by Kasie West
“Iz.” I could tell what she was doing and I didn’t want her to feel like she had to do this.
“Hear me out.” She picked up the letters and placed them gently into my hands. “I want this for you.”
I smiled. “I love you for that, but he doesn’t want me, he wants her. The girl from in here.” I held up the letters. “Or at least he used to. He stopped writing and I have no idea why. Maybe because he thought she was Sasha. I don’t know.”
“Then tell him you’re her!”
“I’m scared.”
“If you don’t try, you’ll always wonder.”
“Isabel … ”
“Please, Lil.” She looked me in the eye. “I’ve been selfish. I never had him. Never all the way. I tried to blame that on you, but it wasn’t you. It was us. Me and Cade. We weren’t right for each other. But you two … ” She placed her hands on the outside of mine, which were still holding the letters. “You two would … What was that he said in one of the letters? Balance each other perfectly? Something like that? Anyway, I agree with him. You would. You do. Lily, give this a chance.”
Her plea was so sincere, so heartfelt, that all I could do was say, “I’ll think about it.” And “Thank you.”
When I went into my room later that night, something was on my pillow. The first thought I had was that Jonah had been in my room again messing with my stuff. But that wasn’t it. On my pillow sat the newspaper clipping for the song-writing contest, flattened as best as possible.
“Don’t give up,” Ashley said from behind me. “I’m sorry I’ve been so hard on you.”
I turned to see my sister in the doorway, my brothers’ heads peeking out from behind her.
“Did you guys do this?” I asked.
“You’re good, Lil,” Ashley said. “You can do it. You just need to believe in yourself.”
I picked up the newspaper clipping to reread the contest entry deadline and a glint of silver caught my eye. Beneath the clipping, there in the middle of my pillow, was money. A stack of bills and some change.
“I know it won’t cover the whole cost of a new guitar,” Ashely said, “but it’s a start.”
“I put the quarters in,” Jonah said proudly.
I couldn’t speak. A hot trail of tears spilled out of my eyes. My siblings came in the room and wrapped me in a group hug.
“I love you guys,” I said through a sob. “Thank you.”
“We’ve missed music around here,” Ashley said.
“You guys are the best.”
“We know,” Wyatt said.
“What’s that smell?” Ashley asked.
Jonah giggled.
“Ew!” Ashley broke free of the hug, dispersing us all, and chased Jonah out of my room to loud shrieks. I had the best family in the universe.
I awoke the next morning immediately feeling a sense of panic. My heart raced, my lungs burned, my eyes stung. I was terrified just thinking about telling Cade I was the letter writer. I still wasn’t sure why he’d stopped writing me, but it didn’t seem like a good sign that right now both the letter-writing version of me and the real version of me weren’t necessarily on his good side.
I wouldn’t tell him.
No, I would tell him. At least if I told him it would be over and I could move on with my life.
I rolled onto my side. The pile of money my siblings had given me the night before—almost a hundred dollars worth—sat on my nightstand and gave me a boost of strength. I could do this.
If hair cooperation was any indication of how this day would go, I was in trouble. My hair refused to be tamed. When I showed up to school, my waves were a wild mess.
I searched for Isabel with an extra sense of urgency to see if she’d changed her mind, if she felt weird about me and Cade potentially being together. I was trying to find a good excuse not to do this. I’d been trying to find an excuse not to admit that I liked Cade for a long time now.
But when I found Isabel, her smile was even more radiant than the night before. “You look like you’re going to puke,” she said, abandoning our normal greeting.
“I feel like I’m going to puke. And by the way, that’s the last thing I thought before I went to bed last night, too.”
She laughed. “So I take it you made a decision.”
“Yes.”
She didn’t have to ask me what that decision was. She knew. “Just relax. I read those letters, Lil. I’ve never heard him talk like that to anyone. You’ll be fine.”
I’d be fine. I’d be fine.
At first I thought I’d just march up to him and tell him who I was, but that wasn’t me, that wasn’t us … not that there was an us.
Sometime in the middle of fourth period I knew that the way to tell him was in a letter, tucked carefully beneath the Chemistry desk. Then he’d have time to process it, to think about it. He wouldn’t have to give an immediate reaction. Maybe it was another way of protecting myself, but it felt right.
I wasn’t going to risk Sasha seeing me write that letter though, so I pulled out my clean white sheet right there in the office where I was supposed to be sorting mail into teachers’ boxes. And I began writing the letter. I started it how I had never started one of these letters before. With his name.
Cade,
Hi. As you can see, I know who you are. A couple weeks ago, I was delivering some packets to Mr. Ortega and saw you writing to me. I was shocked, and to be honest, horrified. If you knew who I was, you’d understand why. We don’t get along very well. Mostly because I hold grudges. Even if they’re based off of misunderstandings, apparently. (I didn’t know this about myself until recently.) I guess I want to start by saying, I’m sorry for that. I’ve come to know you through the letters first, which have always brought me so much joy that I should’ve known that the person writing them was someone who would both challenge me and understand me. And then I came to know you outside of the letters, and you surprised me. In so many good ways. I’m not sure why you stopped taking my letters or writing me back, and I hope you take this one or else I’ll be forced to be brave and say this all to your face. Don’t make me do that. But I hope whatever the reason you stopped writing me is that it’s just another one of our misunderstandings. (There’s a song in there somewhere. Do you want to try your hand at writing it?) So now is the part where I tell you who I am so that you can be horrified.
