by Kasie West
“How are things with Lucas?” Isabel asked.
I frowned, realizing I hadn’t thought of Lucas once today. “He hasn’t called or texted at all.”
“That’s not a big deal.”
“It’s been over a week!” I protested.
“But it’s Thanksgiving weekend. Maybe he went out of town or something,” she said. “It’ll be fine.”
I picked at a loose thread on the couch cushion. “But … if it doesn’t work out with him, I’ll be fine.”
“Why are you already writing him off like it won’t work?”
“I’m not.”
“You are. You’re trying to protect yourself by pulling away before something even starts.”
“I’m not. It’s just … I don’t want you to worry about me if nothing comes of it. I don’t need Lucas in order to be happy. I can be happy with him or without him … or with someone else.”
Her dark eyebrows went up. “Someone else? Who?”
Why was I blushing? “In general. I was just hypothetically speaking.”
“Oh.” She nodded, took a deep breath then said, “So … Cade.”
“No, definitely not Cade!” I said over the top of her next sentence, which I couldn’t hear because I was too dramatic in my protest. “What?”
She tilted her head. “I said, back to Thanksgiving.”
“Oh. Yeah, Thanksgiving. What about it?” My cheeks were still red and I was trying to avoid looking at her. I swung my feet back to the floor and stacked the magazines that were spread out on the coffee table.
“What did you and Cade even talk about?” Isabel asked me.
“I don’t know. The rabbit. My brother. His family.” Well, that last one wasn’t exactly true. I’d tried to talk to him about his family and he promptly shut down. But we had talked about his family in our letters, which reminded me of a question I had for Isabel. “When you and Cade were together … did he talk a lot about his parents?”
“His parents? Not really.” Isabel slipped her feet out of her flip-flops and tucked them under her on the couch. “They’re rich and travel a lot, but that’s all I really remember. Why?”
“Was his stepdad nice to you?”
“Stepdad? That’s his real dad, right? He calls him Dad. He owns Jennings Insurance? Cade’s last name is Jennings.”
“You’re right. But … ” Had Cade not told anyone that his parents were divorced? I guessed if his real dad never came around and he never had to go back and forth between parents, he never would have to explain anything if he didn’t want to. He had mentioned he was pretty private in one of his letters.
“You know, now that I think about it, you’re right,” Isabel said, tilting her head. “He did say once it was his stepdad, but it was like a side note. So his stepdad must’ve adopted him? That’s why he goes by his last name?”
“I’m not sure.”
“I don’t think he knew his real dad very well. They divorced long before he moved here.”
Not that long. “Yeah … maybe.”
“I still can’t get over that the two of you got along for three hours!” Isabel exclaimed, glancing over at me. “I mean, when I was with him, you guys couldn’t be in the room together for more than a couple minutes without flinging insults.”
“I know.” When she was with him. Isabel and Cade had been together. That had really happened. It wasn’t some ancient history. Cade really dated my best friend. “Don’t worry, we haven’t given up insulting each other. Pigs aren’t flying yet.”
Isabel glanced out the window. “Are you sure? I could’ve sworn I saw one in the sky on my way over.”
“Funny.”
Isabel smiled and flung her arms around my neck. “I’ve missed you.”
“I’ve missed you, too. Let me go make sure my brothers are ready for bed and we can watch a movie.”
We were halfway through the movie when something I’d said to Isabel caught up with me. The reason I’d landed in detention. Sasha had been in my seat when Cade came in to Chemistry. He’d seen her in my seat. This was before I’d realized he was the letter writer. That’s why he’d come in—not to pull a prank to get his friends out of class early—but to see who was sitting in that seat. He thought his pen pal was Sasha.
I laughed.
“What?” Isabel asked.
I couldn’t believe Cade thought Sasha wrote those letters. They sounded nothing like her. Then again, Cade’s letters didn’t sound much like him either. I sat up with a gasp. Was that why he’d finally asked her out? Because he thought she was the letter writer? That thought brought an unexpected feeling of anger. He was probably so happy the letter writer matched a beautiful, popular girl. It was all turning out perfect for the golden boy.
“What?” Isabel asked again.
“I just figured something out.” I explained to her about the seat exchange and the letters.
She stared at me in both awe and horror. “That’s awful.”
“Is it? Maybe it’s better he thinks it’s her.”
“But then won’t he get mad at Sasha when the letters stop appearing?”
I shrugged. “Maybe he’ll think she stopped writing because they’re together now. Maybe I’ll help him think that.”
She gasped. “You wouldn’t.”
“It won’t be hard. People easily accept things that they want to be true. And he wants it to be true. He wants his letter writer to be Sasha.”
Isabel’s expression fell, but she didn’t contradict me.
I sat in Chemistry on Monday, mulling over my plan. Even though I knew Cade wanted the letter writer to be Sasha, it actually would be hard to convince him it was. All he had to do was ask her some details. Did she have a younger sibling? Did she like the same music we did? He’d know soon enough. He should’ve known already, without me having to write anything at all. Unless …
Sasha had seen the desk with the writing on it the day she sat in my seat. Maybe she’d figured something out. If Cade had asked her about letters, maybe she’d played it off like she knew what he meant. Went along with it.
