True Letters from a Fictional Life (15 page)

My parents couldn't drive to
my game that Sunday, which sunk my plans for coming out to them on the ride home. I told myself that I really would've done it, but the plan was destroyed, and now I would just have to wait for a better opportunity.

We beat Miracle Tire, 9–6, and Hawken scored a hat trick. Coach yelled at me for falling out of position a lot, but the guy playing right wing was dogging it. He would not get into the corners fast enough, so I'd get in there first and shout for Hawken to cover the center. That's why he got a hat trick, to be honest, because I kept winning the ball and feeding him crosses.

The only problem with playing someone else's position well is that, eventually, you get reassigned to it. I try to avoid playing goalie for that reason. I'm actually terrible at goalie—I don't like getting the ball kicked at my face—but my fear is that I'll have a strangely brilliant day in net during practice and find myself wearing gloves and long sleeves at the next game. I've seen our goalie dive headfirst into the post. It's just not for me.

As I was setting up Hawken's third goal, someone began slapping the glass and hollering at me. I glanced up to see the goalie I'd pushed down a few weeks earlier. He was standing with a pack of guys from his team, watching us play. Their game must've been right after ours. Turning away, I just ignored them. I'd get my chance to destroy them soon enough.

I spent all Monday, Memorial Day, working on my history paper. After school on Tuesday, Theresa arrived at my house just as I was about to go for a run. She caught me doing hurdlers' stretches on the front lawn, gritting my teeth through counts of twenty.

“Those are bad for you,” she called as she got out of the car.

“Everything's bad for you,” I called back. “I read that kale is bad for you.”

She dropped onto the grass next to me. “We have to talk,” she said. “Is here okay?” No one else was home.

“Sure,” I said hesitantly. “Here's okay.”

She gave me a pitying smile, reached into her jacket pocket, and pulled out a folded-up piece of notebook paper. A letter. Somewhere, deep inside my head, I could hear someone or something cry out, long and high and desperate, like a dying dog. This was misery. This wasn't how my life was meant to go. But I stayed quiet, kept my face straight.

“It came in the mail today,” she said. “It's actually really sweet in some ways. So, thank you, I guess.”

“Can I see it?”

She handed it to me.

“And the envelope?”

She looked confused. “I don't have the envelope. I threw it out.”

“Was it handwritten? I want to see the handwriting. And the postmark.”

She shook her head. “It was typed,” she almost whispered. “And I didn't look at the postmark.”

“Hawken's was typed, too.” I unfolded the letter and skimmed my sentences. The words looked different in the light of the day. They sounded so stupid.
I'd miss the way you fix my collar even when it doesn't need to be fixed. . . .
Oh, man.
That perfume you wear. The way people brighten when they see us together.

I crumpled the paper into a tight ball.

“James!”

And then I unfolded it enough to rip it into pieces.

“That's mine!” Instantly, she was crying.

“No, it's not yours!” I snapped. “It's mine. You got it in the mail, but that doesn't make it yours. Someone steals my stuff and mails it to you, doesn't make it yours.”

“You wrote it to me!” she sobbed.

“But I didn't send it! You were never supposed to read it!”

She was crying really hard, her hands over her face. The earrings I'd given her for her birthday the year before dangled from her ears. Kim had picked them out. Theresa said she'd wear them on special occasions. I wasn't sure this qualified. I ran my hand through my hair and sighed. If I let her go away this upset, who knew who she'd talk to, what she'd say. “Theresa,” I said softly. “Hey, I'm sorry. This is just really hard. I'm in a terrible spot.”

She snorted. “Oh, yeah.
You're
in a terrible spot. It's all about
you
. As usual.”

What I wanted to say at that point was that if she honestly believed that her bad spot was anywhere near as bad as mine, just because she liked someone who didn't like her back, she was out of her mind. But I had to calm her down. I had to calm us both down. “OK, right. We're
both
in a terrible spot. I'm really sorry. I've been trying to figure everything out.”

