost more than my rent—and perfectly-ripped jeans that hugged her legs made her look like she’d stepped out of the latest influencer campaign.
Throw in some pale pink heels that I couldn’t even pole dance in, her Hermes purse, and tastefully simple jewelry accents, and Laura was the picture-perfect replica of our mother, aged down to twenty-eight—although Mom told everyone there were only twenty-one years between them.
“Hi, Laura.” I crossed my arms over my chest. My earlier bravado slowly leached out the open door.
“Is that any way to say hello to your sister?” She held out her arms as she stepped into my house, not for a hug, but like she expected roaches to scurry past and carry her away.
I wrapped my arms around her and matched actual contact to her air hug.
“Why are you so sweaty?” The undertone of censure rippled through her words.
I dropped my arms and stepped back. “I was working out.”
Her eyes widened, the hint of a smile skittered across her lips. The kind that was at home with a group of mean girls laughing at someone finally finding the courage to go to the gym to jumpstart a healthier lifestyle and maybe shed some pounds. “That’s great, Julia.”
“Why are you here?” I crossed my arms like they’d shield me from whatever strike she had planned.
“Can’t I drop by to visit?” Her gaze swept over my place. It still wasn’t much, but at least she hadn’t seen it last year, before it had taken the turn from barely habitable to you-probably-won’t-catch-a staph-infection-here levels of sketchiness.
“You haven’t in the past three years.”
“There’s a first time for everything. And Mom wanted me to make sure you were coming to the engagement party this weekend. You haven’t replied to her messages.”
More like chosen to avoid them, hoping that perhaps a meteor would crash into the planet or I’d come down with bubonic plague and have an excuse not to come.
“I have a lot going on, and three full days away is tough at this point in the year. Classes are starting. I’ve got to start the job search.” I dragged my hand through my hair, acutely aware of how my messy bun contrasted with her every-strand-in-its-place mussed perfection.
“But this is my wedding.”
“It’s your engagement party. Most people don’t have three-day engagement parties.”
“But this needs to be special. An amazing trip no one will forget to celebrate the love between Chet and me.”
It took everything in me not to puke. I pinched my lips together tightly.
She rushed in close and held my hands. Her fingers were freezing cold even though it was ninety degrees outside. “You’re my only sister, Julia, and this is my wedding we’re talking about.”
“No, it’s the engagement party.”
“What would everyone say if you weren’t there?”
“I’m sure they’d get over it.”
“Dad would want us to be together during these special times, sharing them.”
I fought against my wince. Bulls-fucking-eye. So practiced and routine. After all this time, I should be able to keep myself for falling for these manipulations. Dad would’ve wanted us all to be together, but when he’d been here it hadn’t felt like someone was standing over me with a ream of freshly-printed paper and a gallon of lemon juice ready to slice me to ribbons.
“Mom wants you there. I want you there.” Laura touched the back of my hand like she was trying to reassure me. “And Chet wants you there.” Her brightest smile was turned up to eleven.
Chet. I should’ve known from the moment we met that he was trouble—just from the name alone. My sort-of ex and now my sister’s fiancé. I’d met the insistent requests from my mom and Laura to bring around the boy I’d been seeing with every kind of dodge I could think of, until he finally did meet them and the inevitable happened.
In the ninth grade, I’d gotten one candygram for Valentine’s Day. Laura had gotten over twenty, and she made sure to carry them in her arms so everyone could see. She was the homecoming queen as a sophomore, something unheard of at our school, and prom queen after getting invited by a senior. The family measuring stick had always been just a few inches too tall for me. Once she’d graduated, I’d breathed a little freer, thinking I wouldn’t be compared to her anymore. And then Chet came to town without the baggage of twelve years of school with the same people. For a sliver of a school year, I’d had a glimpse of what it was like not living in her shadow—and then the lifelong eclipse circled right back around.
Jules was put out to pasture like an old, crusty cow, and Laura became the sun to his piece-of-crap-no-good-son-of-a—stars. And now they were getting married, having conveniently forgotten where their happily-ever-after started.
We met through a mutual friend.
It sounded less scandalous the way they told it.
So I wasn’t exactly jumping for joy about being stranded on the country estate where the social-climbing members of the Kelland family would host their non-ironic Great Gatsby-themed engagement party. As though stealing my boyfriend wasn’t enough, Laura was moving the scene of the crime to the place I’d always wanted to exchange vows with a man who looked at me like no other
man ever did. She’d always been too busy to go there with Dad during the summers.