Lily Abbott
I folded up the letter, not even wanting to reread it because that would ensure I wouldn’t give it to him. I tucked it in my pocket and tried to forget about it until Chemistry.
In Chemistry, I couldn’t free myself of the letter fast enough. I waited for a moment when neither Lauren nor Sasha were paying attention to me, and slipped it in place. As I pulled my hand back, I felt the edges of a new piece of paper. I sucked in a tiny breath and freed it. A letter. After a week, he’d written me a letter.
As I tried to carefully unfold it, I ripped a corner. I forced my hands to be still and finished, flattening the paper onto my desk.
I’m sorry I haven’t been writing you. Here’s the thing. I really enjoy writing you and you’re great and funny and smart, but then I started liking this girl, a girl who challenges me like no one before her has, and writing you felt a little like cheating on her. Even though she and I are not together. And you and I are not together. But still. This began feeling untrue to myself, and to her. I should’ve told you last week instead of just dropping off like that. She’s not quite convinced I’m a good guy yet, but I hope she will be soon. Wish me luck.
The blood slowly drained from my face. This letter could mean one of two things. One, it meant that Cade liked me. Me. The real-life version of me. We had been spending some time together, right?
But then there was the other possibility—that he’d fallen for someone else entirely. After all, these letters were me. And if he fell for the real me, shouldn’t he have also fallen for the letter-writing me?
I was torn. Did I take my letter back
and wait a few more days, see if I saw him around with another girl? Or did I leave my letter there and hope for the best either way?
I left it, much to my racing heart’s objections, because if he did like some other girl, this was my best chance to win him over.
After school, I showed Isabel the latest letter and she squealed.
“So you think this is a good thing?” I asked.
“He likes you. Go talk to him.”
My head whipped around, her statement making me think he was somewhere in the vicinity. He wasn’t, and I breathed a sigh of relief.
“He’s probably at baseball practice,” Isabel said. “I think they started pre-season training today. Go find him there. Wait for him.”
“I left him a letter. He’ll read it tomorrow. Until then I’m going to eat an entire bucket of Rolos and slip into a food coma.”
“Do Rolos cause food comas? All that sugar would produce the opposite effect, don’t you think?” she asked as though I was seriously going to eat an entire bucket of Rolos.
“After the high there would surely be a crash.”
“But that would take too long.”
“You’re right. Thank goodness you’ve talked some sense into me.”
“Another reason you keep me around.”
“One of a million.”
She squeezed my hand. “Tomorrow. Big things will happen tomorrow.”
I saw Cade in the parking lot the next morning. He was walking and talking with a guy friend, his smile bright enough to stop traffic, or hearts, mine being the proof of that. How was I going to continue to see him if the day ended badly?
“There’s Cade.” Ashley waved but he didn’t see her so she started to roll down her window.
I grabbed her shoulder. “Please don’t.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Can we just wait to talk to him?”
“Wait until when?” Then her eyes went wide. “Oh! Do you like Wyatt’s coach? Are you in the ‘being mysterious’ phase?”
I groaned, thinking about that letter waiting to be read under the desk. “I am in the very opposite of the mysterious phase.”
“Then you’re not doing it right.”
“I know. I’m sure I’m failing miserably. I’ve broken every rule.” I got out of the car now that Cade was well past us. “See you after school.”
Chemistry. The desk waited in front of me like a headstone in a zombie movie. I was stuck at the door, staring at it, not sure if in my zombie metaphor that I’d be the girl to charge forward with a pickax. I’d probably be the one running the other way.
“You going to walk or block the doorway?” Sasha said from behind me, forcing her way around me, her shoulder slamming into mine. I tripped forward but didn’t fall. It gave me the momentum I needed to keep walking.
I sat down, counted to three, and went for the letter. My hand only found a fresh piece of gum. So it had been option number two. He liked some other lucky girl. And now he knew it was me. At least I’d told him in a letter, where I didn’t have to watch him be horrified. My hopes fell to my feet, crushed more than I thought they’d be.
Why had I thought a mainstream popular guy like Cade would fall for an off-the-beaten-path girl like me, anyway?
My eyes went blurry and I forced them clear again with a few hard blinks. For the first time in a while, I made myself take decent notes, even though Mr. Ortega had long ago stopped requesting them at the end of class.
When the bell mercifully sounded, putting me out of my misery, Mr. Ortega called my name. “Wait for a moment please.”
Sasha gave me a satisfied look so I wondered if she had somehow gotten me in trouble again. As soon as everyone had left, Mr. Ortega held up a folded note. “Is this what you were looking for earlier?” he asked.
