All your letters, over all the years, immediately went into the garbage after I read them. Didn’t you see how pathetic you looked? Sending five letters for every one of mine? I’ll bet you deluded yourself, too. Did you fantasize I kept them? Maybe with a little red bow tied neatly around the stack as I jerk off to them, because I love your pretty words so much?
No. Because after I eventually fucked you, I’d get bored. That’s all it was about.
I draw in air through my nose, locking my jaw together as I press the pen into the paper. Guilt creeps in.
Ryen.
The liar. The poser. The superficial bitch who’s no different than all the others.
But then I drop my eyes, remembering...
Ryen.
The kid who slipped five bucks in a letter in fifth grade when I told her my dad took away my allowance.
The girl who makes me smile when she argues about how sausage overpowers the taste of pizza and sent me a Veggie Lovers Pie for my birthday to prove me wrong. She didn’t. Meat Lovers is way better.
The girl who gets all my movie references, knows when something’s wrong, tells me everything I need to hear, and stops the world from spinning around me.
Ryen. The beautiful, perfect girl who’s so different from all the others.
I run my hand over my forehead and through my hair, my throat tightening into a knot and my eyes burning.
Fuck. I put the pen to the paper and scrawl what my goddamn heart can only whisper.
I miss you every day, I write. You’re my favorite place.
And then I drop the pen and tear the paper out of my notebook. I dig a matchbook out of my jeans, the one I use for lighting my lamp in my room at the Cove, and strike a match, watching as the tip glows orange and yellow. I bring it up to the letter, setting the corner on fire. Quickly the edges burn black as the flame spreads across the paper, eating every single word as the blue lines slowly disappear.
I let out a sigh, pulling my lip ring in between my teeth. The girl I saw yesterday in the classroom—she disappointed me. My Ryen, the one I thought I knew, would never treat someone the way she treated that kid, Cortez. The way she just stood by and let that cocksucker mess with him. I waited for her. I sat there and waited for her to stand her ass up and speak up for him, to say something, to do anything, but…
Nothing.
Everything makes sense now. The cheerleader she talked about in her letters and everything she hated—she was talking about herself.
I drop the small fire in my hand to the cement floor and stand up, grinding my shoe into the dust, stamping it out.
I look at my watch and see it’s after seven. I’d stopped by my house after school, before my dad got home, to check my mail and pick up some things, and then I grabbed some food and came here. I remember Ryen saying in her letters that she teaches swim lessons Tuesday thru Thursday nights at the school’s pool. That’s where I’ll probably find her now.
I should’ve just given her the book back. She’d found Annie’s locket, and I don’t want to start any shit with her, especially when she’s not the reason I’m here, and I’m skipping town as soon as I get what I came for.
And she and I will never have to cross paths again.
But, I have to admit, fucking with her in class today was the first time I’ve smiled in a while. It’s hard to resist.
I walk out of the warehouse to my truck and climb in the cab, slamming the door.
But then I see the passenger side door swing open, and I jerk, startled.
Dane hops in the truck and shoots me an easy smile as he sits back, looking at ease. “Netflix and chill?”
I scoff and turn my keys in the ignition. “Get out.”
The engine rumbles to life with a smooth purr that I’ve worked hard to maintain. My cousin left me this truck when he was “indisposed” for three years, but now that he’s around, he hasn’t come to claim it, so I guess it’s mine. I was grateful when he passed the keys to me all those years ago. I hadn’t wanted to ask my dad for a car when the time came.
“So I had this date last night,” Dane goes on, ignoring my order. “Do you remember that girl from Sigma Kappa Whatever? She was at the gig last night, and everything was going great, both of us eye-fucking for like four frickin’ hours…” He pauses and turns to me, his voice turning urgent. “She takes me home, dude, and I’m sitting in the living room while she’s in the bathroom, and I’m so ready, because she’s so hot, right? And who walks in?”
“Dane.” I close my eyes, willing him to shut the fuck up.
“Her mom, dude!” he bursts out. “Her mom in her light pink nightie with legs for days. And let me tell you, man…Stacy’s mom has got it going on?”
I can’t help myself. I break out in a laugh at the song reference and pinch the bridge of my nose, tired but a fraction more relaxed, even if I’d never admit it to him.
Such an idiot.
Dane is twenty-one, but he never quite figured himself out after high school. He still lives in his parents’ house, loves to make music, but he’s in no hurry to be someone by a certain age. I wish I could let things go as easily as he does.
I let out a calm breath and look over at him, guilty that he’s still a good friend, and I’ve been a shitty one lately. “I’m sorry about the band.”
After Annie died I couldn’t see anything beyond that. I started skipping school, I left the band, I stopped trying to have a relationship with my dad…
He was destroyed, losing Annie, and I went through the motions for a couple months, sticking around, but we couldn’t mourn together, and I couldn’t stay to watch. He was sad. I was angry. Losing her only broke whatever small link we had to each other.