I reached under the desk. I thought I’d cured myself of this need after a week off, after knowing the writer was Cade. But my heart still raced when I felt the new note there.
Did you listen to the Pink Floyd library in one sitting? That’s a really awesome thing. I wished I’d thought of it. No, my thing had to do with writing my dad a letter. I know we’d talked about me writing my stepdad. But when I sat down to do it, I realized it was my dad I needed to talk to. He can ignore a phone call, but it would be harder to ignore a letter, right? Anyway, I wrote it and sent it over the break. Now I just get to wait. I’m used to waiting for responses now that we’ve been exchanging letters. It’s taught me a bit of patience. Not really. I’m dying over here. I need a distraction. I spent Thanksgiving with another family because I needed to get my mind off of my life (not to mention I told you how bad my Thanksgivings are). It was nice. It’d been a long time since I’d seen what a real family is like. And this family was the epitome of a real family. It was like one of those paintings. You know that guy who paints classic American scenes that look too good to be true? I think he even actually did a Thanksgiving dinner scene. This was that. It was the best Thanksgiving I’d had in a while. How was yours?
Mixed emotions competed inside me. So he’d had a good time at my house, and that made me melt a little. But his description of my family, the craziness that always had me on the brink of frustration, left me scoffing.
I wrote back:
Do you mean Norman Rockwell? I’m sure you didn’t spend Thanksgiving with the Norman Rockwell painting family. No family is perfect.
I almost wrote least of all mine, but hesitated. Was I giving it away that he spent Thanksgiving with me by refuting his depiction of it? No, he thought he was writing Sasha right now.
I’m glad it was a good distraction for you. I can understand why you’d need one. It’s hard enough to wait a day for a re
sponse to a letter, I can’t imagine how you’re feeling waiting this long. Your dad will write back. He has to. Is there something specific you’re hoping he’ll say? Or do? Or you just want an update on his life? I hope you didn’t try to write a song for him or you’ll never hear back. ;) No, but for real, your letters are very compelling. Almost impossible not to respond to.
At least that was the case with me. I’d never be able to stop responding to him no matter what I knew or who he thought I was. Because he had some letter-writing spell over me.
Not only did Cade’s letters insist on being responded to, they also filled my mind with lyrics. It was some cruel twist of fate that the only time I thought of good lyrics was after exchanging thoughts with Cade. Today wasn’t any different. Sitting in detention, I’d already written an entire verse.
You have me under your spell.
With all the secrets you tell.
I can’t make it stop.
Please don’t let it stop.
You have me under your spell.
If you knew me as well,
You would make it stop.
I can’t let it stop.
I was so wrapped up in my writing that I didn’t hear the teacher get up and leave the classroom until the door shut behind him. Had he said something about leaving? My eyes went to the clock on the wall. We still had thirty more minutes. I also didn’t hear Sasha, who was still serving a detention sentence as well, come up behind me. So when she yanked my notebook out from under my arm, I wasn’t expecting it.
“What are you writing?” she asked and began reading out loud the lyrics on the page.
My heart hammered in my chest and I wanted so badly to get up and rip my book out of her hands and possibly beat her over the head with it. But I knew that’s what she wanted. I knew she wanted me to get up and chase her around the room as she read from my notebook to the sound of the other laughing students, who right now were salivating for just that show as their eyes darted back and forth between the two of us. I had learned to speak bully over the years. It was the product of secondhand clothes and crazy hair that I didn’t know how to tame until freshman year. I knew their language well. So as panicked as my insides were, I stayed in my seat, trying to keep my facial expression neutral.
Sasha had made it to the far corner of the room in anticipation of me chasing her. From there she screamed the last two lines as she laughed. “You would make it stop! I can’t let it stop!”
I willed my face not to turn red. This was my worst fear. I couldn’t even let the people I loved read my lyrics.
Sasha’s senior friend, in the back still, laughed along with her. “What is that? A poem? A weird stalker poem?”
My mind was spinning rapidly, trying to remember what else was in that book. Had I actually used the name Cade in that last angry song I’d written after I found out he was the letter writer? I hadn’t, had I?
Oh no, I had.
All she had to do was flip two pages back. There were only two design sketches between the page she was on and that page. How long was Mr. Mendoza going to be out anyway? A bathroom break should be over soon.
With a smile still on Sasha’s face, she flipped back one page. My heart was going to stop. If I jumped up now and hurdled over two desks, I could possibly get to her in time. She was wearing heels, after all.
She held up my drawing of the shirt for everyone to see. “Now we know where Lily gets her awful fashion sense.”
She should’ve been bored with this game by now. I wasn’t reacting at all. And the others in the room weren’t responding positively either. My notebook should’ve been thrown on the floor or tossed back on my desk at this point.
“I’ve always wondered why your nose is glued to this book,” Sasha went on. “Now we know. Bad drawings and even worse poems.”
I understood why my no-reaction wasn’t going to work. This extended beyond just today. She’d been wondering about my book for a long time. She wasn’t only doing this to humiliate me. She was doing this to satisfy her curiosity. She was going to keep looking.
