Don’t apologize. You’ve made me laugh plenty. You’re not my free entertainment or anything. You can whine as much as you want. You get at least a hundred free passes. And of course that’s not too much to ask of your father. He’s your father. If your dad does decide to get on a plane and fly out here, can I punch him? I really want to. That might not be good for your relationship with him, so maybe I can resist. I don’t know what to say except I’m so sorry.
I was dying to read Cade’s letter the next day, hoping it would be a happier one. I’d thought about him a lot the night before, wondering if I needed to think of another excuse to go visit him, check on him. I had talked myself out of it, remembering how poorly my last visit to his house had gone. I didn’t want to make him feel worse.
So when I slid into my seat in Chemistry, I let my hand immediately go to the bottom of the desk.
I found nothing there.
One strategic pencil drop later produced the same result. There was no letter today. My first thought was that Sasha had taken it. But she wasn’t here yet. Lauren was looking through her review packet from the day before, and Mr. Ortega, the only other suspect, was writing on the whiteboard.
Cade must’ve stayed home from school. I considered several horrible reasons for his absence, but I forced myself to settle on the idea that he was probably just sick. There was nothing to worry about. People stayed home sick all the time.
I wrote him a get-well-soon note, which included a turtle soup bowl. Tomorrow, everything would be back to normal.
Only everything wasn’t back to normal the next day. There was still no note—only my old letter from the day before. I was tempted to ask Sasha where Cade was, but thought better of it.
I left yet another note, telling him he was really ruining Chemistry for me by being selfishly sick and I hoped that was really all it was.
“Remember the final is tomorrow,” Mr. Ortega said, just as I slipped my latest note under the desk. “Make sure you study your review packet and be ready.”
Was Cade going to miss the final? Did he remember it was the final?
Sasha would tell him. He wasn’t my responsibility.
After school, while Isabel and I were talking about plans for the coming weekend, I saw Cade throw his backpack in his locker and pull out a duffel bag. My heart jumped.
“He was here today?” I asked out loud.
Isabel turned to see what I saw.
“Who?” Isabel asked.
“Cade. He wasn’t in Chemistry.”
“He was in Chemistry.”
Her statement hit me like a punch to the gut. He was in Chemistry, just apparently not writing me back. Had he figured out that his pen pal wasn’t Sasha? That it was actually me?
I grabbed Isabel’s elbow and hustled her out of school before Cade could see me.
The noises coming from the back patio weren’t unusual, but the voices accompanying those noises were. My mom and dad were out there together pounding something with a nail and hammer.
I opened the back door and saw that half of a large cage was assembled. Not just any cage, but a two story one, complete with ramps and ledges and all sorts of things a rabbit would enjoy. The kind of cage I knew my dad had specially designed, and had taken a long time designing.
Dad stood proudly by the cage. I raised my eyebrows at him.
“Really?” I said. “You’ve been possessed with bunny love now, too?”
My mom laughed, put down the hammer, and patted his shoulder. “He’s just a really good dad.”
“Apparently our family has room for all who wish to reside here,” Dad said, studying the papers he held.
“And you asked the rabbit if he actually wanted to reside here?” I smiled.
“Who wouldn’t?” His tone was teasing, but I knew my dad really believed that there was no one in the world who wouldn’t want to be part of our family.
I laughed and looked at the rabbit, who seemed to be watching the progress in anticipation from his old small cage. I wasn’t sure that little creature would ever win me over.
I waved to my parents, went back inside, and took an apple off the counter as I headed for my room. The house was quiet today. A heaviness rested on my chest and I had no idea why. Well, maybe I knew why but I was trying to convince myself that it didn’t matter. That he didn’t matter.
I pulled out my phone and scrolled until I found Lucas’s phone number. I hadn’t seen him at school since we’d been back from Thanksgiving break. I hadn’t really been looking either.
Hey! Did you find out the name of that guitar repair girl for me? I wrote.
His response came within a few minutes.
Yes. She works at guitar center. I can meet you there tomorrow after school if you want.
I have detention. How about 4:30?
See you then.
I would see Lucas tomorrow. That would help. It had to.
I took the bottom half of my guitar out of its case. If I held the strings right below the broken section, I could pluck out a bit of a melody. It was horribly out of tune and not even close to sounding right, but it lightened my mood a little.
“I’ve woken up to find / that I’ve been Left Behind.” I sang the words quietly, doing a really good job of feeling sorry for myself.
Ashley came in the room at that moment. “What are you doing?”
“Just practicing a song.”
She looked at my guitar—my corpse of a guitar. “This is the most pathetic scene I’ve ever witnessed in my life.”
“Thanks.”
“You need a sister intervention.”
“I don’t. I need alone time. I just want to be alone for a while.”
“In this house?” She laughed and pulled me up by my arms.
“A shack in the woods. A hut on a mountaintop. A submarine ten thousand leagues under the sea.”
“All things you’ll never have?” Ashley said. “Come on. Let’s go out for pizza. I’ll tell Mom and Dad.”
Getting pizza with Ashley did help. I didn’t confide in her about Cade and the letters, but it was nice to get out of my head for a while.
The next day, I no longer cared that there wasn’t a new letter under the desk, even though I had seen Cade again in the parking lot that morning. It’s for the best, I told myself. He was doing me a favor by cutting off the letters cold turkey.
Maybe Sasha had told him that I was writing the letters, and he’d freaked out. It was me, after all, with the awkwardness and the crazy family and the weird clothes. Letters were one thing, but his reputation might not survive more than the occasional parking lot conversation with Lily Abbott.
I collected my two letters that were still in place. Mr. Ortega was passing out the final and I tried to forget about letters and everything else and concentrate on the test.
The letter exchanges were really and truly over. The end.
I stood at the counter in the music store waiting to hear the verdict on my guitar’s fate. I had gone home after detention, collected its carcass, and met Lucas at the store. Now he stood in another section checking out guitar straps while I was watching the worker in front of me carefully examine the break.
“Wow. What happened to it?” she asked. She was pretty, with tattoos on her arms and black-framed glasses.