My heart started beating hard. He was holding hope in his hand and I wanted to charge him for it. I nodded.
“You and Cade think I’m blind?”
My shoulders tensed. Did that mean he stole my note yesterday as well? The one I’d written to Cade telling him who I was?
“No.”
“I’m glad to hear that because your actions would say otherwise.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No more letter writing in class.”
“I didn’t write my last one in class,” I said even though I knew it didn’t matter.
“Beside the point.”
“Can I have it now?” I asked, nodding toward the letter he held up like a prize I couldn’t win.
“I am going to hang on to this. When you bring up your Chemistry grade, I will turn it over. Until then … ” He opened his desk drawer and dropped it in. “It’s mine.”
It took all my will power not to drop to my knees and beg Mr. Ortega to have mercy on my poor overworked nerves. I grabbed my backpack and headed for the door. The halls were empty, everyone already at lunch. If Cade had written me a positive response upon finding out my identity, wouldn’t he be standing in the hall right now with his amazing smile telling me he wanted to get married and have indie rock babies with me? Unless he hadn’t gotten my letter at all and still didn’t know who I was.
I replayed the final words Mr. Ortega said over and over. I pictured the note falling into the open desk drawer. I needed that letter. I was going to get that letter. It would tell me if Cade had gotten mine. It would tell me if I needed to avoid him forever or not.
I sent my sister a text during final period telling her I was getting a ride home with Isabel. Then I sent Isabel one too, hoping she’d agree to that ride. And I added:
Want to help me steal some keys from the front office after school so I can rescue the letter??
I’d told her what had happened during lunch. She was just as horrified as I was. Her solution was for me to just tell Cade face-to-face. My solution was one that might save me a lifetime of humiliation depending on what the letter said.
Now, she texted back: Of course I do. I’ll distract, you retrieve.
And that’s where I was now. Retrieving.
I could hear Isabel’s voice at the front desk talking to Mrs. Clark. I had snuck in the back door of the main office and was heading for the long desk. Isabel had a tough job. She not only had to distract Mrs. Clark while I stole the keys, but the whole time I was gone too so that I could put them back without her discovering they were missing. I’d promised Isabel I’d be as fast as possible. I’d also promised her an ice cream sundae, but that wasn’t helpful to think about now.
Mr. Ortega didn’t have a seventh-period class so I knew he’d be long gone. I only hoped he hadn’t locked his desk like he did the door.
The keys were easy to get; I’d used them before because I was trustworthy and responsible. I was pretty sure I would single-handedly destroy that reputation with Mrs. Clark if she saw me now.
I tucked the keys into my pocket so they wouldn’t jingle and rushed back outside. Once out, I picked up my pace to a run. I was not a runner. I did not like to run. But I ran like I meant it.
Maybe I should’ve joined the cross-country team after all because I wasn’t half bad at this. For about one stretch of sidewalk. By the time I made it to the Science building, I had cursed not only the entire cross-country team, but the sport as a whole. I had a cramp that was sending a painful jolt up my side and I could barely breathe.
In front of the door to Chemistry, I bent over at the waist to gulp some air. Then I remembered Isabel talking to Mrs. Clark and I straightened up and began the process of elimination to find the key.
I had tried five on the ring of what felt like five hundred when the door at the end of the hall slammed shut. I shoved another key in and as luck would have it, the lock turned and I slipped into safety.
The room was dark, the blinds drawn, and it took a moment for my eyes to adjust. I crept forward, my hands out in front of me. I had made it to the back row of desks when the door swung open and I turned around with a gasp, frantically thinking of a way to explain
myself to Mr. Ortega.
But it wasn’t Mr. Ortega. It was Cade, his dazzling smile lighting up the room. The door shut behind him with a click.
“Have I started you down a pathway of crime?” he asked.
I tried to catch my breath again. “Are you trying to take credit for this?”
“I called your name outside but you were running like someone was chasing you.”
“I’m practicing for cross-country.”
“You are?”
“No, I’m not. Running is the worst. Why do people do that on purpose?”
He smiled. “Those aren’t exactly the right shoes for it.”
I looked down at my purple Docs. He was right; they were too heavy for running.
He glanced around the room. “So what are you doing?”
“Don’t you have baseball practice?” I wiped at a bead of sweat on my temple.
“I was heading there when I saw you.”
“Do you have to run at baseball practice?”
“Sometimes.”
“I’m sorry.”
Cade smiled. “I know I’m not the most observant person in the world, but I get the feeling you don’t want to answer my question.”
I laughed. “What gives you that idea?”
“Oh I don’t know … ”
Isabel was going to kill me if I didn’t get rid of him soon and get on with the task.
“Did you change your mind?” he asked.
“Change my mind? About what?”
“You answered and now you’re trying to take back whatever you said?”
My eyes, which had been avoiding his very well up until this point, now latched on to them. He knew I was the letter writer. So he had gotten my letter after all. He was at the advantage now because he knew I liked him and I had no idea how he felt. It’s possible he wrote me an amazing letter about how he thought we would be great friends.
“No,” I said.