Pardon me for not RSVPing.
“Jules, do you mind if I take a few with me?” Berk popped out of the kitchen with his winning, knee-weakening smile, and a huge tub of cookies in his hand.
“Why, hello there.” Laura nearly knocked me over as she executed a model glide past me, heading straight for Berk.
“Hey.” He looked around like a deer caught in headlights.
“I’m Laura Kelland.” She looked over her shoulder at me. “A friend of yours?”
Berk’s gaze bounced between me and Laura. My shoulders hunched and I tightened my arms across my chest. The pit in my stomach sprouted a trunk and a few branches as I braced myself for the questions I’d been asked so many times.
Standing beside my mom and sister, I always looked like the weird cousin they introduced for comedic relief in every sitcom when things got stale. When Dad was alive, it had all made sense. Laura looked like Mom’s mini-me, I took after him, and our picture was complete. When he was gone, I was the odd one out—always.
“Laura, this is Berk. Berk, my sister Laura.”
Here come the wide-eyed glances between me and her. I was tallish, taking after Dad at five-eight, whereas she was a petite but willowy five-four. Next to me she almost felt pocket-sized.
She had bright blue eyes, but mine were a muddy-mossy mishmash hidden behind my glasses.
And then there was the extra fifty pounds I had on her. Standing next to my sister, I always felt like I should be named Helga and have a place on the Soviet female shotput team.
But Berk’s eyes didn’t have the same questions or comparative judgments most people’s did. He shook her hand like we made sense as siblings, even though I didn’t get it sometimes.
“I didn’t know Jules was seeing someone. You’ve got to come to the engagement party. It would be so wonderful to have you come.”
I clenched my fists at my side and my heart did a skitter-patter. She was doing it on purpose: inviting someone she knew could never be my boyfriend, so she could laugh at her silly mistake and rest her hand on his chest, flirting to within an inch of her life with the added bonus of pointing out how silly she’d been for even assuming.
“Berk’s not—”
“Sure, I’m always up for a party.” He shrugged and nodded.
Laura threw her head back, but only half the laugh came out. Her head snapped back down and she stared at him. “What?”
“Jules mentioned it before. The wedding’s in spring, right? Sure, I’ll go.”
“But—” Her gaze swung to the side, meeting mine. “You’re actually—”
I plastered on a smile. “You heard him. He’d love to go. You still have room for him, right?” I took her by the shoulders. “We’ll see you this weekend.”
Shell-shocked and still looking like she couldn’t believe what had just gone down, Laura nodded.
“Perfect.” I pushed her toward the door. “We’ll be there at five, see you then, so happy for you both, love you, bye.”
She turned around on the porch.
I slammed the door closed and rested my head against the solid wood, closing my eyes.
“Should I be ready at five on Friday or Saturday?” Berk waved around the salted caramel chocolate chunk cookies with the espresso chips I always kept on hand for him.
Oh god, did he think I’d told her we were dating? “I only said that to get rid of her. You don’t have to go.” I’d delayed humiliation right now for the humiliation in three days when I showed up with no Berk. “I only let her believe we’re dating to get rid of her.”
“You don’t want me to go?” A sliver of hurt fluttered across his face.
Did he really want to come with me? As if—he was just being polite. “Of course I do, but I can’t ask you to do that. You’ve got practice. The semester starts as soon as we get back.” There, I’d given him an out so he could back out gracefully.
“I wouldn’t mind getting out of here for a few days. You mentioned this thing before, right?”
“As a joke. I don’t want you to think you have to come.”
“I wouldn’t have offered if I wasn’t cool with it. The season will be intense. A party with good food and top-shelf booze that I don’t have to clean up from sounds good to me. If you’re good with it.”
My mouth opened and closed. “Sure, I’d love it if you came.” I needed a gold star for not digging a hole into the ground to disappear into after saying that.
“We’ll have fun. I won’t embarrass you, don’t worry.” He ducked back into the kitchen.
“I’d never think you could.”
After the roots holding me to the floor dissolved, I followed him.
He downed another shot of milk. “Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, let’s figure out how we’re going to track down TLG.”
“TLG?”
He stared back at me with determination glinting in his eyes. “I’m not stopping until I find The Letter Girl.”