“You
had
figured it all out,” she choked. “You wrote it all down.”

“That was then. For that little while that night. You wake up the next morning and all the confusion's back again. It's
not like you figure this kind of thing out, and it stays figured out. It's not like a math problem.”

“You wrote it
down
.”

“Yeah, but the problem doesn't stay solved. Even when you write it down.”

She didn't say anything.

“Why would he do this?” I asked.

“Who?” she snuffled.

“Derek. Why would he mail my letters?”

“Why are you blaming Derek? What makes you so certain it's him?”

“It's either him or Mark. They were the only ones up in my room that night other than Topher. And this isn't the kind of thing Mark would do. He'd photocopy them and post them around school or hand them out at lunch. This is too, I don't know,
patient
to be his work. It's too cruel.”

“You really have a lot of respect for your friends, huh?” She got up and walked back to her car.

“When they do this kind of thing?” I called after her.

She was getting good at slamming doors, and somehow she even managed to start the car so that it sounded angry.

Five minutes after Theresa left, my phone rang. I was still sitting on the lawn, staring at the sky, and I didn't recognize the number. Normally I don't get calls from numbers I don't know, so I answered prepared to say,
You dialed the wrong number, dude.

“Hi, it's Aaron.”

It took me a few seconds to connect the Aaron at my school with the idea that he'd call me.

“Hey,” I said hesitantly. “What's, uh, what's going on?”

“James, oh my God—I don't even know where to start. Just, well, thank you so much!”

I stood up.

“Hello? Are you still there?”

“Yup,” I said. If I walked too far, I risked losing reception, so I paced in a circle. “Um, you're welcome.” I hoped that hadn't sounded like a question.

“Everything you wrote was just so nice. So honest. It's really the nicest letter I've ever received. I mean, of the three I have ever gotten, it's the nicest.” He cracked up. “And I never would've guessed it about you.”

I sat back down. This was way out of hand. Who else had gotten a letter? Who else was reading stuff right now they were never meant to read? “Listen, please don't—” I started, and then I caught myself. “I mean, I'm glad it was okay you got that letter—”

“It was more than okay! And listen, I'm so sorry I didn't thank you earlier but I literally just got it. We don't get our mail delivered way out here, you know? My mom only goes to the post office to pick it up, like, once a week because usually it's just catalogs and junk mail and stuff, you know? But I saw you mailed it last Saturday.”

Last Saturday. The same day Hawken's letter was sent out.
The day I discovered the letters were missing.

“So, I'm really sorry I didn't say anything earlier,” Aaron continued. “You must've been wondering.”

“No, it's cool,” I said, stalling while I thought about what this all meant. “I'm, um, just glad you got it. That's great. But listen, I can't remember if I wrote this, but I'd really like to keep all of this on the down low, you know? Like, don't tell anyone. Not anyone. Not a single person.”

There was silence on the other end.

“The thing is,” I went on, “I'm dealing with a lot of other stuff right now, all of a sudden, sort of unexpectedly, and I'd rather handle one thing at a time. If you don't mind just keeping everything I wrote between the two of us, I'd really—”

“Oh, okay. Of course. I won't say anything to anyone, James. None of your story is mine to tell anyway.”

“Thanks.” I sighed. I almost felt like smiling. “Thank you. I hope I didn't write anything that made you feel bad. Or angry.”

“No! Not at all. It was very sweet. You're so sweet. The part about you feeling threatened by me made so much sense. I get it.”

I remembered this letter. I'd written it late at night, from deep in my head.

“How long have you
known
?” he asked.

“A while,” I mumbled.

“Listen, I thought maybe we could—if you're not too busy in the next few days and have the time and all—maybe
hang out? For a little while? Tonight, even? There's a lot I want to ask you about, talk to you about.”

“Yeah, sure. Sure. Soon, okay? Tonight I have a bunch of things going on.” He interrupted with a string of apologies, and my mom's car pulled up the driveway. “It's okay, but listen, real quick: Would you mind if I swing by and take another look at that letter? I just want to . . . I forget how I worded something, and I want to say the same kind of thing to someone else . . .”

