“No. He has no idea. And when the clock struck midnight—well, when he left—the truce was over. We are so not friends. He and his girlfriend did get me sentenced to two weeks of detention, after all. I have a grudge to uphold.”
“You never did explain to me exactly how that happened.”
“A substitute teacher and a case of mistaken identity.”
Isabel smiled. “That sounds like a mystery novel.”
“It should be. Anyway, it was dumb. Sasha stole my seat and proceeded to do awful things in my name.” I threw my legs over Isabel’s lap on the couch. “But it doesn’t matter. It’s over.”
“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?