3
Berk
The brown sugar, cinnamon, chocolate, and vanilla smells made walking into Jules’ kitchen one of my new favorite things. My mouth watered every time I stepped through her door. It made me want to take a bite out of the countertops. It was like being in a movie set version of a perfect house. Not that her house was perfect. The landlord had fixed it up some from last year after Jules’ old roommate reamed him in court for not keeping the house up to code and making repairs as needed, but it had nothing to do with the way the place looked.
Walking into Jules’ house was like walking into a home, complete with a cute apron hanging beside the doorway, stacks of neatly wrapped treats and Tupperware full of even more. I could sit there for hours soaking it all up. And eating mountains of treats that were always on hand.
“I could put flyers up all over campus with a picture of one of the letters.” A highly censored version of the letters. Maybe a small excerpt.
“But who sees anyone’s handwriting? Most people use their computers or phones for everything.” Jules rubbed her thumb along her bottom lip. Did it taste like sugar? I dropped my gaze from her lips. Don’t go there, man. Jules was awesome, but I wasn’t going to be distracted from my search.
“You’re right.”
How can you lose someone you’ve never met? The Letter Girl had careened into my life like a damn smash and grab pro and wormed her way into my heart before I knew what happened.
She was everything I’d ever wanted in a girl. Hot as hell. Smart and caring. The slow slide of the notes from X-rated to something more caught me off guard, but she became someone I could talk to. Someone I could share parts of myself that I didn’t share with other people. Even if she didn’t know everything about my past, she knew more than most.
No one wanted to be sexy pen pals with a former foster kid who had almost no one in the whole world. Nah, that was for the college senior, soon to be pro athlete.
Don’t ever let anyone see things bother you; I learned that in foster home number four. If everything’s a joke, there’s nothing they can do to hurt you, but losing TLG when I thought I’d finally found someone who knew me for me and actually gave a shit? That hurt. It was an unexpected squeeze on my heart every so often that made it hard to breathe.
Jules slid her hand closer, herky-jerky like she was in a stop motion animation movie before it finally landed on top of mine with a gentle pat. “Is it really that important for you to find her?”
I shrugged. “Maybe not. She probably got tired of trying to figure out my fucking chicken scratch.” I forced out a laugh through the tightness in my chest.
“Once the season starts things will be crazy for you, right?”
“You’re right. I guess I’m fixating because not much else is going on.” No, this would always be a question I needed answered. Who is TLG and did all the things we’d written about mean as much to her as they meant to me?
I slid t
he plastic container closer to the edge of the counter. “You’re good if I take these?”
She smiled and it shone through her eyes. “Who do you think I made them for?” Turning, she put the now empty plate into the sink.
A wave of heat spread in my chest and stopped me in my tracks. “You baked these especially for me?”
“It’s the only way I can save the rest of my cookies from your stomach. Sometimes I think a bear has been foraging in here.”
“You could always lock the door.”
She peered at me sideways with the side of her mouth quirked up. “I could.”
I stepped back, wanting to step forward. Slow your roll, Berk. This is Jules. Don’t toy with her when you’re dead set on finding TLG. “Thanks for these. I’ll get out of your hair. And I’ll be here on Friday for the thing.”
She nodded and dried off the plate in her hand.
Outside, I jogged across the street and went straight for the mailbox, flipping up the brass lid on the rectangular box next to the front door. A crater of disappointment thudded in my chest.
We’d upgraded the place a little bit now that we’d managed to keep the roving party monsters out of our house. For two years we’d had parties appear in our house like something out of Harry Potter. Blink and there’s five kegs, a DJ, and red plastic cups everywhere.
In the kitchen, I looked over my shoulder making sure no one was around and opened one of the upper cabinets beside the back door. I slid the box of kale chips aside and put the Tupperware up there, putting the chips back where they’d been. I’d learned my lesson about hoarding food in my room after the mouse fiasco of sophomore year, but that didn’t mean it was free rein on Jules’ cookies. Especially, since she’d made them for me.
The front door opened and I slammed the door shut and spun around, crossing my arms over my chest.
Keyton came in the front door with a backpack and a guitar case in his hand. He froze when he spotted me.
“I didn’t know you played.”
A muscle in his neck tightened. “I don’t.”
LJ and Marisa barreled down the steps arguing about something. Anything. Probably whether or not an ant could lift an ant-sized car or who could hold their breath the longest. They’d never learned the fine art of not sounding like they were in a wrestling match whenever they went anywhere together.