I Secretly Read Every Love Letter He Wrote Me, Then He Stopped Writing Them novel · Chapter 2 of 32

Chapter 2: Not in Front of Anyone

Clara tries to hand Miles her reply and loses her nerve, and her father is waiting in her cafe booth.

Clara found Miles the next morning on the library steps, with two of his friends and a tray of coffees.

She had slept four hours and rehearsed one sentence all the way across the quad.

The sentence was: I lied.

The notebook page was in her fist, folded in half, damp at the edges.

Miles saw her coming. He stopped laughing at something his friend said.

His friends saw him stop, and then they saw her, and they went quiet too.

"Clara," Miles said.

His voice was flat and polite.

"Hi." Her voice came out thin. "Can I talk to you for a second?"

One of the friends picked up the coffee tray very fast. "We'll be inside."

They went in. The glass door swung closed behind them.

Two sophomores on the bench pretended to read.

A cyclist rolled past. Three girls at the bottom of the steps looked up, saw who it was, and looked at each other.

Everybody on campus knew the story of Clara Mercer and the letters.

Clara's mouth had gone dry.

"I wanted to say," she began.

Miles waited. His hands were in his jacket pockets.

He did not help her. He did not smile, and he did not look away.

"I wanted to say that I read," she said, and stopped.

"You read?"

"The syllabus. For the seminar. The paper is due Friday."

She heard herself say it.

Miles's face did not change. "It's the same paper. We've both been working on it for three weeks."

"Right," Clara said. "Right. I know."

The page was crushing itself in her fist.

Miles took a slow breath.

"Clara, you don't have to talk to me. It's okay. I'm not going to make it weird." He nodded once, politely. "We're fine. We're totally fine."

He turned and went inside.

She stood on the steps with her heart going hard against her ribs.

Nobody on the bench looked up.

Clara walked behind the library and sat on the loading dock steps, and read the notebook page one more time.

It said, at the top, in the handwriting of a nineteen-year-old: Dear Miles. I'm sorry I was so rude to you in class. You didn't deserve it.

Under that, in a different pen, a year later: I laughed at the pigeon. I laughed out loud in the library and the guard shushed me.

Under that, a line from the next winter: I think you notice everything.

Under that, from this spring: I should have taken it from your hand.

She folded it up and put it back in the inner pocket.

At noon, Beth found her in the cafe, tying on her apron.

"Okay," Beth said. "I heard about the steps."

"From who?"

"From everybody. Clara, what were you doing? You walked up to him!"

"I was going to tell him something."

"Tell him what?"

Clara counted twelve coffee cups on the shelf above the espresso machine.

"That I don't hate him."

Beth set her bag on the counter very carefully. "Oh."

"I know."

"Okay." Beth pressed her lips together. "Okay. That's allowed, but you can't do it in front of his friends. You'd die. Do it alone, somewhere quiet, and say it in one sentence."

"I tried one sentence."

"Try a shorter one."

"He's leaving, Beth."

"I know." Beth did not look surprised. She looked at the floor, and then at the cappuccino machine. "Everybody knows. It was on the fellowship list."

"You knew? For how long?"

"A few weeks. I didn't want to say. You told everyone you were glad he was done." Beth shrugged, helpless. "I thought you were glad."

Clara looked at her own hands. They were still shaking.

The cafe bell rang.

The lunch rush was coming in: grad students, a professor with a tote bag, two boys in lacrosse shirts.

Clara pulled a cup off the stack and turned to take the first order.

Then she saw the corner booth by the window.

A man in a brown leather jacket sat there with his boots up on the opposite seat and a paper cup of water in front of him.

He lifted two fingers at her and smiled the salesman's smile she had known all her life.

It was her father.

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