My stomach was in knots. Time for a new plan.
Sasha’s backpack sat on the floor by the desk she’d occupied moments ago. If her phone was in there, I was sure she’d make a trade.
She flipped back another page. Like she was reading a picture book to a classroom full of kindergartners, she held it up for all to see again. A sketch of a halfway finished skirt.
I stood. And just as I moved toward her bag, the classroom door swung open and Mr. Mendoza walked in.
“Ladies,” he said, “I’m sure there is a perfectly justifiable reason why you’re out of your seats. But I don’t care. One more day each.”
I could see on Sasha’s face that she wasn’t going to give me back my book. She was already walking to her seat, flipping another page.
“She stole my book,” I said, whipping around to the teacher.
“This is my book,” Sasha said before he responded. She was reading the lyrics now. Her eyes going back and forth along the page. She must’ve come to Cade’s name because she stopped suddenly, her eyes jerking to mine.
“Give Lily her book back,” Mr. Mendoza said sharply. “Now.”
She didn’t listen, but flipped back more. I saw her tilt her head, reading notes I sometimes wrote in the margins of the pages to help me with the lyrics. Was she reading the notes I’d written about Cade’s dad? His home life? My skin froze.
“Sasha,” Mr. Mendoza growled.
Sasha slammed the notebook shut and tossed it toward me. It landed with a smack on the floor next to me. I picked it up and opened it to one of the pages I was sure she had read. And even though there was a big X covering some of the words, most of them were still completely legible. My eyes went over the words. The words about exchanging letters. If only I hadn’t added the unnecessary rant to the end of the lyrics she wouldn’t know who the words were about. But I had and now she knew. And I had no idea what she’d do with that knowledge.
Punching someone on school grounds resulted in immediate suspension. I did not want to get suspended. This was what I told myself as I walked from detention toward the parking lot.
I’d been the first to leave the room and needed to make it home without looking at Sasha or I wouldn’t be able to control my actions. Making it to the parking lot didn’t help because neither my sister nor my mom were there waiting for me today.
I pulled out my phone and texted Ashley. Is someone getting me?
“Lily,” a voice from behind me said. It was Sasha.
I turned quickly to face her. Then I took a step back, but my hands curled into fists. Two very tight fists that were dying to swing. “What?”
“Does he know it’s you?”
My stomach gave a jolt.
So she had pieced everything together. Now I needed to figure out how to answer that question. If I said yes, she would confront Cade. If I said no … what? What would happen? Would she tell him? Keep playing it off like it was her … if that’s what she’d been doing?
I had to make a decision.
“No. He doesn’t.” There was no way I was going to tell her that he thought it was her, though.
Sasha smirked. “I didn’t think so. Lauren said you write and read letters in Chemistry almost every day. She didn’t know who you were exchanging them with.”
So Sasha hadn’t pieced together all the information from just my lyrics. Lauren had told her about my letter-writing habits as well.
“If Cade knew it was you, he’d die,” Sasha went on. “He hates you.”
“I know.” A lump was forming in my throat. I wasn’t sure why. She hadn’t said anything I didn’t already know. Why had my anger turned to this sadness? Why had I gone from wanting to pummel her, to wanting to crawl into bed and never come out?
“If you heard half the stuff he said about you, you wouldn’t have a thing for him,” she went on cruelly.
“I do not have a thing for him. I have a … b
oyfriend.” That last word came out kind of choked. Mostly because Lucas wasn’t my boyfriend. But I really needed to claim him as such in this moment.
“Those poems told a different story.”
“I don’t have a thing for him.”
“I won’t tell Cade it’s you but you have to stop writing him. We’re together now.”
“I know.”
A horn beeped twice and I looked over hoping to see my sister.
I saw Cade instead.
“There’s my ride,” Sasha said, her smile as smug as her tone.
She must’ve taken one second too long to run to his car because Cade hopped out and headed our way. This was turning from bad to worse.
“Hello, ladies,” he said.
“Let’s go,” Sasha said to him.
Cade pointed at me. “Great hair today, Lily.”
I willed myself not to reach up to tame it. I could tell he was being sarcastic with that stupid smile of his. Sasha laughed.
“Are you two detention buddies?” Cade asked.
“Not at all,” I assured him, trying to gather myself together. Thankfully, I no longer felt like crying. I was just mad.
“She’s another one of your enemies?” he asked me, still giving me a teasing smile.
“Don’t pretend like you don’t know that,” I snapped. “Your girlfriend was just reminding me why I don’t hang out with people like the two of you.”
Sasha laughed. “You don’t hang out with us because you’re not welcome, but nice try.”
Cade looked like he was going to say something but he hesitated as though waiting for my response. I didn’t give one. I was so done with them.
I turned on my heel and stormed away. I allowed myself one glance back at them and unfortunately saw that Sasha wrapped her arm around his waist. As they walked away, she threw me a wink over her shoulder as if we were now co-conspirators. As if we were anything.
Why hadn’t I just punched her?
My mom came in my room and set a small box in front of me. “Lily, I need you to do me a favor,” she said.