“Of course! The thing is, though, I have to go out in five minutes.”

“Can you just leave it for me? Like, do you have a doormat or something you can tuck it under?”

“Yeah, I guess I can put it under the mat. If you think it'll be safe there.”

“I'll be right over.”

I found my mom in the kitchen. “Can I borrow the car?”

“Hi, how was your day?”

“Hi, how was your day can I borrow the car? I have to grab a book for school from Derek. I totally forgot about this project, and Derek just texted to remind me.”

I passed Aaron driving in the opposite direction. He honked and waved. My letter was waiting for me under the mat. His name and address were in anonymous type on the envelope, just like Hawken's, but scrawled across the back was
Thank you! XXOO.
In purple gel pen.

When I arrived home, my mom met me at the garage
door in her coat. “I have an evening meeting, your father's working late, and Rex is at a friend's house. I'll see you around nine!” And she was gone. I read the letter up in my room, just as it was getting dark.

April 18th

Dear Aaron,

I'm sorry I invited you to that party. Being a nice guy has all sorts of unintended consequences. Ha ha. But for real, I really am sorry for everything. I wish life at school were easier for you, man. If people knew me better, I'd probably have a much tougher time, too. I know I used to be one of the guys who made things hard for you, and I don't have any good excuses for myself. I think I've been scared of you. It sounds stupid, I know, but it's true. I guess I knew you were gay and, somewhere, at some level, I knew I wasn't straight either, even a couple of years ago, back when we were freshmen. But I didn't want to deal with it, and just being around you made me have to think about it. So, that's why I was such a jerk. You had already figured yourself out, and being around you sort of reminded me that I hadn't yet, and I didn't even really want to. You were this reminder that I was hiding. You made it harder to avoid it all.

No one knows you're actually the toughest kid at school. Maybe some time I'll be able to say all this in person.

Later,

James

Why was I so stupid? Why hadn't I burned each letter after writing it instead of accumulating a nightmare in my desk drawer? Why hadn't I seen any of this coming? I fell asleep clutching Aaron's letter.

My phone buzzed me awake. A text. I reached for it, imagining the possibilities:

Derek:
Thanks for your letter. Keep in touch.

Mark:
Got ur lettr. U r ded met.

Luke:
Thanks for your letter . . . ha ha?

Topher:
We're done.

I pulled my hand away from the phone as it buzzed again. Burying my head under my pillow, I ignored it. Again. Three times. Six. Eight. I stopped counting. All these people opening letters I'd never sent, texting me to say,
Wow, what a surprise
, and not bothering to mention that things would never be the same between us again.

I slept until what felt like the middle of the night. With one hand I felt around my bed for my phone, found it, and squinted at the clock. It was only 9:15 p.m. And I had sixteen messages. Reluctantly, I clicked open the first one, saw the words and all the exclamation points and bolted off my bed, raced down the stairs out onto the back porch, and looked up into the sky.

Just stars. I pulled my hands into the sleeves of my wool sweater.

“Are they out again?” my mom asked, stepping out onto the porch.

“I slept through them,” I said. “I missed them all.”

“Oh, James. I'm sorry. It really was spectacular.”

I didn't answer. Spring peepers, those tiny frogs, were going bonkers in the woods.

“There's some dinner for you,” my mom said softly.

“Thanks.” I didn't take my eyes off the sky.

Sixteen messages and I'd ignored them all. Sixteen attempts to get me to wake up and run outside and I had my head under a pillow. The next day, the
Valley News
called it a once in a lifetime display of the northern lights. Once in a lifetime.

First thing the next morning, I got a text from Aaron.
Hi James! Would you bring my letter back today? Thank you!
Going into my room, I put the letter in my top desk drawer and then locked it tight with the pirate key. I'd give him the letter back . . . eventually. Not yet.